[AnthonyMouse]

The real mistake was to make Senators elected rather than appointed by the states as they originally were. Representation of the general population is the purpose of the House, the Senate was meant to represent the states in the federal government.

[rayiner]

I’m glad on HN people have opinions like “the direct election of senators was a mistake.” I mean, I agree, but I’m usually the only one in the room.

[jeffdavis]

The biggest flaw when reasoning about government is overestimating how well democracy works as a method of solving problems.

If everyone agrees about the major stuff, and you just need to finally make a decision on what color to paint the bike shed, democracy is great. A decision gets made, enough people are happy, and you move on.

But when you have real differences, you need a way to protect minorities against large coalitions of voters. Even if you aren't in a minority today, shifting politics (and divide-and-conquer politicians) will ensure that you are in a minority soon enough.

And it's even worse when society is polarized, because the coalitions form too quickly and too strongly.

But limiting the power of the majority is hard. The Constituion is genius because they recognized that and divded the power so many different ways. The protection of political minorities is much more important than the small amount of additional abstract fairness you get with direct elections.

[joshuamorton]

Have y'all forgotten the entire reason the 16th amendment was passed? It wasn't because of fairness, it was because the state legislatures couldn't agree on people to elect. And when they could there were concerns about corruption and seats being sold.

[AnthonyMouse]

So let the seats be empty. That will make the constituents mad and they'll vote out the incumbents and replace them with somebody who will appoint Senators. Or they won't. People get the government they deserve.

And if there are "concerns about corruption" then investigate the corruption and put the perpetrators (if any) in prison.

[icebraining]

> People get the government they deserve.

It's strange to say this when you are proposing to take away their direct vote on the matter. If anything, the current system is what gives people the government they deserve, by having voted on it.

[8note]

Moreso, people deserve the government that they have, thus, there's no reason to make this change

[joshuamorton]

And in the 4 years where the seats are empty? Or the year where the state can pass no state level legislation? (Both of those actually happened, hence the immense popular support by the states for adopting the 17th amendment)

Not to mention that the holdover/compromise from the original way things worked (replacement appointment by the Governor) resulted in perhaps the most famous recent example of executive misconduct by a Governor: Rod Blagojevich.

[AnthonyMouse]

> And in the 4 years where the seats are empty? Or the year where the state can pass no state level legislation?

But whose problems are these? The people who elected the state legislators who did them, right? There is a preexisting solution for that problem.

The voters can vote for representatives who are willing to compromise and appoint a moderate, or they can vote for representatives who are willing to engage in brinkmanship and then get nothing, and either way they got what they voted for.

> Not to mention that the holdover/compromise from the original way things worked (replacement appointment by the Governor) resulted in perhaps the most famous recent example of executive misconduct by a Governor: Rod Blagojevich.

...who then went to prison. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

[mcv]

Or just have the legislatures vote. The two candidates with the higher number of votes get to represent that state. With some luck, every state will be represented by one Republican and one Democratic senator. That should help to remove some of the party politics out of the senate.

[AnthonyMouse]

Don't even get me started on voting systems.

TL;DR: Just use range voting and put in the candidate with the highest rating. (Note that Senators' terms are staggered so there aren't two up from the same state at the same time, but if there were you could easily send the two with the highest ratings instead of the one.)

[harryh]

Pssst: 17th.

The 16th is the income tax one.

[joshuamorton]

Whoops. And to think that I went and checked and corrected myself and then still managed to do it wrong :/

[mcv]

I'm not American, but if the Senate is meant to represent the states, then it makes sense to have them appointed by the states, or elected by the state legislatures (this is for example how the Dutch senate (Eerste Kamer) is elected, though it's still proportional to the population of the provinces, unlike the two per state no matter how big or small).

But if you want your country to be democratic and representing the people, then the people's representation (the House) should hold most of the power, and the representation of the states (the Senate) should only really be involved in states-related issues. For example, not being able to create laws, but only deciding whether an issue is a federal issue or a states issue.

Merely making senators appointed by states isn't going to fix all of the problems with the senate.

[Simon_says]

Used to be that way until the 17th amendment.

[joshuamorton]

You missed the nuance of GP. If senators represent states, they should not be given the power to create laws about people, but instead only about the interactions between states, leaving laws about people up to the House.

This would make the Senate more akin to the Supreme Court, though empowered to craft legislation instead of just rule on existing issues.

[8note]

For example, nothing the Senate legislated would apply to D.C. or Puerto Rico

[themaninthedark]

Wow, this is the first time I have ever seen anyone other than me express this opinion.

I understand some of the reasons changes were made, look forward to reading the this thread!

My quick thoughts on the matter is that since the changes, people have stopped paying as much attention to local(State politics) and focus more on Federal politics.

Edit to add information to support my thoughts: Look at the disapproval rating for congress, around 64%. But a large majority are incumbents. The feeling I get when talking to people is that the Senator from state X is the worst but my Senator from state Y is perfect/has flaws but brings value to my state.

[vkou]

I am completely incapable of understanding this argument.

The only interests states have are the interests of their constituents. States don't need representation, their people do - because states don't have interests, people who live in them have interests.

It should be noted that the original ideal, at the time the national framework was drafted, was for the Senate to represent the interests of oligarchs, couched in the language of it serving as a representative of the interests of the states. In that respect, it's still doing a rather swell job.

[AnthonyMouse]

> The only interests states have are the interests of their constituents.

So then it shouldn't matter, right? The constituents elect the state legislatures who represent their interests, one of those interests is having US Senators who represent their interests, so their elected representatives appoint those US Senators. If your theory is correct then this should have the exact same result as directly elected Senators, because the states don't have interests separate from those of their constituents.

But it isn't, because elected officials do have their own interests. So then the question is, which process produces Senators that represent their constituents better?

US Senators have a personal conflict of interest in expanding the scope of the federal government in excess of what's in the interest of their constituents, because the federal government is subject to their control, and they personally want to control more stuff. State legislatures have the opposite conflict -- they want more state control, for the same reasons.

If you have directly elected Senators, there is no check on that conflict of interest and federal scope expands without bound. If you have Senators appointed by the state legislatures, these conflicts more or less cancel out. The US Senator still has the personal incentive to increase the scope of the federal government, but now they're directly accountable to the state legislatures with the opposite interest, and the result is closer to the true interest of the constituents.

Meanwhile the House is still directly elected, which is a countervailing check on the power of "oligarchs" or what have you, because a federal law has to pass both.

[vkou]

Thank you for explaining this point. I disagree with it, but I see your motivation for it.

> The US Senator still has the personal incentive to increase the scope of the federal government, but now they're directly accountable to the state legislatures with the opposite interest

State legislatures are only interested in a decreased scope of federal government when the federal government is not giving them what they want, much like how the States Rights party only cares about states rights when those rights concern themselves with what their base wants.

So, I don't think you're going to get that kind of check and balance. What you're probably going to get is similar to my original thesis - that it shouldn't matter...

Except that it does.

If you have the state legislatures appoint a truly terrible senator, there's no personal blowback against any of the members of the legislature - because responsibility is diffused. The office would become:

1. A perfect reward for connected party insiders, who, compared to the status quo, don't even have to win an election.

2. That would not be accountable to the public.

3. And where the people the public can hold accountable (The people making the appointments) are two steps removed from their behaviour.

Consider, for the sake of argument, supreme court appointments. Consider that a man who turned out, after the fact, to be an absolute monster was appointed. Then consider, what kind of blowback would the senators who made the appointment be subjected to?

They wouldn't be any. Just like how there's currently no blowback against Senate Republicans for the crazy train ride that Mitch McConnell takes them on. Everyone can shrug their shoulders, shirk responsibility, and blame the rest of the collective (preferably the guys holding safe seats) for the disastrous appointment.

Consider, also, all the bellyaching that people on this forum have about overreach by appointed bureaucrats running federal agencies? You'd have this exact problem, except it would be even more difficult to hold them to task, and they'd have even more collective power than executive bureaucrats currently do - where they couldn't even be overruled by the legislature - because they are the legislature.

That idea is frankly, terrifying.

[AnthonyMouse]

> State legislatures are only interested in a decreased scope of federal government when the federal government is not giving them what they want.

Which is to say that they are interested in it at all other times, which is more than there is otherwise.

Meanwhile, what is it that you expect them to want from them? The federal government taxes their citizens (which they can do themselves) and then sends the money back with strings attached. What value to the state of the strings?

> If you have the state legislatures appoint a truly terrible senator, there's no personal blowback against any of the members of the legislature - because responsibility is diffused.

The vote should be public so there would be blowback against everyone voting in favor of it.

> Consider, for the sake of argument, supreme court appointments. Consider that a man who turned out, after the fact, to be an absolute monster was appointed. Then consider, how will the careers of the senators that approved the appointment would be impacted by such an appointment?

This is exactly the sort of thing that hasn't happened to the Supreme Court in practice.

> You've surely heard all the bellyaching that people on this forum have about overreach by appointed bureaucrats running federal agencies? You'd have this exact problem, except it would be even more difficult to hold them to task, and they'd have even more collective power, and you won't even have anyone to task for their behaviour.

They would be held in check by the House which would have to sign onto every law they want to pass unlike appointed bureaucrats in the executive (which by itself solves nearly the entire problem), and if they're really so bad then most state legislatures are elected every two years rather than every four for the POTUS so the backlash comes quicker, and the problems you're describing don't even sound that serious or different from ordinary politics:

> 1. A perfect reward for connected party inspiders.

Sounds a lot like getting to be the party's candidate in a safe district, and doesn't inherently imply anything good or bad about what kind of Senator they'll be.

> 2. That would not be accountable to the public

This is a feature. It gives a veto to a body that isn't directly subject to populist fervor.

> 3. And where the people the public can hold accountable are a step removed from that behaviour.

In other words they are still ultimately accountable to the public.

[vkou]

> Which is to say that they are interested in it at all other times, which is more than there is otherwise.

Politicians have agendas. Those agendas consist of things they want done. Nobody's agenda, (as we've seen from how the States Rights party actually behaves, when push comes to shove) actually consists of 'reduce federal power'. That's because 'reduce federal power' doesn't accomplish anything in particular. Nobody gets re-elected because they reduced federal power. People get re-elected for getting stuff done. 'Reduced federal power' does not actually tie into getting anything in particular done.

As such, it's occasionally a tool that you can use, for some particular goal, but is not an end in itself. (It may be an end in itself for you, but your viewpoint is not one that politicians do anything but pay lip service to, to get your vote.)

> The vote should be public so there would be blowback against everyone voting in favor of it.

Name one embarrassing senatorial appointment that resulted in serious blowback to the people voting for the appointment.

Just one.

You won't be able to - because political parties aren't ran by fools. They've made laundering unpopular blowback for group failures onto safe-district candidates into an art form.

> This is exactly the sort of thing that hasn't happened to the Supreme Court in practice.

In practice, it has happened to cabinet appointments. And again, in practice, nobody who votes for an appointment actually gets blamed for a disastrous one, for three reasons.

1. The appointee is their own person - the people voted for him can't predict the future, and aren't actually micromanaging his behaviour. When he does something awful, it's not directly their fault.

2. The appointee is everyone's responsibility, which is to say, he's no-one's responsibility.

3. Blowback laundering, see above. Safe-district candidates actively take credit for controversial, or unpopular decisions, to shield the rest of their party.

> They would be held in check by the House which would have to sign onto every law they want to pass unlike appointed bureaucrats in the executive (which by itself solves nearly the entire problem),

The House has just as much way to control the bureaucrats, if it chose to. By doing their job - legislating. If they are shirking this responsibility, considering that, perhaps, it may actually be happy with the job the bureaucrats are doing?

It is mind-boggling that you recognize that the power of appointed, unelected individuals is a problem, but think that the solution is to increase the number of, and power of appointees, and also giving them legislative power.

[squiggleblaz]

Note that the best contemporary example of a functioning federal democracy with state-appointed federal legislators is Germany. There, the state premiers and some members of cabinet are members of the Bundesrat, the upper house of federal parliament.

As an empirical matter, it certainly seems as if their interest is in increasing federal power, since that gives them more power against their own state legislature. If they want a bill passed, they can use their federal power to create an obligation on their state parliament to pass a bill.

Consequently, the very clear direction of power shift in Germany has been - much more so than in the English speaking federations - an increase in federal power. (Also, a more recent prohibition on state deficits even accelerated that trend. State governments became enthusiastic about trading a little power for some extra money.)

When, as in the US, state lines run through the middle of metropolitan areas, cities and even small towns, and generally serve more to divide than to unite, it is not at all obvious that an increase of federal power compared to state power is such a bad thing. I think it would be better to redraw the map and then for the states to have powers that make sense. But I think that is about as likely as a Democrat and a Republican to agree on the color of the sky on a clear day.

[AnthonyMouse]

> As an empirical matter, it certainly seems as if their interest is in increasing federal power, since that gives them more power against their own state legislature. If they want a bill passed, they can use their federal power to create an obligation on their state parliament to pass a bill.

You already explained the reason this happens in Germany:

> the premier has an interest in transferring power from the state governments since their power as a member of the federal upper house is greater than their power as a member of the state lower house.

Solution: Don't put the same person in both houses.

> When, as in the US, state lines run through the middle of metropolitan areas, cities and even small towns, and generally serve more to divide than to unite, it is not at all obvious that an increase of federal power compared to state power is such a bad thing.

State lines that run through the middle of metropolitan areas are the best kind, because they give people the greatest choice. If you don't like your state government and voting hasn't gone your way you don't even have to move across the country to change jurisdictions, only across the street.

Moving things to the federal level does the opposite. Things haven't gone your way? Too bad, there's nowhere to run.

[hef19898]

The Premier of a German state is also the head of majority-party in the state legistlature. Also, they are sitting members of the state legistlature.

That being the case, state prime ministers have a huge amount of power and influence, directly through mandates and indirectly through party politics. And usually, they want to to retain the maximum amount independence for their states.

And as far as federal legislation is concerned, one state prime minister is not enough to pass, or trigger, anything by himself. For state legislation, they don't have to pass through the federal goernment anyway, holding the parliamentary majority anyway (minority governments are extremely rare in Germany).

[jeffdavis]

"Democracy" and "the will of the people" are abstractions, and pretty crude ones, at that.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't have democracy, but we should acknowledge that it is far from perfect. As Churchill said, "Democ­ra­cy is the worst form of gov­ern­ment, except for all the oth­ers."

Democracy is also not a scale-free process. Very different dynamics play out in a democracy the size of a city versus a state versus the size of a nation.

It's hard to explain briefly, but basically all of these separations of powers are designed to avoid some of the worst aspects of democracy. They happen to look less "fair" in an abstract sense, but it's more important to have some practical safeguards than abstract fairness.

A lot of our most heated political battles are playing out at the federal level (and have been for a long time), and I think that's a consequence of the 16th and 17th Amendments. If some of these battles were playing out in the states, I think our society would be a lot less polarized.

[squiggleblaz]

I think that was the inevitable consequence of terms for Senators. It is clear that a person appointed by a red governor cannot represent the blue governor who administers the purple state for several years starting six months later. State-appointed senators with fixed terms have little natural legitimacy; it is not a sustainable model.

If you want the senate to represent the states, you need the German system - there, the Bundesrat (Federal Council) has as its members the premier of the state (and, depending on the state's size, some number of ministers). Its members and balance can change whenever there is a state election (which are not tied, US style, to federal elections).

Now, while they will represent the interests of the state governments quite well, be aware of this - the premier has an interest in transferring power from the state governments since their power as a member of the federal upper house is greater than their power as a member of the state lower house. They can use their federal role to create an obligation for themselves as state ministers, and then tell state parliament "Oh, we have no choice; the federal government has said so. Please fall in line with this policy that I want and you do not want."

The paliamentary system is repugnant to the American sense of the separation of powers. But since American separation of powers prefers to give legislative power to the executive, it's less obvious that making governors members of the Senate is repugnant. This would multiply the problems above.

Perhaps having a recallable delegate who is effectively a member of the state cabinet without portfolio would be palatable; but still, such a delegate would be entirely at the mercy of the state governor (or it would work), and we then would still see the benefits to the state governor of creating legislative obligations that state congress still has to fulfil.

To me, it seems that the Australian senate does a good job of representing the people of each State. Since the interests of States can be said to be the interests of the people of each State (rather than the interests of the State governments) it therefore discharges its responsibilities adequately. The key here is in having many five or members per state elected at once using a proportional method like STV optimised for small electorate magnitudes. Since the majority of any state will be made up of a roughly equal number of blues and reds it encourages them to work together at the expense of the small number of extremists or against each other with centrists and sometimes fringe members. Constantly changing coalitions (per bill) mean negotiation skills become important. But how adaptable it is to a federation of 50 states - I don't know.

[AnthonyMouse]

> It is clear that a person appointed by a red governor cannot represent the blue governor who administers the purple state for several years starting six months later.

The purpose of the Senate isn't to represent the existing representatives in a state, it's to represent the interests of the state in the abstract. Having a red US Senator in a state with a blue Governor is no more a problem than having a red state legislature in a state with a blue Governor.

> But since American separation of powers prefers to give legislative power to the executive, it's less obvious that making governors members of the Senate is repugnant.

This is largely only true at the federal level and for a very specific reason. The federal government was not structured for the level of responsibility it has taken on as a result of the direct election of Senators removing the state veto on increasing federal scope.

In state governments you have an elected governor and legislature, but also elected school boards, treasurers, sheriffs etc. There are no elected positions in the Federal Department of Education, nor the Federal Reserve, nor the FBI. The constitution didn't contemplate that the federal government would grow to cover so many things, so they all fall under executive control. But the source of the problem isn't pushing too many things to the executive, it's pushing too many things to the federal government to begin with.

[jeffdavis]

Article I, section 3: "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof...".

[8note]

The only case where elections aren't accurate for this is if the state government is non democratic. The state is just a bunch of people -- representation of the state is covered by how many representatives are sent per state. To my knowledge, the general population of the colonies and so on don't get representation in the Senate, only people that live in states

[dragonwriter]

> The real mistake was to make Senators elected rather than appointed by the states as they originally were.

This sentence can be corrected by deleting every word after “Senators”.