George Washington vs. The US Senate by David Barton
This is a completely wrong conclusion, based on several inaccurate theses – at least if the statement is based on the original intent established in the Constitution and explained through the early writings. The “Senate’s mandate to represent all states equally, regardless of their populations” is not the basis for (1) a “priority assigned to deliberation”; (2) “satisfying the overall body”; or (3) becoming “a special forum for the airing of minority points of view.” Rather, the basis for all of these functions is neither constitutional mandate nor Framers’ intentions but rather the Senate’s own rules, for according to Article I, §5, ¶2: “Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings.” Indeed, it is the Senate’s own rules – and neither the Constitution nor original intent – that makes the Senate different from the House in these three respects.
In fact, should the House so decide, it could adopt the Senate rules for its own and would then exhibit the same three traits. As a confirmation of this point, in the early years, filibusters occurred in the House as often if not more so than in the Senate; the House subsequently changed its rules to eliminate this practice and thus today appears “less deliberative” and less open to “express minority views” and “satisfy the overall body.” Furthermore, despite the much larger size of the House as compared to the Senate even two centuries ago, its rules nevertheless allowed for each member to participate individually; it has subsequently changed those rules, but could easily return to them should it so decide. Therefore, the reason that the House does not look like the Senate in its technical day-to-day operation is the different rules that it has set for itself. The wording in this entire paragraph needs to be reworked substantially.
As pointed out in the discussion accompanying p. 17, ¶1 above, “the policy of virtually unlimited debate” is definitely not “what the framers of the Constitution intended.” They intended (and practiced) open debate by all sides, but no where is there any basis for asserting they intended “unlimited debate.” (Even more clear and conclusive evidence on this fact will be included below.) As previously noted, the Senate’s practice of “virtually unlimited debate” is a result of its own rules and not of any constitutional intent.
Often ignored in examining Senate rules is the fact that the Senate is a continuing body; the House is not. While the House completely reorganizes itself every two years (and can easily change its rules), the Senate does not. In fact, the Senate has never gone out of session; for since only a maximum of one-third of its members can be replaced in any election, the Senate has never at any point since 1789 had less than a quorum still sitting in office. Therefore, the real difficulty in altering Senate rules is their requirement for a two-thirds concurrence on any rules change.
The adoption of the two-thirds rule as related to “virtually unlimited debate” (a rule adopted well after the organization of the Senate under the Constitution) has proven to be unfortunate. In Federalist 75, Alexander Hamilton explained why the Framers had not required a two-thirds majority for votes (except for the passage of constitutional amendments) – and thus forewarned about the difficulties that today regularly pervade the Senate under its practice of “virtually unlimited debate”: