Ernie’s post about corruption in Everett raised a bit of a debate about the City’s unique form of Government, a bicameral legislature. Keen respondents pointed out that this used to be a common form of municipal governance but that had changed over the years. Got me thinking, why have cities decided to move in this direction but States haven’t, beyond Nebraska, which is unicameral? I imagine part of the reason is because of the difficulty in amending state constitutions, especially in getting sitting legislators to sign off on abolishing their own chamber.
But, the real question is whether we here in the Bay State really need two legislative chambers? Does the two-headed, leadership-dominated monster we call the General Court, need to be so constituted. Seems like it is often just inefficient in getting things done, although it does give local folks more representation. Anyhow, what sayeth BMGers?
I’m not convinced the United States, much less Massachusetts, needs two chambers. Many other countries do fine with only one chamber of any political force or influence. With an independent judiciary and strong federalism, we don’t really need to go out of our way looking for more reasons to complicate things. Not that this would ever happen…
As for the Bay State, is there any procedural difference between the two chambers of any note? Does one have powers that other doesn’t?
all seats at large statewide with preferential voting. Party lists, like in other democracies.
A lot of thundering noise probably but would also open things up quite a bit, give minority parties like the Greens or the GOP a chance to make their cases.
BTW tried to make this a separate comment but apparently under the newest design I can’t “comment,” only “reply.’ Hope you do not mind sab.
There’s no difference, apart from fewer members and larger districts, I can think of.
What if we used a different method to elect one of the houses? So that it wasn’t just R vs D? And that other places in the US might see the advantages of a system that’s not simply first-past-the-post..
One for the people and one for the states as units. The overlapping jurisdictions for House and Senate districts may make for some sense of concurrent majorities, but with both being up every two years it’s less obvious. Different methods of representation would be a reason to keep two, but SCOTUS ruled awhile back that both chambers had to conform to one-person-one-vote. I’m not convinced that was correctly decided. If the federal constitution can determine that one of its chambers is by population and one is by state equity why can’t the states use different models for its different chambers?
One acre, one vote? I think this is government of the people, not of the dirt.
Not that I’m all that happy about the idea of essentially permanent rotten boroughs either. But given how theyou Constitution is set up, fixing that situation is essentially impossible.
Changing one or both chambers of the state legislature isn’t quite as tough.
I’m not interested in representing acres, but to maintain a concept of a federal republic, there should be state equity in one chamber and popular equity in the other.
I think while Scott Brown was making $80-90,000 as state senator he was making the same amount in his private law practice (not to mention his travel per diem). I don’t think this is so uncommon.
Some weeks each body is in session for only a few minutes, even though elected officials will tell you about all the committee work. Still …..
I say one chamber with either full-time work or part-time pay.
…I’d much prefer that we have both chambers, so as to increase the inefficiency.
Slot machines, for example. If we had only one chamber and it was the House, slot machines would have been pockmarking the state for quite a while now.
The death penalty, for another example. If we had only one chamber and it was the Senate, that would have been enacted into law.
On balance, I’m in the John Adams camp — laws should be hard to make instead of easy.
The general rationale for bicameral legislatures is that each of the chambers served a different purpose. In the US Congress, the House was meant to represent the People, and the Senate to represent the States.
This was originally done in an era when it was envisioned that the US would be considerably more federal (i.e. more like a federation) than it is today. Each of the states, as semi-sovereign entities, would be entitled to representation so it could argue its point.
I’d argue that the Senate has been redundant since 1913, when Senators became directly elected. Since both houses now serve the People, I see no reason to have two houses.
Likewise, here in Massachusetts, the two houses originally served two distinct purposes. The House served the People and the Senate, as I read it, served the money. From Chapter I, Section II, Article I of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts:
In other words, originally, the extent of a Senatorial district was determined not by the number of people in it, but by how much taxes those people paid. Presumably wealthy people would pay more, and so wealthy people would have more representation in the Senate. I do, however, very much appreciate the original concept of multi-member districts and wish we’d kept that part around.
This was changed in 1856 to the current system of allocating Senatorial districts by population rather than taxes / wealth, and so I would argue our State Senate has been redundant since that time.
Personally, I really like Nebraska’s system: Unicameral and no official parties. Of course different Senators (that’s Nebraska’s sole house: the Senate) are more liberal or conservative than others, but there are no official factions or divisions. Proponents of the system claim this allows temporary alliances to form more easily around certain issues. I’m not an expert on Nebraska so I couldn’t say. But certainly here in Massachusetts we have liberal Dems and conservative Dems, some of whom I think are only Dems so they can be elected since it’s so hard to be elected in much of this state if your name is adorned with an (R). Why not do away with the (D) and (R) and let legislators stand on their own merits?
State Representatives and State Senators are much better known — and thus, more accountable — than a variety of other elected officials, notably Registers of Deeds, Registers of Probate, Sheriffs, Governor’s Councilors, Clerks of Courts, and County Treasurers. All of those posts should be appointed civil service positions rather than elected posts. Right now, election to any of those jobs is tantamount to a lifetime appointment unless you retire, die, get a new job elsewhere, or get indicted.