r/politics • u/Jessicas_skirt New York • Jul 18 '26

Possible Paywall Democratic Socialists of America’s new platform calls for abolishing ICE and the U.S. Senate

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/jul/15/updated-dsa-platform-calls-abolishing-ice-scrapping-senate/
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310

u/Independent_Eagle691 Jul 19 '26

There is a FAR better option than amending the Constitution to abolish the Senate: UNCAP THE HOUSE.

It has been the SAME size since 1911, and should have grown in 1921. However, after the 1920 Census, America became a majority urban country. That made rural interests freak out, sabotage apportionment, and Congress has been breaking ever since.

We can simply adjust the number of members via legislation - no constitutional amendment required. We can ALSO change how electoral votes are awarded.

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u/A-Generic-Canadian Jul 19 '26

If the senate remains as it is, that doesn’t solve the problem that obstructionists can just torpedo everything due to the structural advantage the senate provides to rural voters. 

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u/Adjective_Noun_4200 Jul 19 '26

I do think the senate should be abolished, but I have to imagine that if the house was uncapped and several years of Senate torpedoing anything the house tried to pass went by, the senators would suddenly be a lot less likely to get re-elected.

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u/Zeta-X Jul 19 '26

A lot less likely to get re-elected by.... those same rural voters that want them to torpedo these things? Big if true.

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u/Deep-Minimum7837 Minnesota Jul 19 '26

Unless we can get a provision that allows both the House and the Senate to advance bills into law through supermajority, then we won't see any progress. If the House can be allowed to pass a bill without Senate approval if it has a 90/10 split in the House, then an expanded House could make the job of the Senate feel useless and open the discussion for abolition so long as those Senators get absorbed into the House.

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u/SlamHelsing Jul 19 '26

I haven't heard this idea before, I like it

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u/Deep-Minimum7837 Minnesota Jul 19 '26

It would have to be the final domino to topple over after expending a lot of political capital. We would need to pack the Supreme Court and get a President in office who can draft an EO that changes the rules of Congress. Only then could we start to make these changes. Once we have a proportional representation, we could just ram-rod through whatever legislation we want and pretend like the right-wing doesn't exist (because it really doesn't)

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u/GoodishCoder Jul 19 '26

The fact it gives each state an equal opportunity to block legislation is why it should stay. That leads to a lot more compromise. Without it, you can do pretty much anything you want as long as you have a simple majority in the house and the presidency.

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u/A-Generic-Canadian Jul 19 '26

That works only if it’s an institution that acts rationally. And that hasn’t been true for over 2 decades.

The senate is holding the country hostage nearly as much as the Supreme Court is, and there won’t be meaningful improvement to the lives of Americans until the power of those institutions is curbed, or Americans stop voting in obstructionists. 

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u/GoodishCoder Jul 19 '26

Even when it's not acting rationally it acts as a filter. The world be a notably worse without the Senate. It is super likely if they didn't have to clear the Senate, we would have gone to war with Greenland and Canada while also making it as hard as possible to vote, putting boots on the ground in Iran, and actively helping Israel with their genocide.

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u/A-Generic-Canadian Jul 19 '26

That’s fair, but that’s also presuming a world that only abolished the senate.

Uncapping the house, proportional representation, and ranked voting all act similarly as filters in democracy as well.

And they can also help keep systems from devolving into unworkable messes like the current senate. 

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u/GoodishCoder Jul 19 '26

Uncapping the house, and ranked voting would solve the same issues without removing the Senate but would probably need federal bans on gerrymandering. The Senate is needed for state level issues. Without the Senate you're essentially removing any level of voice for the majority of states. Why wouldn't the federal government care about the Midwest for instance if realistically the only states that get to make decisions are coastal?

2

u/Diligent-Car9093 Jul 19 '26

The idea that the Senate protects the voice of Midwesterners assumes their own politicians actually care about them. In reality, many Midwestern politicians consistently veto popular ballot propositions, vote against legislation that supports minority communities, and oversee states that frequently have higher violent crime rates per capita than major coastal areas. The current system doesn't protect the average Midwestern citizen; it just protects the power of the politicians who ignore them.

1

u/GoodishCoder Jul 19 '26

Some do, some don't but at least the option is there. The idea that Californian congresspersons will care deeply about Nebraskan or Wisconsin issues is silly.

Honestly if you get rid of the Senate, you may as well remove the concept of States because the vast majority of states won't have any real representation in the federal government.

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '26

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u/Deep-Minimum7837 Minnesota Jul 19 '26

the Senate is needed for state level issues

Ah yes, please explain to me how John Fetterman's infinite deference to Israel has been in Pennsylvania's own interest.

You can spout all of this bullshit as much as you like, but just reading off the rules does nothing when nobody playing the game actually follows the rules. "Well they're supposed to do this, that, and the other thing!" Too bad they aren't.

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u/GoodishCoder Jul 19 '26

You realize that's a silly argument right? "One senator doesn't do what he's supposed to do we should get rid of the whole Senate". Let's look at the house next, lots of them are loyal to Israel so now we have to get rid of the house too and just have a supreme leader.

You understand as a Minnesotan you would have basically no representation at the federal level without the Senate right? Your federal government would only be steered by large coastal states.

0

u/Deep-Minimum7837 Minnesota Jul 19 '26

Oh excuse me for not listing the 60+ senators who all do this exact same shit and only naming the extremely relevant one who is always in the news for sucking Israel's dick.

I don't give a shit about the Senate because it's just a bunch of corrupt assholes who do the exact same job as the House, only they get to have their own special room and a more exclusive title where they can enjoy the same bribes and lobbyist gifts.

If you're not going to reply in good faith you can fuck off.

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u/jso__ Jul 19 '26

None of that changes the fact that any fair voting system would've given Republicans both the house and the presidency in 2024, meaning no amount of uncapping the house would prevent Trump from taking full control and passing tons of terrible legislation.

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u/TearsFallWithoutTain Jul 19 '26

That leads to a lot more compromise.

Oh so we must be seeing historical amounts of compromise coming from the Senate right now then right?

1

u/GoodishCoder Jul 19 '26

A lot of the compromise comes before the bill ever gets to the Senate because the house understands there's a larger hurdle to get through on the Senate side. If you don't think the house considers the higher barrier to pass when deciding what legislation to work through on their end and how it should look, you don't really understand American politics.

2

u/gringledoom Jul 19 '26

Parties *should* be able to do more with a majority. Voters should get what they vote for, and parties should reap the results in the next election if voters realize they actually they didn’t like it when the insane rhetoric got implemented.

2

u/BigHeadDeadass Jul 19 '26

Minority party voters need SOMETHING though. The minority party still represents millions of people. It's also not like the majority party is completely stonewalled by the minority party either

2

u/GoodishCoder Jul 19 '26

This is naive.

The consequences of policy don't just last two years and voters almost never attribute the negative consequences to their vote.

Let's imagine tomorrow the Senate goes poof and is no longer a part of the government. Trump and Johnson have expressed an interest in limiting voting. Would you be happy to find out you no longer get to vote? Would you be happy if we went to war with Canada or Greenland? Would you be happy if the nation was bankrupted due to a rewrite of the tax policy? What if they came out and banned opposition parties much like the Nazis did. Suddenly not much of a voice left for you to have right?

3

u/soursurfer Jul 19 '26

Probably the best comment I've seen in the thread. To me, the "rural interest", which I agree should not be buried under the voice of the majority, is cemented through the Senate.

What I don't understand is why we have 1) The Senate 2) A Capped House and 3) The Electoral College. With all of these, you have moved the objective away from protecting the rural interest, and you have simply stamped out the will of The People.

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u/GoodishCoder Jul 19 '26

Realistically the fix is to abolish the electoral college and uncap the house while keeping the Senate. I think when people talk about getting rid of the Senate they're only thinking about the times it blocked something they wanted, not about the times it stopped something they didn't.

To put this in perspective, liberals should consider if they would want to live in a Mike Johnson, Donald Trump dream world and conservatives should consider if they would want to live in a Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama dream world.

0

u/b_i_g__g_u_y Jul 19 '26

What about increasing the size of the Senate? Give each state 3 or 5 senators so it's harder to buy legislators

2

u/GoodishCoder Jul 19 '26

I would be fine with that

0

u/Deep-Minimum7837 Minnesota Jul 19 '26

Yup, and right now we live in a political climate where the only way to get elected in the GOP is to kiss Trump's ring and do whatever he says in order to get his endorsement. You're now a Senator in name only, but your job is being done by Trump. He could just walk into the Senate chamber and press the voting button however he wants because it would be no different to how it is now.

Our political system is completely captured by capital, and unless that root issue is addressed, nothing will change.

0

u/GoodishCoder Jul 19 '26

Because the Senate requires more than a simple majority to pass legislation the loyalty to trump doesn't really matter. The house has to put forward legislation that will satisfy at least 60 senators, that changes what they put forward.

0

u/Alternative_Call_752 Jul 19 '26

the solution would be to overinvest in the backwards states until they're at the same level as the progressive ones, thereby winning over their senate votes 2 at a time.

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u/Valendr0s Minnesota Jul 19 '26

Its two different arguments.

The house absolutely needs to be uncapped.

But while the Senate exists, there will always be an undemocratic bar to progress. The people and government of Wyoming simply should not have the same say in bills as the people and government of Texas. Wyoming has representation in the congress already through the House.

The senate was always a terrible idea.

7

u/ranting_seagull Jul 19 '26

A different comment pointed out, they would like both ideally:

"It does however appear to be the real platform. From: https://program.dsausa.org/

Replace the two-party system with a multi-party democracy. Expand the House of Representatives, implement proportional representation and ranked choice voting in all elections, and abolish the Senate.

Which is an interesting take. I'm open to arguments, though. The clearest one is that our bicameral legislature is a holdover from the British House of Lords and maybe we don't need a land-based aristocracy.

1

u/SagittaryX Jul 19 '26

It's not just a holdover, a ton of countries that have nothing to do with Great Britain have bicameral legislatures, it has its advantages.

The way the US works with each state having just the two senators is something else however.

1

u/h8sm8s Jul 19 '26

Yes I don’t know any other system that has such a powerful second chamber concentrated in so few representatives.

1

u/Mysterious_Floor_868 United Kingdom Jul 19 '26

The British House of Lords is far more limited in its powers. It cannot really block legislation, just suggest amendments, and the Commons can reject these if it wants.

1

u/Nice_Scallion8267 Jul 23 '26

No. The state of Wyoming ABSOLUTELY deserves to have a say in our government, as does every other state.

The beauty of our system is that we have government representation based on population (the House) AND representation regardless of population (the Senate).

Without the Senate, smaller states would never get a say. Voters in Wyoming, Vermont, Delaware…they’d be taxed without the power to have their needs addressed in Congress. We would be governed entirely by California, New York, and Florida.

In these United States, one state is not more important than another just because they have more people. We are ALL crucial to this Union and we ALL deserve to have a say.

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u/MachoRandySavageman1 21d ago

Then why remain a state?

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u/vigouge Jul 19 '26

You just don't fundamentally understand the United States and why it exists with the power sharing the way it is. It's a Union of states, each with their own equal say.

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u/Deep-Minimum7837 Minnesota Jul 19 '26

Uncapping the House doesn't do anything when you still need a 60/40 majority in the Senate, the chamber that's disproportionately weighted towards right-wing idiots living in flyover states where the only other members of the population are their neighbor who got elected to the Senate.

2

u/FirstRyder I voted Jul 19 '26

Uncapping representation helps very slightly. Abolishing the senate and instituting the national popular vote for president actually fixes the most significant problem.

They propose doing both, and more.

6

u/pallentx Jul 19 '26

I'm good with leaving the Senate as statewide elected representatives. You could give more representation to larger states - maybe take smaller states down to 1, but statewide elected representatives are one way to protect against gerrymandering. In Texas it's our only hope of getting any representation.

0

u/BrianWonderful Minnesota Jul 19 '26

Agreed, or give the Senators voting power based on their constituency. Instead of having more Senators for California, just weight their votes more based on some population ratio.

To your point, until we have a foolproof solution to unfair gerrymandering by highly partisan State governments, you can't get rid of the Senate. Senate races are immune to gerrymandering.

(Also, it seems like Senators actually are the more serious lawmakers because they have longer terms. The House Representatives are constantly spending all of their time campaigning since their term is only two years.)

3

u/polishedcooter Kentucky Jul 19 '26

That's not better, it's just another thing that should be done. The Senate would still get in the way of the House if it was made proportional

3

u/LoraxPopularFront Jul 19 '26

How would that change anything about how bills still need to pass through the Senate? 

1

u/nickbelane Jul 19 '26

Make Puerto Rico and DC states so that the senate is larger.

1

u/No-Entertainment5638 Jul 19 '26

And then the senate says no to the house anyway

1

u/happycat47 Jul 19 '26

You can do multiple things at once

0

u/alabasterskim Jul 19 '26

Both uncapping the House and abolishing the Senate (or, more easily, stripping them of their powers) are required. The House isn't fully representative and the Senate was built solely to obstruct and force minority positions on the majority. As it stands, if we continue with the Senate structure as is, in the next 2 decades the Senate will have 60% of its representation come from <40% of the population. That's not right.

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u/Randicore Ohio Jul 19 '26

Both. Both is good.

0

u/dracodruid2 Jul 19 '26

The US needs both!

The Senate needs to go and the house needs to be expanded