SECTION. 3
Clause 1
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, [chosen by the Legislature there- of,]* for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.
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In the early days of the United States, the idea of having equal representation for each of the states seemed like an inherently good idea; in many respects, it still is. The fact that you have equal representation for each of the states means that the states with bigger populations and are therefore entitled to more Members of the House, can not jam through legislation which might seem harmful or adverse to the smaller states. In this respect, it is excellent.
In practice though, the fact that there are only two Senators from each State, means that the mechanics of elections are such that you are only ever likely to see members from an in-party or an out-party being elected, owing to the vagrancies of Duverger's Law. The Senate is not quite made up of single member constituencies but it might as well be.
The other massive problem with having only two Senators from each State, and which is so obvious that even Blind Freddy from Kentucky can see this, is that the Senators themselves end up being absurdly powerful when compared to the Members of the House. There are 435 Members of the House. There are only 100 Senators. This means that purely from a legislative perspective, each of the Members of the House carry less than 23% of the power than each of the Senators do. This actually ends up working completely counter to the aim of the Senate; which I assume was to over-egg the pudding in favour of smaller states so that they could not be railroaded. With the current enmeshed mechanical party system, what this means is that parties can and do act like cross-state compacts; which undoes the point of the Senate so that it becomes not a house of review but a house of power based on anti-representation.
Australia improved this by expanding the number of Senators and implementing Proportional Representation. If Australia's nexus provisions had been applied to the United States Senate, then the number of Senators would be either 200 or 250; with the numbers of members in the house broadly remaining the same or expanding to c.500.
Clause 2
Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; [and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.]*
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The best Prime Minister that the United Kingdom never had, Tony Benn, liked to ask five questions of powerful people:
1. What power have you got?
2. Where did you get it from?
3. In whose interests do you exercise it?
4. To whom are you accountable?
5. And how can we get rid of you?
Especially if you can not answer that last question, then you do not live in a democracy.
It must be said that six years for a term length, is a long time. In comparison with the House, that is three times as long and in comparison with the President, that is one and a half times as long. I suspect that this is Hamilton's invention and he imagined the Senate as a place where the various States sent their brightest and finest legal minds, as evidenced by the now removed part of Clause 1 [chosen by the Legislature there- of,]. My suspicion is that Hamilton had the best of intentions but was very very naïve.
In practice it means that the power of recall is quite hard as once installed, the only way to address Tony Benn's Fifth Question "How can we get rid of you?" happens either at the ballot box once every six years, or by the power of impeachment which may as well happen on the Sixth of Never (which is a very long time).
Clause 3
No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.
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They want someone who has had some degree of life experience, which is noble but again naïve. Life experience is in no way a good analog to assess character.
Clause 4
The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.
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The Vice President of the United States is either the best job in the world as it affords a salary with practically no responsibility, or the worst job in the world as it affords a salary with practically no responsibility and no power. The Vice President's only Constitutional role is to be a tie-breaker, or a mediator and chairperson of someone else's legal war, and the inheritor of the most powerful position in the United States but only it the worst or the weird should happen.
The Vice President's role here is to sit in the meetings of the Senate as President; which seems like an awful awful job and then their only meaningful interaction is to act as the final vote in the event of a deadlock. As the United States Congress was invented before the invention of party politics, perhaps Hamilton thought that this was a noble. However, it didn't take very long for party politics to raise its head (Washington even tells off the Congress about it during his farewell address); which means that the Vice President is just another cog in the party machine and only becomes operative in periods of hyper-exact-partisan knife fighting.
Clause 5
The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States
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This looks identical to the similar Clause relating to the House of Representatives. See that section.
Clause 6
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.
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Whereas the House has the power to arraign and invent the charges of impeachment from office, it is the Senate which actually has the power to try and decide whether or not to remove someone from office. This is an overtly political process and seems like it would be open to deliberate manipulation by a hostile House and Senate if they had the numbers in factions which could accord together.
The bar of two thirds of the Members present is probably deliberately set very high, as to ensure that what is very obviously a political process, doesn't become an overtly political process even though it totally is. The level of offence caused by the person being impeached and then tried and tested has to be so severe that it offends a super-majority of Senators. Given what we've seen in my lifetime where the levels of offence given and taken have been turned beyond even 11 to 12 (and possibly 13), and the level of partisanship has also been raised beyond the point of sanity, then perhaps this super-majority requirement is inadvertently sensible.
Clause 7
Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.
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This clause is the concession that the Impeachment, Trial, and Testing process for the removal from Office as very obviously a political process, remains purely a political process. The United States likes to tell itself the myth that there is a separation of powers (even though there are overlaps all over the shop), but at least here the actual process of criminal law has been left to the realm of the judiciary.
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