The longest-serving politician in Congress — ever — thinks he has the perfect reform to put American government back on track.
Former House Democrat John Dingell wants to abolish the Senate.
According to him, the United States should go unicameral.
The ancient bicameral tradition — which goes back to Sumer — is so old hat. He thinks that, these days, “in a nation of more than 325 million and 37 additional states, not only is that structure antiquated, it’s downright dangerous.”
Dangerous? Well, he has always hated the Senate. He sees it as a place where “good bills go to die.”
His new book explains this at length, but I confess: it would go against my principles to put any money into that man’s pocket by buying The Dean: The Best Seat in the House (2018). He almost personifies everything I’m against. His very career is an atrocity. In 1955, John Jr. took over the House seat from his father, a 22-year incumbent, and then six decades later, in 2015, basically bestowed it on his wife.
That’s 86 years and counting.
How many times did he swear to uphold the Constitution? And yet he doesn’t seem to understand that Article V, governing the amendment process, establishes one specific limitation: “no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.”
Jettisoning the U.S. Senate would seem to be such a deprivation.
The opposite of this Dingelldorf reform would be more in keeping with the spirit of our system: term limits.
To keep anything like a John Dingell Sixty-year Stretch from ever occurring again.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Photo credit: University of Michigan
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