Random thought, and this is a good folder for random thoughts since it's what we tend to do here anyway.
We have 2 senators from each state. Before 1914 they were appointed by their respective states. After that they were popular vote.
We're seeing the problem with popular vote, at it's worst in the House of Representatives where every house member with a two year term spends almost all of their time there trying to get reelected. It's not as much of a problem with the senate but it has a history in the other direction that could be called on and I wonder if it could force a change in dynamics.
The idea would be for each state - one senator popular vote, the other senator state appointed.
You'd actually want these two goups separated to some degree to function as their own subunits in which case if the state appointed senators were badly infected with machine politics the elected senators would have an incentive to point it out. That and if careerism was trumping clear judgment in the elected senators the state appointed could point that out. You'd also then have a different line of tension, more prominent, in senate that's elected vs. appointed rather than Republican vs. Democrat or right vs. left.
Among several problems we have right now when you have massive political polarization having both house and senate elected opens the sluice for crazy. I think it might help to have some dialectic tension in one of the houses that runs perpendicular or orthogonal to party.
Might sound crazy, it's just a thought experiment so anyone who wants to pick through it can.
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The loneliest part of life: it's not just that no one is on your cloud, few can even see your cloud.
21 Sep 2021, 1:00 pm
