[JJ]

I think Kjorteo is offering a lot of really wise insights, and I agree with everything he has been saying.

To address some of the points- yes, the Senate is more or less subject to the same sort of party discipline as the House. The senators can still be kicked from the party at any time by the leader, and there have been many occasions in the past in which the House minority leader has mobilized the Senate to oppose legislation. It could likely happen again, if Harper wins a majority government any time soon. Former Liberal Leader John Turner did it a lot against the Mulroney majority government, until Mulroney was able to narrowly "stack" the Senate in his favor with a flurry of so-called emergency appointments.

To the extent Senators are less disciplined than the House members it's because a) it's "convention" for the majority of the Senators to approve what they are told to, and they largely understand this, b) the Senate cannot instigate non-confidence motions, c) the Senate is usually overwhelmingly controlled by one party, so there is an "allowable" margin of internal dissent that can be safely tolerated. If the Senate was more evenly-divided, as it was in the Mulroney-Turner days, the party discipline would be much more intense.

I do see some problems with the so-called “piecemeal” approach to Senate reform, though not for the opportunistic reasons that the NDP and Liberals pretend to have a problem with it. I think it will simply take too long if Harper has to wait around for vacancies to occur, as at this rate it will take until something like 2015 just for the Senate to have a democratic majority.

I wrote an article for my paper a while ago in which I said that what Harper should do is go on national TV, in an address to the nation, and publicly call for half the Senate to resign immediately, so national elections can be held across the country. Then the other half could resign four years later, or some such, for another round of elections. I think if Harper “shamed” the Senate into stepping down, he could win a lot of public support, and get the Senate reform ball rolling a lot faster.

[Prestwick]

I want a fact attack on the powers and abilities of the Canadian Senate please.

This is because I am concerned that because the Canadaian version of the Westminister model is (in my eyes) a version of the UK system, only a 15-20 years in the future, hey, we might have a Canadian style constitutional settlement bang on 20-25 years after Canada so we're roughly on track!

Okay that is a very simplistic statement. The UK is only made up of 4 constituent parts which is way less than Canada and there are also other major and subtle difference, but it is easy to compare the similarities too.

Anyway, my concerns are thus. Because in a Westminister system where the lower house reigns supreme, would there be the risk of a direct confrontation between lower and upper house on something like the budget al la the crisis of Lloyd George's 'peoples budget' which brought on the Parliament acts of 1911 and 1948?

If not, and if the Senate is as toothless as the Lords in the UK...then what exactly would be the point in giving political legitimacy to what is essentially a waste of money (i.e. paying a certain number of old people to sleep in a grand debating chamber)?

You would still be wasting money, only that you would be wasting even more money in hosting an election for these old age pensioners.

If you make it electable, give it more teeth and give the grand old 700 year system a REAL test.

[Rhoffman]

Psudo wrote:

Rhoffman wrote:

Yeah, I have, but [17th Amendment critics'] whole argument is mostly rubbish in my eyes and mostly only accounts to behind the time's states' righters and state legislator's who claim that it'll return necessary power to the states. However, if you notice, most arguments levied by such people tend to actually be in areas of practical one party control or where, for some reason, the state elections are always quite close yet one party always wins Senate elections (surprisingly Montana is the example of the later, having had only three GOP Senators since the passage of the 17th Amendment). In other words, its mostly partisan hackery.

Partisan hackery for which side? The right supports it for states rights issues, and the left supports it to oppose powerful, corporate-funded lobbying. For that matter, libertarians support it as an opposition to "big government" centralization and ballooning government budgets. Is it then bipartisan hackery?

These groups are not united in support of a repeal, of course, but the diversity of the advocates suggests that there's more to it than short-sighted partisanship.

And therein lies the issue. While certain members of the left and right may different reasonings on paper for why they support repealing the 17th Amendment, the base logic behind it is always that their party will have a better chance at winning a Senate seat if it were up to the state legislatures again. Granted, this can hardly be considered a universal opinion, as there are plenty of politicians vehemently opposed to a repeal; but where ever there is support for a repeal, they're usually the ones to gain if such a change occurred. Then again, I've always had a very pessimistic outlook on the actions of the two major parties and tend to see gaining electoral support as being the reason they do (or don't do, in the Democrat's case for the past few years) just about anything.

In that regard, I've got nothing but respect for Libertarians or any other third party member supporting a repeal of the 17th Amendment. I'll disagree with them on this (and many other issues, most likely), but you honestly can't say that third party members would honestly have a chance to gain at such a "reform" whereas (to give one specific circumstance) Montana Republicans might be more willing to do so as they've fared poorly in senatorial elections but done quite well in local elections for the past few decades.

However, it should be remembered that this is practically a non-issue in the United States, as advocating a repeal of the 17th Amendment usually puts a politician in the "wacko" department of their party if they ever try to attain higher office.

[Kjorteo]

JJ wrote:

I think Kjorteo is offering a lot of really wise insights, and I agree with everything he has been saying.

Seeing as I joined the forums in the first place because I'm a huge Filibuster Cartoons fan and I, despite my super-liberalism to JJ's conservatism, agree with him most if not almost all the time, hearing something like this from the man himself pretty much just made my week.

[Psudo]

Kjorteo wrote:

The problem with that anti-17th amendment article is that it seemed to deeply confuse cause and effect. Its basic thesis, as I understand it, was that repealing the 17th amendment would harken back to the good old days, before corporate lobbying, etc. The weakness of its argument comes from the fact that the 17th amendment was ratified in 1913.
[. . .]
The appointed Senate is a thankfully-repealed relic of the days when it was common thought that the great unwashed didn't deserve real democracy

The pre-17th-Amendment USA did not have an "appointed Senate", it had a senate elected by state legislators, who were in turn elected by the people. Given the inherent flaws of direct democracy (two lions and a gazelle voting for what to eat for dinner), having one legislative body be elected by direct democracy and another by less direct public oversight is at least addressing this problem by trying to have a check against fad politics. If the repeal of the 17th amendment is not the right way to check direct democracy, what is?

You're right that corporations didn't have the sophisticated lobbying techniques in 1913 as they do now, but do you think 100% of the increase in corporate lobbying is derived from increased corporate power? Sophisticated corporate lobbying cannot influence public Senate campaigns if the Senate campaigns are not public. They'd have to settle for trying to bribe... er, lobby state legislators and US congressmen, This is a significantly larger group and, thus, a significantly larger cost. It seems to me to be at least a partial disincentive.

With or without the 17th, however, the US Senate seems to have more accountability to its nation's citizenry than does the Canadian Senate. Generally speaking, official government recognition of political parties bothers me.[hr]

Kjorteo wrote:

I actually have no problem with the electoral vote system, except for the fact that the college consists of human beings who don't technically have to vote for the person who won the state's electoral votes, which terrifies me.

I agree, but just to play devil's advocate: what of College Elector Barbara Lett-Simmons' refusal to vote in 2000? If you'll remember, she refused to cast her electoral vote in protest of the District of Columbia's lack of representation at the federal level. It is rather nice that the human element in the electoral college has the power to direct attention to under-recognized procedural problems in the US governing scheme. An automated dispersal of electoral votes takes a bit of humanity out of the electoral machine, which is not entirely a good thing. Humanity, for all it's faults, also includes perceptive judgment on occasion.

[Psudo]

Rhoffman wrote:

Psudo wrote:

Partisan hackery for which side? The right supports it for states rights issues, and the left supports it to oppose powerful, corporate-funded lobbying. For that matter, libertarians support it as an opposition to "big government" centralization and ballooning government budgets. Is it then bipartisan hackery?

And therein lies the issue. While certain members of the left and right may different reasonings on paper for why they support repealing the 17th Amendment, the base logic behind it is always that their party will have a better chance at winning a Senate seat if it were up to the state legislatures again.

My point is that if it's bipartisan "hackery", it helps (or hurts) both parties approximately equally. The effect on party balance isn't nearly as relevant as it's effect on the system itself. Thus, if the without-17th-US is better off than the with-17th-US, the repeal should have American support regardless of party dynamics. (And visa versa.)

Thus this debate is not about what party benefits. It is about whether or not the system as a whole benefits. I believe the state legislatures electing US senators puts another necessary balance into the system (state vs. federal, republic vs. direct democracy). Others (You?) seem to think that the electing-the-electors method lacks a morally necessary connection with the American public. I think the latter argument trusts direct democracy a bit too much. That is our real disagreement, not party politics.

Rhoffman wrote:

advocating a repeal of the 17th Amendment usually puts a politician in the "wacko" department of their party if they ever try to attain higher office.

Sadly, truer words were never spoken.

[JJ]

Prestwick wrote:

I want a fact attack on the powers and abilities of the Canadian Senate please.

Anyway, my concerns are thus. Because in a Westminister system where the lower house reigns supreme, would there be the risk of a direct confrontation between lower and upper house on something like the budget al la the crisis of Lloyd George's 'peoples budget' which brought on the Parliament acts of 1911 and 1948?

If not, and if the Senate is as toothless as the Lords in the UK...then what exactly would be the point in giving political legitimacy to what is essentially a waste of money (i.e. paying a certain number of old people to sleep in a grand debating chamber)?

As I mentioned, the Senate does challenge the House once in a while, but only if it is controlled by the opposition party and the leader deems the legislation at hand to be troubling enough to justify such a backhanded technique.

I think what might be worth noting for British observers is that the last time there was a major challenge from the Senate, back in 1988 over new tax legislation, the prime minister evoked an emergency clause in the constitution which permitted him to appoint a flurry of emergency senators, and thus pack the Senate with enough of his people to shift the balance. Since the UK has no constitution, I assume there is nothing to stop a British PM in a similar situation from just inventing new lords seats whenever a confrontation loomed.

[Kjorteo]

This is just out of sheer historical curiosity and not really related to the present debate, but what exactly did the Canadian Constitution's exploited emergency clause say?

[JJ]

It says something to extent that in times of emergency an additional eight or so Senators can be appointed to ensure the passage of legislation.

[Prestwick]

And it has been successfully used once, during Brian Mulroney's cabinet I believe.

Quote:

Since the UK has no constitution, I assume there is nothing to stop a British PM in a similar situation from just inventing new lords seats whenever a confrontation loomed.

The UK does have a constitution, it dosen't have a codified constitution but it has one none the less. It comprises of:

* Acts of Parliament Every law passed by Parliament that hasn't been repealed.
* Common Law Precidents set by High Court Judges, the Law Lords and the soon-to-be Supreme Court.
* Treaties Every legally binding International treaty still in force.
* Unwritten Conventions
* Works of Authority The books of great importance by Dicey, Bagehot and May.
* EU "law" EU dictats and nonsense.
* Royal Perogative.

Four of the above list are written sources of the Constitution and three are unwritten. With their powers combined, they form the Constitution of the United Kingdom!

Note: while there isn't a concept of "higher law" in the UK Constitution, thanks to the neat little trick that was (to be blunt) "beta tested" by Canada with the 1982 Constitution act, you can word it so it would be impossible to repeal or ammend the act without first going to the people and provinces nationwide.

It does show the versatility of the system where it had been thought before that there would be no such way of entrenching anything into higher law.

[Rhoffman]

Psudo wrote:

I believe the state legislatures electing US senators puts another necessary balance into the system (state vs. federal, republic vs. direct democracy). Others (You?) seem to think that the electing-the-electors method lacks a morally necessary connection with the American public. I think the latter argument trusts direct democracy a bit too much.

hehe.... I'm hardly the most trustworthy person of the average voter, but the fact of the matter is that I tend to distrust the average politician even more. At least I actually vote, so that's the key difference that makes me in support of the 17th. I agree with having Electors for the President just simply because it forces candidates to focus on multiple segments of the population and it makes potential recounts much, MUCH easier, but I don't see such an argument really holding water on the state level for legislators to decide Senators.