So we all know the three branches of American government, right? Let’s see, there’s the President, the Supreme Court, Congress, and the Senate… wait that’s four. Hmm… something’s wrong here. Oh that’s right, we have two versions of the legislative branch! Well, I’m sure there they must have two very separate and important roles, right? No? Oh. Well nuts… wait, why do we have a Senate then?

Good question. And for a good answer, well, I don’t have one. To paraphrase James Joyce, it seems that again, history is the problem here. The American government way back in the day originally inherited much of the format of the British government that it split from. The British government has two houses of parliament that were set up as a way of compromise after their civil war to ensure that the nobility did not have all the power, but still had some power. But Americans of course, have no nobility, so our Senate was formed as a compromise between bigger states and smaller states to ensure the interests of smaller states were not neglected entirely. It makes sense at the time, where you are trying to form a loose union out of many small independent states, but makes very little sense today when we have a very strong union, and our states are not at all independent. Also there is this ironic little fact that small states have much more to gain from a union that big ones.

Our compromise was to move forward with one house based on the population, and one house with just two members per state. This sounds reasonable, right? Well, maybe if you had one house and each state got two extra members, then yeah, sure. But in reality, this is anything but reasonable. But if you don’t believe me, let’s take a look at the math.

So, the population of the Unites States right now is about 328 million people. Half of that (aka, a majority vote) is 168 million. In the House, in order to get that majority, you would need to have just over 50 percent of the population behind your representatives to get your laws passed. Sounds reasonable, right? I mean, that’s how a democracy works. However, in the Senate you would only need about 55 million people, or about 17 percent of the population. This is the population that elects 51 of our 100 current senators. That percentage again: 17. (Of course, you only need 51 percent of the population in these states to elect a senator, so in reality this works out to only roughly 9 percent of the country). So in effect, we have only 9 percent of the population controlling the Senate, and therefore controlling much of what our government does.

Tackling the math from the other side, about 51 percent of the American public lives in only 9 states (California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, and North Carolina). That accounts for 18 senators. The other 49 percent of the population makes up the other 41 states and the other 82 senators. In case you missed it… that is 18 vs. 82!! And, of course, in order for laws to get passed (or changed), they need to make it through the Senate (sometimes with a 60 percent majority). Which means that the country is effectively controlled by a shockingly small minority.

This imbalance actually explains a great deal of our dysfunction. Add to this the disaster that is the Electoral College, and you can see why America does not really feel like a democracy.

So what’s the solution then? How do we restore democracy to our land? Well, it could not be simpler: get rid of the Senate.

Ok, so what does the Senate do exactly? Well, besides some minor semantics, it basically does the same thing as the House of Representatives, only members have a longer term. There are a few minor functions that the Senate has that the House does not (like its role in impeachment hearings and so on), but there is absolutely no reason all of this just can’t be done by the House of Representatives instead.

There is one hidden function though that is worth mentioning. In order to become laws, bills have to pass both the house and the Senate, and they often are changed between the two votes, meaning that what ends up getting passed is in conflict with itself, and then a combined bill must be assembled that can then be voted on again in both houses. Or in effect, what the Senate’s actual function is, is to make it harder for laws to get passed. We don’t need a whole elected body in order to do this.

So here is what we do: get rid of the Senate and move all of its functions over to the House. If we want to continue to make it a little bit harder for laws to get passed (and we should), we just require that votes in the House pass with more than a 55% majority. Also, give members of the House 3 year terms instead of 2 so they don’t have to spend all their time raising money and campaigning. Done.

Oh, “But what about the small states!” I hear you shout, they will never stand for this. Well, as I mentioned above, this isn’t really true… small states typically get a lot more money in benefits from the federal government than they generate in revenue, so it is to their advantage to stay in the union. Since most of them probably don’t realize this though, we can offer the compromise I mentioned above… give each state two fixed members of the House in addition to those it gets based on its population. Will this give small states a minor advantage and skew democracy away from fair? Sure, a tad, but not enough to really destroy our country, like we are currently facing with our Senate. It’s a compromise I am willing to entertain.

As for whether this will work, well, most civilized countries have parliaments with a single house, and has never really been a problem. (I happen to live in Norway, and it works just fine here). So yeah, I see no real down side here.

Anyway, sounds great right? Do this simple thing, and we will actually have a government that represents fairly the population of the United States. Only problem is it will mean rewriting the constitution. Well, I have a feeling that pretty soon, the constitution will be rewritten anyway, and it is my firm hope that those who do actually take the time to make some fundamental improvements instead of just smearing lipstick on a nearly 250 year old pig. There are lots and lots of possible improvements we could consider making here, but this one I think is the biggest no-brainer of the lot. Let’s can the Senate and not look back.