It’s interesting to read articles such as this one, in which journalists fret that an obstructionist U.S. Senate might not allow the House Democrats to achieve (or at least achieve quickly) all of the goals from their 100-hour plan.
We’re seeing much less veneration these days of the Senate’s deliberative nature.
One sentence in particulat drew my attention:
A constitutional amendment ratified in 1913 finally did away with the arcane process of letting state legislatures select senators in favor of statewide popular elections….
Writer Silla Brush ignores the reason why state legislatures selected senators for more than 120 years: the U.S. Constitution was designed to create a federal government. The Senate was supposed to give the states a check on an activist federal government.
One suspects the concentration of power in Washington today might not be as great if that progressive era change had never been made.
