The original designers of the US government had some good ideas. (NO, NOT SLAVERY! SHEESH!)
Many of them involved putting safeguards on government power, the “checks and balances” concept.|
Thus we have a federal government with power divided between the house of representatives, the senate and finally the president.
Of these three institutions, only the house represents the majority of the public, as it is based on population of the states, thus more populated stated have more representation, and power, in it.
The senate is set up so a state with less population that some of larger state's smaller cities can completely nullify the power of the larger state in the senate. Two small states with very low populations that combined would not equal a city in some states can outvote the larger, more populous state on every issue. The senate effective is a 'minority rules' body where the wishes of the majority can be crushed on every issue.
The presidency, as we have seen time and time again, also does not reflect the will of the majority as as due to our system the president can be put in office by a minority.
While the founders feared a 'tyranny of the majority' they seem to have failed to see that we could end up with a tyranny of the minority, which is basically what we have today in modern 'murka.
In the senate a single senator from a state with a tiny population can prevent any issue from being raised is his party holds a single seat majority, as a grotesque, revolting, possibly not fully human, possibly not even fully alive, creature from Kentucky has proven time and time again. Also the minority party in the senate can prevent any bill from being raised by croaking the magic word 'filibuster”, unless the majority party holds a 2/3 majority. (Damn, I miss the days when “SHAZAM!” was the only magic word I knew of...)
So in order to prevent a tyranny of the majority, which is a laudable goal in many ways, we have swung a 180 and headed into a tyranny of the minority, which has no redeeming qualities. In our minority tyranny system the vast majority of Americans can support an issue, and it cannot even be raised or voted on inn the senate if the minority part holds more than a 1/3 part of it.
Effectively a minority can sometimes impose its will on the majority, but far more often can simply keep the will of the majority from being enacted.
So I'd like to propose a quick fix for this. Usually quick fixes are not perfect, and I do not claim to be proposing perfection, but a quick fix can be better than no fix at all.
If a bill passes the house with a 2/3 majority, the senate MUST vote on it, the power of something like McTurtle to simply keep it tucked in his pocket and not even considered by the senate disappears with the stroke of a pen.
Sure, it can be filibustered, but at least senate members would be forced to vote against ending the filibuster, forced to take a public stand on the issue instead of saying, truly, that they never had an opportunity to vote on the issue or even take a stand on it.
It would not by any means create a "tyranny of the majority", but it would help reduce the tyranny of the minority.