> Paul Henry Rosenberg wrote:
>
> >The same would very likely happen if we federalized the Seante and
> >elected them all nationwide.
>
> Can't do it, though. According to the divinely inspired Constitution, the
> Senate can only be altered or abolished with the unanimous consent of the
> states. As Article V says, "no State, without its Consent, shall be
> deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate." Funny, I thought suffrage
> applied to people, not states.
I'm aware of that, Doug, tho no one here is arguing for a "divinely inspired" Constitution. The issue at hand is FIRST clearing away some small space of clarity here on the left, pointing out the ludicrous ahistorical nature of Margaret's argument, to be specific.
Furthermore, just because the Constitution makes it vistually impossible to get rid of (or radically reconsitute) the Senate is no reason not to organize toward that end. Giving a single person in Wyoming the voting strength of my entire apartment building is NOT the kind of thing that any politician can readily defend. Why give them all a free pass?
What's more, every state does NOT have to consent. We can simply pass an Amendment which removes the language you cite, followed by another Amendment which reconstitutes the Senate on a national basis. It would still be an enormous struggle, but not as enormous as the one you envision.
Sure it's a ridiculously upshill fight, but frankly, I can hardly think of a better way to drive home to the average citizen the enormous gap between the rhetoric and the reality of our political system. Some battles are far more important to fight than they are to win or lose. This may well be one of them.
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"