The founders did not build two legislative chambers by accident. The House was designed to be democratic — small districts, close to home, every seat up every two years, so the people can throw all of them out at once. The Senate was designed as the opposite: an oligarchy, deliberately, to slow things down and protect the states and the minority.
Then came the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. Senators went from being chosen by their state legislatures to being elected directly by the people. Constitutional scholar Bill Norton's point is that we changed how senators are selected while leaving every structural feature of an oligarchy in place — six-year terms, staggered so only a third can ever be replaced at once. Democratic selection bolted onto an oligarchic frame.
Jenny Beth Martin presses the consequences. The states lost their voice in the federal government and now go to court instead. And the filibuster, along with the 60-vote cloture threshold, arrived largely to patch the problem the Seventeenth Amendment created — a tool Norton calls a poor substitute for what the Senate was already built to do.
Also here: Washington's answer to Jefferson about why the Senate exists. Why do you pour your tea into a saucer? To cool it.
Watch the full episode at jennybethshow.com. Get involved at teapartypatriots.org. Reach your senators at 202-224-3121.
00:00 — The Seventeenth Amendment Changed the Senate
00:16 — Six-Year Terms Were Built for an Oligarchy
01:10 — Senators Once Answered to State Legislatures
02:17 — Washington's Tea Saucer
02:59 — Why the Filibuster Is a Band-Aid
05:08 — Protecting the Minority Without Tyranny of the Minority
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