What You Need to Know about the United States Senate

How It Started Then. Where It Is Now.

Remember this map of the Capitol Building as we continue to investigate the 1/6/2021 Insurrection and attempted Coup of the U.S. government.

Issue #53: Government May 12, 2022

Yesterday, May 11, 2022, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called for a vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2021, a Democrat-led bill that was first approved by the U.S. House several months ago and was meant to codify a woman’s right to an abortion. As expected, the bill did not pass the Senate because it did not meet the 60-vote threshold that is the current requirement. All Republicans voted against the bill, as did Democratic Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV). Leader Schumer’s primary goal was to put on the Congressional Record the vote of every Senator on this issue. Vice-President Kamala Harris, in her role as president of the Senate, presided over the 49-51 final vote.

This article is somewhat longer than usual. I’m a retired English, history, and government teacher and I just have so much to say on this subject! Thank you for your attention!

Many Democrats complain that “almost nothing” that President Biden pledged to do has been accomplished even though the Democrats have a majority of the Senate. Besides the fact that the Biden/Harris administration has only been in office for about 17 months, the reality is that the Dems have a “majority” in the Senate in technical numbers only. There are 48 elected Democratic Senators and two elected Independent Senators who caucus with the Democrats. Technically, that equals 50, plus the vote of Vice-President Harris SHOULD give the Dems the majority. 

But in reality, two of the Democratic Senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, more often than not vote against Democratic bills in the Senate, so voting on those bills rarely gives VP Harris a chance to cast a tie-breaking vote.

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Even more importantly, the arcane Senate filibuster rule requires that most bills must receive 60 votes to pass, instead of the simple majority number of 51 votes. So, again, in reality, to pass Democratic bills more easily, there would need to be 62 Democratic Senators to reach the threshold without having to depend on the votes of Manchin or Sinema or any Republicans “crossing the aisle.” That’s TWELVE more Democratic Senators than we have now.

So, why and how is the Senate so different from the House of Representatives, and how can Democrats get their initiatives, most of which are approved by a majority of Americans, passed and signed by the President?

Important Facts about the United States Senate

During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the framers, after months of debate, established the structure and power of Congress in Article I. Following the models of the British government and several state governments, it was finally decided that Congress would be bi-cameral, meaning having two separate chambers. 

The House of Representatives, also called the “Lower House or Chamber” similar to Britain’s House of Commons, would be the “grand depository of the democratic principle of government” and representation would be based on population as reported during each decennial census. Almost all bills, but especially any bills that have to do with financial topics, must first start in the House of Representatives before being sent to the Senate. 

At the beginning of the country, the House of Representatives was given proportional representation based on the “whole number of white and other free Citizens” and “3/5ths of all other persons.” This is why the “3/5 Compromise” for the counting of slaves as part of the population for southern states was so important at the time. Also worth noting is that women of any race were not considered to be “citizens.” Don’t you know that “originalist” Justice Amy Coney Barrett?

It was decided that representation in the Senate would be “equal,” with two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature of each state, for six-year terms. So, originally, Senators were chosen by whichever party was in charge of a state legislature at the time. Senators were not directly elected by the people until the 17th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1913.

The Senate, also called the “Upper House or Chamber” similar to Britain’s House of Lords, was designed to be smaller, more deliberative, and independent from the House of Representatives.

It was also decided that only 1/3 of the Senators would be up for re-election every two years, ostensibly to give an air of “continuity” to the body. The entire House of Representatives is up for election every two years.

Impeachment and Trial by the House and the Senate

Especially these days, it is also important to remember that Articles of Impeachment for executives of the government AND for justices of the Supreme Court can only be filed by the House of Representatives. An article of impeachment is similar to an indictment in regular criminal courts, and people can be impeached ONLY for treason, bribery, or corruption,” not just because an executive does something a member of the House doesn’t like or doesn’t agree with. Nevertheless, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), should he become Speaker of the House after the 2022 midterm elections has pledged to “impeach” President Joe Biden, Vice-President Kamala Harris, and any other Democrat he can, just out of spite. Only one Supreme Court Justice has been impeached in American history, Justice Samuel Chase, a staunch Federalist who had been on the Court since 1796 and refused to “tone down” his partisan rhetoric. The Articles of Impeachment against Justice Chase included accusations of announcing his legal interpretation of the law of treason and of continuing to promote his political agenda while on the Bench. Does this sound familiar? Justice Chase was eventually cleared by the Senate.

The House of Representatives files the Articles of Impeachment with the Senate and members act as “trial managers,” essentially the ones who present the case to the Senate which actually holds the trial. The Senate then votes to acquit or clear the accused of the charges.

The Current Representation of the Senate

The Senate was intended to be a more deliberative body of “equals” with the powers to give advice and consent to the president on treaties, and judicial and cabinet nominations, and have an equal say on legislation with the House.

 In 1926, Columbia Professor Lindsay Rogers stated that one of the primary roles of the Senate was to protect “minority rights.” However, as we see today, the Senate, which is not really “equal” in actual representation, has been trying to inflict minority rule over the rest of the country. 

The Republicans controlled the Senate during the last two years of the 2nd Obama administration and throughout the entirety of the Trump one-term presidency. When Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was Senate Majority Leader, he used his position to deny President Obama a nomination of an open Supreme Court seat (claiming that 8 months before an election was “too soon”) and then “carved out” the Senate filibuster rule to push through the nomination of Justice Amy Coney Barrett even though the 2020 election was already in progress and it was just four weeks until the November Election Day.

Because the no-filibuster rule for voting for Supreme Court Justices that Senator McConnell had promoted to stack the Court with Trump-nominated justices was still in effect, incoming Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed with 53 votes, including all 48 Democratic Senators, the 2 Independent Senators who caucus with the Democrats and 3 Republican Senators. 

Population-wise, the current Republican senators represent a small minority of the actual U.S. voting population but have outsized power because of the “two senators per state” rule. Six Republican senators representing three states such as Idaho and North and South Dakota represent just 1/3 of the population of the State of California with just two Democratic senators. 

How to Change U.S. Policy from Minority Rule to Majority Rule

For the last several decades, the Republican Party has become increasingly authoritarian and anti-democracy and has only won the popular vote for president once. The only way they can keep control of the government is to suppress the vote in the states, count only the votes they agree with by having Republican Secretaries of State in the legislatures, and stacking the Supreme Court with far-right-wing justices.

The only way these things can be changed is if the Democrats hold the presidency and a true majority in both houses of Congress.

To finally make the District of Columbia a state (immediately adding two more assumed Democratic senators), and to add more justices to the Supreme Court would take only a simple majority of both houses and then a presidential signature.

There is nothing in the current Constitution that limits the number of justices to nine, nor limits the number of states to the current 50.

I am old enough to remember when Alaska and Hawai’i were brought into the United States as the 49th and 50th states. 

The House of Representatives is considered to be the “People’s House,” but the Senate is still very powerful and can continually stop the initiatives of the president.

The Democrats are nowhere near “perfect,” but their overall goal is to work for the betterment of the people, ALL of the people, and to protect the rights of ALL. 

The Republicans and the right-wing SCOTUS want to push only their own agenda of taking away democratic principles and the rights of many, even going as far as attempting to override the 14th Amendment, which is the foundation of “equal rights for all” as they overturn Roe v Wade.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments.