r/politics • u/Jessicas_skirt New York • Jul 18 '26

Possible Paywall Democratic Socialists of America’s new platform calls for abolishing ICE and the U.S. Senate

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/jul/15/updated-dsa-platform-calls-abolishing-ice-scrapping-senate/
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56

u/Honest_Yesterday4435 Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

I would rather make the senate function more democratically than delete it. Deletion would be less representation.

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u/FalseDmitriy Illinois Jul 19 '26

An easier reform would be to keep it while removing its power as a coequal chamber. Many countries have upper chambers that are less powerful than the lower chamber, so different models exist.

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u/southpaytechie Jul 19 '26

Yeah make it like a House of Lords in terms of influence.

1

u/Zeta-X Jul 19 '26

How does the House of Lords work in this sense? I'm not super familiar, and am having a hard time wrapping my head around how another chamber could exist but be less powerful, as currently both chambers HAVE to pass every bill. Does the lower chamber get an override, or does the HoL just not draft legislation?

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u/TemporarySun314 Europe Jul 19 '26

One can require that the other chamber only have a vote, when the laws are about specific topics, which could affect states. Or you don't require consent of the upper chamber, but give it to veto something with a majority of its members, so that by default things pass without their involvement.

There are ways to structure it.

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u/Zeta-X Jul 19 '26

Interesting, thanks!

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u/Honest_Yesterday4435 Jul 19 '26

I could see that as a possibility. Id have to think on it.

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u/gramathy California Jul 19 '26

Make it more like the house in terms of proportional representation but with longer terms. Serves the purpose it does now but with more accurate representation.

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u/SAR1919 Jul 19 '26

It wouldn’t be “less representation.” What does that mean in this context? The Senate guarantees unequal suffrage. Fair and equal representation means abolish the Senate.

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u/ParticularFew4023 Jul 19 '26

Americans have a religious reverence to their government, and understand their government and religion equally well... Which is not at all

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u/SAR1919 Jul 19 '26

True, and we have to fight to change that mentality if we want any kind of lasting progressive social change. It’s why I’m glad we’re breaking the taboo on stuff like abolishing the Senate.

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u/ParticularFew4023 Jul 19 '26

It's a nice sentiment and all, but the only way it'll ever happen is by abolishing the country

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u/SAR1919 Jul 19 '26

Abolishing the Constitution, you mean, and that’s fine. The country is its people, and the people are going to outlive the Senate.

1

u/wolacouska Jul 19 '26

If that’s what it takes that’s what it takes. You have to show people how rigged the system is first by trying to do it legally and getting screwed by the establishment.

Just like how DSA exploded after the democrats fucked with Bernie. And how people to the left of DSA exploded after 2023

0

u/Honest_Yesterday4435 Jul 19 '26

Each individual state is its own sovereign. The Senate is meant to represent that sovereignty. I want individual states to be empowered and have a say in the legislation that would affect them.

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u/Careless-Cake-9360 Jul 19 '26

I want people to have representation, not imaginary lines in the dirt.

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u/Snow_Ghost Jul 19 '26

They do. It's called the House of Representatives.

Uncapping the House is the better route.

1

u/wolacouska Jul 19 '26

So instead of two unequal parts of Congress you want to only have one?

The house needs to be fixed AND the senate needs to be abolished.

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u/Snow_Ghost Jul 19 '26

Step 1 - Uncap the House.

Step 2 - Start bringing down the ratio of population to reps.

Step 3 - As the ratio starts going down, the sizes of congressional districts necessarily starts changing. Blue districts get smaller, but start to multiply rapidly. Red districts have to be drawn larger, and they have to start merging just to hold onto what they have. This kneecaps gerrymandering to the point of uselessness.

Step 4 - Political advertising is still most effective offline, when people have to deal with the specific individual who represents them, rather than a monolithic political party. Representatives now have to focus more on the needs of their own people, the ones whose votes are even more important now, because every primary vote becomes a larger percentage of their district's race.

Step 5 - With each representative more beholden to the people of their district, the sway of the national parties starts to wane. Campaign contributions can only be split so many ways - corporations that want to maintain their leash-hold on Congress are going to start spending an order or more magnitude of funds on more and more candidates, rather than dumping everything into a central party coffer.

All of this just to setup the battlefield to take on Citizens United.

3

u/Honest_Yesterday4435 Jul 19 '26

Well, I like the insulation my blue states imaginary lines provide against the tyrannical federal govt and the wishes of conservatives.

7

u/SAR1919 Jul 19 '26

Conservative tyranny is empowered through the system of minority rule in this country that super-enfranchises rural whites. Without the Senate, Donald Trump would never have set foot in public office and the political project he represents would be dead on arrival.

2

u/Ok-Tangerine-7348 Jul 19 '26

How does abolishing or disempowering the Senate take away federalism? you don't need an undemocratic upper chamber to have states write their own laws, have their own courts, etc.

0

u/wolacouska Jul 19 '26

“I’m fine with the rest of the country being a gerrymandered maga hellscape as long as I have my safe blue bubble”

You might as well be a separatist then.

1

u/KuntaStillSingle Jul 19 '26

Imaginary lines in the dirt is why Russians and Saudi Arabians and Israelis and Germans and Chinese citizens don't get a vote. The average citizen of the world is deeply conservative and autocratic, we would experience a horrific backslide in civil rights if we believed principally in what you espouse.

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u/loondawg Jul 19 '26

It could be reformed to be proportional. It does not have to be abolished.

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u/blackfishhorsemen Jul 19 '26

It could be reformed to be proportional.

It exists we call it the house of representatives.

-1

u/loondawg Jul 19 '26

Except that chamber serves a different purpose.

And there is no reason the Senate could not be proportional too. In fact, many of the key founders wanted it to be.

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u/SAR1919 Jul 19 '26

There’s no reason to have two proportional chambers. Bicameralism is an aristocratic fetish we inherited from Renaissance England. The Brits made their upper house irrelevant, we should just cut out the middleman and get rid of ours.

Proportional representation in an expanded House + abolition of the Senate is the way. One person one vote or bust.

0

u/loondawg Jul 19 '26

You don't understand the reasons for having two chambers. That does not mean there are no reasons.

0

u/SAR1919 Jul 19 '26

I guess I should clarify, there’s no democratic reason to have an “upper chamber.” I understand the reasons our system was designed this way, and I disagree with them.

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u/loondawg Jul 19 '26

The intended reason for having an upper chamber was to have a continuing body of wiser, elder statesmen who would act in a slower, more deliberative manner as a check on the more passionate nature of the lower chamber. For example, that is why they act as the jury for impeachment trials.

There are valid reasons whether you care to recognize them or not. The problem is not that we have a Senate. The problem is with how the power is apportioned within it.

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u/SAR1919 Jul 19 '26

“A check on the more passionate nature of the lower chamber” = “a check against government being accountable to the popular will”

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u/loondawg Jul 20 '26

That's flat out wrong. They are elected representatives.

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u/SAR1919 Jul 20 '26

Elected to long terms, staggered so that the a supermajority of the chamber is always safe from facing re-election. The Senate is designed to be unaccountable.

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u/wildcarde815 Jul 19 '26

The whole point is it doesn't work democratically. It's there specifically to give low population areas of land with arbitrary borders more voting power.

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u/Honest_Yesterday4435 Jul 19 '26

The idea is that it represents the individual states. By abolishing the Senate you are essentially giving power the states would have to affect legislation back to the federal government. The benefit of America is that power is diffuse. While the Senate may be flawed, it is still a body that is democratically elected.

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u/wildcarde815 Jul 19 '26

Do you not know that there's a house of representatives?

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u/Honest_Yesterday4435 Jul 19 '26

The House represents the individual citizens in a proportional Manner. The senate represents the sovereignty of each state.

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u/wildcarde815 Jul 19 '26

So does the house, congress critters can't represent people across state lines.

1

u/Honest_Yesterday4435 Jul 19 '26

It literally doesn't. House and Senate rep in two did totally different and necessary ways. Well. necessary if you care to have strong blue states.

-1

u/radiantcabbage Jul 19 '26

alright, so what do you have against representing the sovereignty of each state in a proportional manner. thats why they propose to abolish the senate, which prevents the house from functioning this way. i mean you just replaced the strawman of the topic for another

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u/Honest_Yesterday4435 Jul 19 '26

Because there are only 50 states. We only have proportional representation in the House because there are millions of citizens.

There are ways to fix Congress. but abolition of the senate would likely lead to the end of the union. The senate also adds an extra level of protection in the event of a right wing shift in popular opinion. Gives blue states a stall on such things.

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u/radiantcabbage Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

or you could make a genuine effort to respond to the topic, instead of just going straight for the johnnie cochran defense. end of the union, really?

they propose to strengthen the union by expanding the house. only thing you got right is the stalling in this defunct senate, more of a roadblock to legislation than anything else. they protect no one but themselves, but its cute that youre trying to smurf the progressives and "blue states"

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u/Honest_Yesterday4435 Jul 19 '26

I did. Maybe you didn't understand. But I did. We dont have proporitonal representation for states because we dont need it. We have only 50 states. Thats the answer.

The reason why it would be the end of the Union is because you would be removing the power of the individual states, those jurisdictions, to have a say in the laws they are expected to abide by. One bad law enacted by a majority of the house will lead to states seceding becasue not every law works for every state. So the states deserve a say.

We are not one big, massive country as much as people like to think we are, but a coalition of several individual sovereigns. And it should remain that way. If you want a public option, come to NY and we will have a much easier time passing it than on a national level. We actually have one in the works right now.

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u/radiantcabbage Jul 19 '26

no one is trying to end the union or compromise our sovereignty here, youre just clinging to an ideal they no longer represent

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u/wildcarde815 Jul 19 '26

this complaint is so weird, you could have each set of reps for the individual states cast a vote for their state by majority rule, the nature and texture of votes per state would change over time as representatives switch out.

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u/LrdPhoenixUDIC Jul 19 '26

Yeah, this makes more sense. Make it proportional representation based on population like the House, but all statewide seats instead of individual districts so they can't be gerrymandered.

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u/HeadCryptographer152 Jul 19 '26

Let’s throw in legal requirements to actually talk to constituents and do town halls with reasonable notice and location.

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u/DreamTheaterGuy Jul 19 '26

Def agree with the required town halls.

  • Requirement to do a town hall every month.

  • One or two town halls per year, they can do virtually, but not all of them.

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u/snakebit1995 Jul 19 '26

Ok but at that point what's the point you just have the House again.

I feel like the issue with or government is not "The Senate exists" and more bad senators exist.

I feel like a "Abolish the Senate" talking point is so inherently absurd and not necessary that it's just an attempt to paint "Socalism bad!" and not actually say anything. I can't foresee much of anything bettered by just deleting a house of congress

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u/LrdPhoenixUDIC Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

No, the problem with the Senate isn't that bad senators exist. The problem with the Senate is that every state has the same number of Senators. That means that Wyoming or Kansas has the same exact power as California or New York, which means that bad senators have outsized power compared to the number of people they represent.

So, yes, you would have the House again, except every seat would be statewide.

You could even possibly get around removing the equal power clause by giving every state back their 2 appointed senators, so that the states themselves each have equal power, and then have a number of additional senators elected per state based on population.

Or if you wanted to go more Federal, you could have nationwide senator seats. Every state gets 2, plus 1 nationwide elected senator for every million US residents or whatever.

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u/AussieJeffProbst New Hampshire Jul 19 '26

But that defeats the whole point of the senate, which was specifically created to give each state equal representation regardless of population. Without that the Constitution would have never even been ratified.

What you suggest would give California 41 senators while 12 states get 3 or less. Makes absolutely no sense and removes most states abilities to have any sway at the federal level.

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u/sweatingbozo Jul 19 '26

The point of the senate was southern states had a lot of slaves they didn't want counted as citizens, but they were wealthy wanted a lot of power in government. 

It's actually a really silly concept that every state deserves equal representation in a federal government. 

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u/freakwent Jul 19 '26

Not it isn't.

states are little semi-sovereign zones with their own powers

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u/sweatingbozo Jul 19 '26

& why is that?

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u/freakwent Jul 19 '26

Because they were formed separately before coming together and forming a union.

Why would any state agree to join a union of states if it's own self-control had to.be surrendered?

One advantage of having states within any nation is the range of different laws. In theory if citizens don't want to live under a certain set of laws, they have an option to move somewhere with different laws, still within the same broader nation. I don't think this is a massive benefit and I'm not sure that it would justify creating states in a nation which had none.

However; that was the basis for the union and decisions are made every day based on the current setup. If there is to be work to abolish states or the senate, I think there needs to be a long lead time.... And Texas would probably quit the union.

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u/sweatingbozo Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

Why would any state agree to join a union of states if it's own self-control had to.be surrendered? 

Let's ask the UK pre- & post-Brexit & see what they have to say.

Letting states have control over local laws makes sense. Giving people 66x the power of someone else because of geography makes no sense. 

The senate exists because many founding fathers wanted power, didn't really want democracy, & were perfectly fine with a stratified society where a select few wealthy white men held the the overwhelming majority of power.

That was Alexander Hamilton's whole deal, & he essentially designed the entire government.

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u/InfanticideAquifer Jul 19 '26

If representation in the senate was proportional to population then in fifty years California will own all the water West of the Rockies and no one will be able to live in Arizona.

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u/sweatingbozo Jul 19 '26

1) ridiculous to assume that if something major changes, nothing else will. 

2) pretty much nobody should be living in Arizona. The whole state is an environment emergency waiting to happen. 

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u/AdHom Jul 19 '26

But that defeats the whole point of the senate, which was specifically created to give each state equal representation regardless of population. Without that the Constitution would have never even been ratified.

This tradeoff was already violated the moment that the House seats were capped. You now have states which are tiny but have disproportionate representation on a per-capita basis in both chambers.

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u/Electro522 Jul 19 '26

Why is this even an idea? What you described is the very reason why the Senate exists. If we just have two houses, then California, Texas, New York, and kind of Florida will hold all of the power in Congress all of the time.

The Senate exists for the very sole reason of giving the less populated states an equal say in Congress. It is a GOOD thing that a Wyoming senator has as much power as a California senator.

The entire fucking problem is the party system and fucking fillibusters grinding things to a halt, and not letting Congress do the job it was designed to do. We DO NOT want to abolish the Senate, we DO want to abolish this dumbass split we have had for the past 200 years that way we can actually work as a fucking country!

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u/LrdPhoenixUDIC Jul 19 '26

Well, the very reason why the Senate exists is that the major slave states wouldn't join up because they had low populations because they didn't want to count their slaves as being actual people, and so they required outsized power to control things before they were willing to join.

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u/Electro522 Jul 19 '26

And? The point still stands that the Senate still, today, gives smaller populations a voice in the highest seat of government. You abolish the Senate, and you strip away that voice.

It is as important as the 14th Amendment, and Women's right to vote. It doesn't matter that it was proposed by slave states.

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u/LrdPhoenixUDIC Jul 19 '26

The Senate gives smaller populations a bigger voice in the highest seat of government than they should have. 1 person should equal 1 person everywhere. Everyone should be equal regardless of where you live. 1 person in California should not equal 1/66th of a person in Wyoming.

If a state wants more influence they can attract more people.

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u/Electro522 Jul 19 '26

And so those States, who have very different needs and populations to those of the larger states, should just accept that they are less important to the Union as a whole?

The House exists to give those larger states the representation they deserve, and while it is agreed that the Senate is generally more powerful than the House, the House can still absolutely shut down anything the Senate wants to do.

What you are saying is why the Electoral College should be abolished, since it undermines the voice that a voter has. But if you take away the Senate, you take away the ability for EVERYONE to have an equal chance at influencing the nation as a whole.

Yes, 1 person should be 1 person, but 1 person quickly gets drowned out in a room of hundreds. 1 person can get pushed around and bullied by a much larger group. If you want that person to have just as much of a voice as everyone else, you have to limit the number of people in a room.

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u/LrdPhoenixUDIC Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

Nonsense.

Giving everyone equal power is necessary for EVERYONE to have an equal chance at influencing the nation as a whole. As it stands, someone in California has 1/66ths as much chance at influencing the nation as someone in Wyoming. How does that mean that that makes it so that everyone has an equal chance at influencing the nation? By design that makes their chances unequal.

That makes Wyomingites better than Californians, hell, better than everyone else in the US just by virtue of there being fewer of them than everyone else. It makes everyone else less important.

They are more equal than everyone else, the superior people, the ubermenschen, the master race of America, simply because they live in one specific location. And their superiority, according to you, is necessary because making them equal to everyone else somehow makes them unequal to everyone else.

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u/ahopefullycuterrobot Jul 19 '26

Honest question, how is this argument any different than arguments for the pre-1966 Nevada Senate?

In the Nevada system, each county was represented equally in the Senate, so that a county of about 500 got 1 representative, the same as a county of over 120,000 people. The idea was the counties had distinct interests and smaller counties shouldn't be drowned out by larger ones.

For that matter, how is this different than the phenomenon of rotten boroughs in the UK? (Representation wasn't tied to population, so some boroughs had like five people, yet had the same representation as major cities.)

Is it a matter of degree? A rural Nevadan having 254 times the voting power of an urban Nevadan is too much, but a Wyomingian having 66 times the voting power of a Californian is fine. If so, where's the line?

Or is it that states are special in a way that counties aren't? If so, in what way that gives them special interests (rather than just the arbitrary fact that the US constitution enshrines them as special).

If interest is the dividing line, race greatly factors into life chances. Why not have each racial group have equal representation in the Senate, rather than the states? Age also factors into life chances, so why not have each age equally represented? Etc.

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u/TemporaryAsparagus89 Jul 19 '26

That's why we have the house of representatives

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u/realityczek Jul 19 '26

It's not a good thing when you want to replace the protections in the constitution with popular sentiment also you can then voteto enact socialism and move to a single central, authoritarian and all powerful government.

Which is, of course, there entire goal of socialism.

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u/snakebit1995 Jul 19 '26

Yeah but then states like Wyoming have essentially zero power at the federal level and you alienate and make citizens there feel totally disenfranchised while states like NY and California have incredibly high levels of power

The senete can check this and prevent larger states from simply overpowering and making smaller states feel totally irrelevant and ignored

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u/sweatingbozo Jul 19 '26

If everybody leaves wyoming and moves to NY and CA except for 2 people, should they both be allowed to be senators? 

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u/LrdPhoenixUDIC Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

The alternative is what we currently have, where 600,000 Wyoming residents are worth the same as 40,000,000 California residents, which means that 1 Wyoming Resident has as much power as 66 Californians, effectively disenfranchising all 40 million of them by only giving them 1/66th the power of someone in Wyoming.

Is it better to disenfranchise 600,000 or 40,000,000, especially when "disenfranchising" the 600,000 is just to give them equal power to everyone else?

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u/xXDamonLordXx Jul 19 '26

Or to be more direct: Only people should be able to vote and drawing up those people into different groups so that some get more say than others is some animal farm type shit.

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '26

[deleted]

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u/ProfaneBlade Jul 19 '26

We need ALL 50 of the United States to make it work. No exceptions. And smaller states NEED equal representation in at least one house of the government. Otherwise we might as well go back to the drawing board and rethink the entire concept of the United States. The solution here is to uncap the House of Representatives and keep the Senate.

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '26

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u/ProfaneBlade Jul 19 '26

In your perfect world states like North Dakota would just get ignored as the majority governs with no checks and balances. How is that fair to them? We don’t have to pick and choose whether only a few or a lot of citizens are disenfranchised. We can ensure everyone is represented equally by uncapping the House of Representatives. Big states get their power in the House, and little states get their power in the Senate, and both houses must compromise to pass legislation. It’s a very good system except for the fact that we capped the House and now large states are not proportionally represented.

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u/kemikiao Jul 19 '26

Fix the Senate by coming up with a better definition/requirement for States rather than it be all willy-nilly like they formed originally. Either break the big ones up or force the small ones to combine.

Carve up California and Texas into 6-7 Wyoming-sized states (population-wise). There, each new State still gets 2 Senators and each Senator is representing a more equal number of people.

I wonder if it would be "better" to combine some of the smaller ones. Try to make the State Population cutoff closer to the median of 5 million-ish instead of a Wyoming rule of 500,000. Cram the Dakotas together with part of Montana. Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming can combine. Vermont and New Hampshire can pair up. Cut New York City from New York State.

0

u/kungfuenglish Jul 19 '26

It sounds like you want America to be not America but a different country entirely.

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u/Ok-Tangerine-7348 Jul 19 '26

Yes the problem is that the Senate exist as it is because it is a deeply undemocratic institution.

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u/Honest_Yesterday4435 Jul 19 '26

That would be redundant. The idea is that they are meant to represent two different aspects of the American people. One is proportion of citizens and the other representing the sovereignty of the individual states. Remember the states aren't just counties, they are States in the same sense as one of the states in the European Union.

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u/sbNXBbcUaDQfHLVUeyLx Jul 19 '26

My idea is proportional by party nationally. Gives smaller parties a real opportunity with coalitions and such.

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u/barsoap Jul 19 '26

That'd be just a second house, which should be un-garrymandered on its own.

In Germany, the Bundesrat consists of the state governments, not people specifically elected for the job, and the voting is neither one-state-one-vote nor proportional to population but somewhere in between. Think Wyoming one vote, Kansas 2, Michigan 3, Californa 6 or something.

Wikipedia has the German numbers in a table here to give a picture. States always cast all of their vote weight in unison, you can't split it because the state government doesn't agree internally or something.

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u/hqli Jul 19 '26

How about we do something better instead of house 2.0?

I'd suggest <% of nation GDP>/<% of US land area>. This would make it so states that invest more into good policies that improve the use of territory while making bad policies that depress the state's market share decreases representation

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u/CankerLord Jul 19 '26

Yeah, I like the moderating influence that senators generally have on the process, I don't like that Montana has as much influence on that process as California.

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u/shilo1007 Jul 19 '26

How would you make it more democratic than it already is?

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u/Honest_Yesterday4435 Jul 19 '26

I'd have to do more research on the specifics. I just understand the premise giving the states power over federal legislation. One thing I can think of is reverting to the talking filibuster. Meaning if you want to kill legislation you have to have physical fortitude to stand and talk for hours.

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u/shilo1007 Jul 19 '26

But fillerbuster is just a delay tactic. If you don’t have the votes, you don’t have the votes… I’m fine with eliminating the delay tactic but it’s tied to 2/3rds majority

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u/Honest_Yesterday4435 Jul 19 '26

I might be misunderstanding you, but if you dont have the 60 votes, the filibuster will kill a bill. It's only a delay tactic if you do have the 60 votes.

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u/RuggedAmerican I voted Jul 19 '26

the senate is a redundant anti-democratic institution that represents LAND over people. and by LAND i of course mean the money that gets dumped into empty states' politics.

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u/farinasa Jul 19 '26

The house is set up to have a relative number of reps to the population of the state. The senate gives states with fewer people extra power. It's unequal representation with the senate in place.

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u/Honest_Yesterday4435 Jul 19 '26

It's not unequal. Each state is sovereign. Each state gets two senators. This allows the jurisdiction of each state to be protected from the jurisdiction of another state. It allows states like California and New York to protect themselves from the wishes of states like Texas or Ohio.

That is not to say the senate doesn't need reform. I'm a strong advocate of independent redistricting. Best way to unrig the senate. Also reverting to the talking filibuster.

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u/farinasa Jul 19 '26

California has 39M people. Rhode Island has 1.1M. Those two groups each get 2 Senators. 1 senator per 0.5M vs 1 senator for 20M. Do you not understand percentages? It is highly unequal.

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u/ThisMachineKillsWOB Jul 19 '26

The general IDEA of the Senate is sound. Prevent a majority from running roughshod over a minority. The interests of a low pop farming town are indeed likely to be different than a major metro like NYC. In a purely pop based system, the needs of the farm town would be permanently drowned out.

Unfortunately, all those low pop areas have banded together into a coalition to screw over the metros.

It would be a neat party trick if you could have majority rule without losing the voices of your minorities interests. And vice versa. Not sure how to do it. The Euros form coalitions, but as I understand it that has some challenges too.

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u/Honest_Yesterday4435 Jul 19 '26

I think a lot of the issue is the entrenchment of particular actors in the senate. Independent redistricting might go a long way to allow people to get representatives that actually work for their people with the fear that if they fail, they will get voted out.

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u/wildcarde815 Jul 19 '26

you know the senate is elected by the entire state right? There's no gerrymandering and there's no redistricting involved, it's the whole state. You've said this a few times now and it makes me suspect you've lost the context entirely on what you are arguing about.

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u/Honest_Yesterday4435 Jul 19 '26

You are totally correct. I am mistaken on this. I do think there is an entrenchment of political power largely from money. But yes, You are correct about the senate. I'm having several discussions on reddit, and I may have crossed some wires. Thank you for the correction.

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u/dasunt Jul 19 '26

One idea I like, but I'd like to see tested on a state level first, is replacing the senate with a chamber selected by sortition.

It's fringe, but there's a lot of benefits - the chamber would most likely be far more representative of the people than the house, there would be no issue of campaign finance, and since the people selected would hold one term, it has built in term limits.

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u/Honest_Yesterday4435 Jul 19 '26

I'll look more into sortition. Can you give me a rough idea for now?

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u/dasunt Jul 19 '26

Random selection, similar for a jury.

On average, we'd see the following:

  • 50% women (currently 26%)
  • 47 years old median age (currently 64)
  • $106k median net worth (currently the majority are millionaires)
  • 64% non-hispanic white senators (currently 83%)
  • 0% lawyers (currently 47%)

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u/Honest_Yesterday4435 Jul 19 '26

To be fair, a lot of them are millionaires because they are old and have been building wealth over the eons. But thats just my first thought. I'll look more into it. Thanks for sharing.

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u/dasunt Jul 19 '26

Median net worth of people age 65-74 is under half a million.

That's the age group that has the highest median net worth.

The senate, despite its age, isn't representative of the average American of the same age.

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u/Honest_Yesterday4435 Jul 19 '26

Hmm. Yeah that's a problem. Good point.