Talk:United States Senate

Upper Chamber?

The U.S. Does not have an upper and lower chamber. This is something you learn in any high school government class. The House of Representatives and the Senate are equal. I do not deny that there is more prestige in the Senate - none the less, the Senate is not the upper chamber, and the House is not the lower. Can we change this or cite that formally? Anyone who knows anything knows that's wrong.

I disagree. They are equal technically speaking but the Senate can be regarded as the "Upper Chamber" and the House as the "Lower Chamber." The Senate is certainly "Upper" in the sense that there are less members, each member represents a state in its entirety versus a portion of a state, the minimum age to become a Senator is 30 versus 25 for the House, the Senate has advice and consent powers that the House does not have, etc.--Tpkatsa (talk) 18:09, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Any evidence Senate has 100 members instead of 101?

Hear me out, please -- the U.S. has 100 senators, that's rather obvious and well-sourced. But is there any evidence that the Senate actually has 100 members?

Since the Vice President is part of the Senate I wonder if the number in the seating diagram should be actually 101. 222.154.237.170 (talk) 20:09, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

The Senate has 100 members, two for each state in the United States. The Vice President is not member, even though the Vice President may be called upon to break a tie vote or sit for ceremonial purposes.--Tpkatsa (talk) 18:11, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 May 2022

Add after 51 Majority line in intro box “60 for Fillibuster-proof majority” and hyperlink to filibuster 207.153.22.11 (talk) 05:18, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: - As the filibuster is a matter of Senate rules, rather than an inherent feature of the Senate from the Constitution, combined with the fact that the filibuster only applies to certain types of Senate business, I don't think this belongs in the infobox. PianoDan (talk) 23:00, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

A republic, not a democracy

"Though this was an intentional part of the Connecticut Compromise, critics have described the fact that representation in the Senate is not proportional to the population as "anti-democratic" and "minority rule".

The United States is a republic, not a democracy. The Senate is not and was never intended to be a democratic body (like the House). Even with the direct election of senators, the Senate does not represent the people per se; senators represent sovereign states, and there is a difference between the two types of representation. --Tpkatsa (talk) 18:18, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

First, this idea of "it's not a democracy because it's a republic" is frankly patent nonsense. Is Switzerland not a democracy because it's a republic? Is Finland not a democracy because it's a republic? When you say "country X is a democracy" it means that it has adequate democratic processes. It doesn't mean literally every decision is put up to some popular vote, or that it's some "raw essence" of democracy floating without any other institutions. It means that there may be institutions such as the executive government ministries, military, judiciary (which are explicitly designed to uphold existing law rather than "democratically vote on" creating them), but they are ultimately accountable to the people through the democratic processes.

There's nothing wrong with calling a republic a democracy, just like there's nothing wrong with calling a constitutional monarchy a democracy, if the system is sufficiently governed democratically. This idea of "X is not a democracy, it's a republic" needlessly distracts the whole conversation towards a different topic. Although we can talk about the genuine problems and challenges that a democratic system may face, saying "it's not A, let's talk about Z instead" is not helpful to the discussion.

Second, this whole talk section opened here is irrelevant to the purpose of editing the United States Senate article. Where are your sources to include on proposing this argument and inserting it into the encyclopedia? And what purpose does this proposed edit serve? If you're trying to respond to the criticism, that the unequal representation in the Senate is undemocratic, by stating that this inequality was the way it was intended to be because it's a "republic" (which is, as mentioned, meaningless to bring up), then, why does it have to be that way? Putting aside the merits/flaws of the current Senate structure, why can't the Senate (and the US as a whole) be a democracy, and be structured the way these critics bring up? Your response does nothing to answer the critics because they'll simply reply "well it should be a democracy".

And indeed, this is part of the drive why the Constitution of the United States has been amended over time in the past two centuries, along with the laws of its states: to make the country a better democracy. The Seventeenth Amendment, for instance, changed the senators' election procedure to represent the people of the respective states from the earlier procedure of indirect election by state legislatures - some of which various people at the time thought were corrupt, deadlocked, racially disenfranchised, or unequally apportioned similar to the US Senate (this was before "one person, one vote" on state legislatures). And some legislatures simply didn't want to be defined as electors of senators in the first place (many gave their electing powers to their people via referendums by the time the amendment was ratified). So yes, US senators do represent the "people", just grouped differently from the "people" of the legislative districts for the House of Representatives. (You can argue about whether the reason for this amendment is sound, but I'm just explaining the rationale for its ratification.)

A democratic state isn't necessarily perfect. Plenty of countries, subregions and other bodies (such as the European Union) aren't necessarily perfectly apportioned, and yet they have other elements that are rooted in firm democratic pillars that have proper accountability to their electorate. We don't look at one element that isn't how certain people desire it to be and conclude "there we go, this whole thing is not a democracy because here, a term to describe the entity that has no bearing to this talk". These critics are arguing that the US Senate, with all its powers and prestige, being unequally apportioned is a flaw to the democracy of the United States. You can debate whether or not the Senate structure (or its powers) should change. But replying with "well it is, in fact, not a democracy by design" is not enough to satisfy anyone, and doesn't contribute to the encyclopedic article anyway. 2603:8000:B600:4000:6846:862F:A567:2393 (talk) 00:03, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Sinema

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/09/politics/kyrsten-sinema-leaves-democratic-party/index.html

this seems like a big deal, no? Littlepagers (talk) 11:18, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Potentially, yes, but less so if she sticks with the Democratic Caucus to keep her committee assignments (or for whatever reason). It's interesting that the CNN article appears to be misleadingly inaccurate, claiming a 51-49 majority for the Democrats with the two independents Sanders and King in the Democratic Caucus. If there are 47 Democrats as the Wikipedia article on the Senate indicates, however, that would be a 49-50 minority not including Sinema, whose status seems unclear. Bret Sterling (talk) 16:28, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

I think you are confusing the current situation (47 dems, 3 independents, 50 rep; what this article talks about) vs what the new Senate will have (48 dems, 3 independnets, 49 rep; CNN article). meamemg (talk) 16:56, 9 December 2022 (UTC)