(National Sentinel) Unconstitutional: The far Left continues to wage war against our founding principles, traditions, and constitutional moorings in their never-ending attempt to rig the system so their kind can rule America indefinitely, and with an iron fist.
Former U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., (pictured above) who benefitted from our founding system of government the longest of any member of Congress, serving from 1955 to 2015, penned a piece for The Atlantic in which he called for abolishing the Senate.
“The Great Compromise, as it was called when it was adopted by the Constitution’s Framers, required that all states, big and small, have two senators. The idea that Rhode Island needed two U.S. senators to protect itself from being bullied by Massachusetts emerged under a system that governed only 4 million Americans,” he began.
“Today, in a nation of more than 325 million and 37 additional states, not only is that structure antiquated, it’s downright dangerous. California has almost 40 million people, while the 20 smallest states have a combined population totaling less than that. Yet because of an 18th-century political deal, those 20 states have 40 senators, while California has just two,” Dingell continued. “These sparsely populated, usually conservative states can block legislation supported by a majority of the American people. That’s just plain crazy.”
He also complained about the Electoral College.
“The Electoral College has the same structural flaw. Along with 337 of my colleagues, I voted in 1969 to amend the Constitution to abolish it. Twice in the past 18 years, we’ve seen the loser of the popular vote become president through the Electoral College formula, which gives that same disproportionate weight to small states, each of which gets two automatic votes for its two senators,” he wrote, adding that in his view, the House and Senate should just be combined and voila, problems solved.
Except they won’t be.
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First of all, Dingell is arguing for what every other Left-wing Democrat is arguing for these days, and that is on behalf of a pure democracy. Our founders considered that form of government and rejected it for precisely the reasons Dingell favors it: Mob rule. In mob rule, whose voices are constantly drowned out and under-represented? Those Americans in the minority.
Which brings us to the bifurcated Congress. Our founders established the House as the chamber to represent the people. That’s why it is the larger of the two chambers in terms of members. Every sector of the country (district) is represented in the House, and they are elected every two years because our founders wanted members of the House to be the closest and most answerable to the people.
The Senate, by comparison, was established to represent states, not ‘the people.’ That’s why each state has two and that’s why even small states have two — so that every state has equal representation in Congress. And according to the Constitution, as originally written, each senator was elected by the legislatures of each state.
Do you know who bastardized the process? Liberal Democrat “progressives.” In the early 20th century, as a way to prevent “deadlocks” from divided state legislatures that left vacancies sometimes for months or years, progressives proposed the 17th Amendment which called for changing the Constitution by allowing senators to also be elected by the people. It was ratified in 2013 and ‘state representation’ has never been the same.
Thus, rather than abolish the Senate, a better idea — and one that would return us to our founding — would be to repeal the 17th Amendment and allow state legislatures, which are also elected by the people, to choose U.S. senators again.
Dingell and other Leftists will reject that idea, however, because their problem isn’t with ‘disproportionate’ representation, their problem is with the fact that most state legislatures are controlled by Republicans.
In fact, Dingell’s entire premise, made evident as you read through his piece, is that too many Republicans are in positions of power and dominance and as a Leftist progressive, he can’t stand that.
What would be “plain crazy” is to create a system of government where a majority of Americans living in 15 major cities could decide policies and impose legislation on Americans living everywhere else.
Our founders considered this “direct democracy” and rejected it because mob rule is just that: Rule by a mob. And minorities’ rights get trample.
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