Would we be better off with a system that was a bit more parliament-like? The current system of needing 60 votes to do almost anything in the US Senate has become a block to accountability.
The Republican senators are largely unaccountable since they never have to vote on ending the war (outside of funding bills - and the stupid meme of "defunding the war means not supporting the troops" blocks our way there). And Bush doesn't have to make vetoes that are unpleasant for him. It's all very cozy and convenient, unless you're a US soldier at risk of getting killed in Iraq, or one of their loved ones, or part of the roughly 70 percent of Americans who want at least a phased withdrawal.
I would not support sweeping away legislative checks and balances altogether -- too frightening in view of how much more the Tom DeLay Republicans would have done from 1995 to 2006.
What I do suggest is changing things so the Senate minority could still block legislation it didn't like, but only for six months, similar to how the UK House of Lords can slow down legislation but not delay it forever. If you can't convince the public in 6 months that a bill is bad, as Democrats did with Social Security privatization (led in large part by citizens spurred on by Talkingpointsmemo), then the Republicans can be given enough rope to hang themselves. (The book Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century outlines O'Neill's 1981-82 strategy that was along those lines.)
Admittedly, this could leave us more messes to clean up when Democrats return to power, as we did in 1993 with the deficit-reduction plan. But maybe not -- the current system has yielded the huge stack of Bush messes that will be in the next president's in-box -- Iraq, the pissing away of the surpluses and massive increase in the national debt, etc..
Meanwhile, the House has been passing things that the American people and a majority in the Senate want -- such as the "Six for '06" proposals, only to see most of them buried by the filibuster. Vulnerable Senate Republicans like Gordon Smith, John Sununu and Norm Coleman get to avoid a lot of tough choices and accountability to the people back home. And the president is spared the pressure or accountability of having to veto them (or God forbid, letting some progressive things become law).
I'm trying to think of truly heinous things that the Senate Democrats were able to block under Bush before 2007, even when Jeffords gave them the majority from June 2001 to the end of 2002. There may well be some, but I can't think of any at the moment.
They did stop some far-right judicial nominations, but fear of losing the filibuster altogether made them block fewer of those wackos than they should have.
I think we should keep the 2/3 requirement for both houses of Congress to send a proposed constitutional amendment to the states. Similarly, given that federal judges are appointed for life, we should keep the 60-vote filibuster on judicial nominations.
But allowing Republicans to block things like increases in the minimum wage, the Employee Free Choice Act, an end to anti-gay job discrimination, or a reversal of the Supreme Court denying overtime to home health care workers -- that should end.
The all-nighter on Iraq was a decent idea, but given media incompetence and/or swallowing Republican talking points whole (see Chip Reid of NBC), the fact that Republicans are blocking change on Iraq and other popular things will be really tough to get through to the public under the current system. The average person thinks, "Democrats control Congress. Why aren't they getting done what we sent them there to do?"
So maybe it's time to have the US Senate act a bit more like the UK House of Lords. Kind of sad that the House of Lords is perhaps more democratic (little d) than our Senate, but that's how it looks to me at the moment.
This is a fairly unformed train of thought, so rather than coming at me with both guns blazing, please keep in mind that we're on the same side and try to stick to constructive criticism. :-)