Is It Time to Look at a Single Chamber for Our National Government?

Are the Romanians onto Something? Today's Romanian Times included an article about Prime Minister Emil Boc's push to create a single chamber parliament and reducing the number of members of parliament (MP). The change will require the two major parties that control the parliament (Social Democrats and the Liberal Party) to work together to agree to the change.



For whatever problem the current health care legislation may have, one must admit that the debate in Washington has been a wonderful civics lesson for all of us. Until we started hearing terms like super majority and Joint Reconciliation Committee, most Americans probably couldn't explain how a bill becomes law. (Although everyone jokes that it's a little like making sausage.) We have all learned that individual members from both chambers of Congress must work together to draft legislation, but then quickly move the bill into the dark back rooms of the Capitol to write a version that will be palatable for passage. It's not that the original language in the draft is so unpalatable. Individual Congressmen and Senators have simply learned that their vote can buy a lot of pork for their state. No wonder lobbyists and special interests are willing to spend millions to help a Senator get elected. We don't have one hundred Senators representing the needs of the nation. Each Senator has placed his or her individual vote on the market.




We hear complaints about legislation that includes dozens and hundreds of individual pieces of pork totalling tens of billions of dollars. But how do we stop it? Polls show that Congress has an approval rating of only twenty-seven percent. But when those same respondants are asked to rate their own Congressman or Senator, the approval rating mysteriously jumps to seventy percent. In other words, my Senators' pork barrel items are legitimate and will save our state. We deserve it and we them him for it. Your two guys, however, are leading this nation down the road to perdition.



So where does it stop? Perhaps it is time to follow the lead of Romania's Prime Minister. Perhaps nothing can get accomplished as long as a newly elected Senator from Massachusetts can hold an entire nation's health care reform at bay or a Senator from sparsley-populated Nebraska can sell his vote for his state's Medicare funding ad infinitum. (To be fair, the Senator from Nebraska bowed to public pressure and pulled the amendment from the final Senate version.)



So, I'll ask the question that many people are starting to ask: What will it take to abolish the Senate? We all know that's not likely to happen. But is it possible to reform the rules to eliminate the need for a Super Majority for certain types of bills? Personally, I argue that the Super Majority is one tool to prevent the tyranny of the majority. No matter which party is in power at the moment. Americans seem to like that sort of thing. But giving the Senators with the shrillest voices, the largest lobby support or even the brassiest balls clearly isn't good governance, either. Imagine trying to run the courts that way. We would have celebrities getting away with murder.






I'll keep an eye on Romania to see how well Mr. Boc is doing. I commend him for recognizing that something's gotta give. But I suspect he won't get far.







Next post: Time to consider how we appoint nominees to the Supreme Court