We the People

I thought that Rosenfeld's article brought up some truly fascinating points about the nature of the U.S. Senate. Since grade school, the bicameral system is lauded as an important component of the separation of powers within the U.S. government. Prior to reading Rosenfeld's article, I never questioned the truth of this assumption. I have to say though that I am pretty persuaded by his comparison of the Senate to the House of Lords in England; in 2000 the average cost of a successful Senate campaign was $7 million, something that de facto suggests a wealth prerequisite to serving in the Senate. While I would not agree with Rosenfeld's rather radical call to eliminate the Senate altogether, I think it might be appropriate for some measures to be taken (similar to those Rosenfeld mentioned were instituted in England to the House of Lords) to curtail their powers in the interest of the U.S. government being more representative of the people. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense that a larger number of representatives, each serving a smaller constituency, would be more suited to represent their population of people than someone attempting to represent an entire state, particularly in states with highly heterogeneous populations with widely varying interests. In my opinion, the essence of representative government is that people are represented in proportion to their numbers, a principle reflected in the House of Representatives but not the Senate (as Rosenfeld repeatedly points out). He also makes a good point that congresspeople are more accountable since they serve shorter terms, allowing their constituents to vote them out if they are displeased with how they are being represented.
Another really good point Rosenfeld made was his discussion of Jefferson's rewording of Locke's phrase "life, liberty, and estates," to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness," in order to emphasize that property-ownership should not be a requirement for office-holding or voting (something many of the other Founders disagreed with). This quote by Jefferson is still very relevant today: "I have not observed men's honesty to increase with their riches." Considering the exponentially growing campaign costs from election cycle to election cycle, it seems that now there is a de facto requirement of either great personal wealth or great patronage from private business for a candidate to successfully run a campaign (especially for President, but this could apply in the Senate as well). Both of these options are highly problematic; the first excludes 99% of the population from running for office, and the second creates a set of people (the business-owners contributing millions to campaigns) whose interests tend to receive special attention (which is of course why they donate so much in the first place) and undermine the spirit of a representative government. I think the most important point made by Rosenfeld was that the Constitution was never intended to be a completely fixed, inflexible, eternal document but rather was supposed to be revised to suit the needs of the time. It seems that people often forget that now, but since our current system is far from perfect, perhaps some thought should be put into how best to improve it.