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Comment by meddlepal | Hacker News Reader

It won't pass the Senate floor. Absolutely pointless.

Of course it won't pass. But it isn't pointless - this is theater intended to distract from the utterly disastrous covid stimulus talks that have seen the dems lose more and more ground on a potential deal.

Dems are being held hostage by Republicans who don't care one bit about passing necessary amounts of stimulus (Fed chair Powell has said, paraphrased, "No amount is too much at this point" [1]). Dems need those senate seats in Georgia to break the gridlock caused by Senate Republicans. This will help those efforts (encouraging voter turnout), as does Trump telling his base to not go out and vote [2].

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=powell+stimulus+too+much

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/30/us/politics/georgia-repub...

It will if Democrats win the Georgia races.

Unlikely.

Not pointless. Having such a bill pass the House contributes to the normalization of cannabis legalization.

The Senate is an incredibly un-democratic institution and a truly massive barrier standing in the way of a functioning government. Mitch McConnell alone can dictate Senate business at his whims.

It is democratic, just not the sort one might expect. It’s a democracy of the states. That’s by design. The House is an approximate democracy of the people in the states (with some weighting so that the most populous states don’t have a complete monopoly) and the senate is a democracy of the states. Together they form an approximate republic of the country’s opinion... in an ideal world.

I could see that being true if we didn't have this two-party gridlock. In a world where D votes against R because "red team bad" and R votes against D because "blue team bad", it feels like we're watching our entire democracy erode away.

One person shouldn't be able to unilaterally decide what will and won't be voted on, and shouldn't be able to tell half of the senate how they'll be voting if they want access to re-election funds.

I don't know what the solution is, or who could implement one. But it's really hard to look at the last decade or two and claim that the senate is working as intended.

> It is democratic,

No it's not.

> It’s a democracy of the states.

The “demo-” in “democracy” means something, and it's not “the states”.

If you mean “its a majoritarian body of which the constituents are States”, that's partly true (although in some ways the Senate is nonmajoritarian), but that is, by definition, not a “democracy”.

This response frustrates me because while it's technically correct, I think it misses what I was saying entirely.

My perception of what the OP was going for was a complain that the Senate is, in some way and not representing anything - just arbitrary wills.

It is representing something, though. It's the second half of congress and it's meant to represent the will of the states as a whole.

Calling it a "majoritarian body of which the constituents are states", while technically correct, is full of sufficiently advanced language as to lose meaning in regular conversation.

Instead, I explained how it is equal representation, of sorts - the things that are being represented are the states, so it is fair, of sorts.

It's easier for a person who doesn't want to read a set of scholarly words to think "oh, so it's a democracy, except all the states are people" than it is to break down each word - at least, I think it is, which is why I worded it that way.

Also in their statement, I assumed, was an assumption that it's unfair and therefore the Senate is worthless and should be abolished because it ignores everyone's will - even when working properly - so, I tried to compact that in there, as well, by trying to bring implications that the United States of America is not just a collective of people, but it's also a collective of states and each of them desires representation in our democracy.

I guess, thank you for the etymology lesson, but it missed my whole point.

> equal representation, of sorts - the things that are being represented are the states, so it is fair, of sorts.

Equal representation of things that aren't the individual citizens is not democracy, and is in fact opposed to democracy; and "fair, of sorts" is orthogonal to democracy.

Yes, democracy is a more convenient term and concept than many of those that might be accurately applied to the Senate, but its not even remotely accurate when applied to the Senate, which is deliberately not merely non-democratic, but actively anti-democratic.

If you want to argue that the design of the Senate is useful or good or fair in some way, go ahead and do that, but don't expect to use "democracy" for that purpose without argument just because its a warm fuzzy word that is more convenient than any word with equally positive general reception that accurately applies to the Senate.

Looking at the latin or greek roots of the word is fine from a historical context, but I cant find any definition of democracy that doesnt sound somewhat like this one: "Rule by the people, especially as a form of government; either directly or through elected representatives". Its going to take a real stretch to not have the US fit that definition, whether or not you like how the Senate works, or find it fair.

He is a convenient scape goat for all the other Republican senators. They could replace him if they really wanted to, but they dont.

Try not to be misled into thinking that most of the GOP has any problem with how Mitch wields his power. Mitch McConnell wouldn't still be the Senate Majority leader if they did. He isn't acting alone, he's just who's taking the blame.

> Mitch McConnell alone can dictate Senate business at his whims.

No, he can't, because he can be replaced if the majority caucus is unhappy with him. He hasn't been because he enacts their will.

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