Is the United States Senate Broken?

In one sense, yes it is. The Senate may be the world’s most exasperating deliberative body. As with it’s Roman counterpart there’s a growing sense that the Senate has outlived its usefulness, that it can no longer function effectively and that there’s no reason to suppose anything will change for the better. In Washington folk connected to the House of Representatives point out that their enemy is the Senate, not the opposition party.

That’s what happens when you have a Republic, not a Democracy. And, as George Packer’s excellent New Yorker article amply demonstrates, the Senate is a ridiculous, infuriating place filled with puffed-up mediocrities unfit to inhabit offices once filled by rather more illustrious men. But Packer’s conclusion also hints at another problem, one he doesn’t consider: centralisation. Here’s how he ends his piece:

The two lasting achievements of this Senate, financial regulation and health care, required a year and a half of legislative warfare that nearly destroyed the body.