Julie Smith suggests on Thursday that New Hampshire follow Nebraska and have a single legislative chamber, presumably our lower House, and do away with the Senate.
She mentions my proposal Tuesday, that New Hampshire follow part of Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies and let voters select a Senator by specifying our philosophy or party rather than picking a specific nominee.
Julie’s column is mostly about the Senate’s corruption, in which a right-thinking Senator gets “chilled” or “steamrolled.” The Senator acquiesces — or is frightened by the publicity of a roll-call vote — as a good bill is killed or a bad bill is passed, tucked inside a unanimous, anonymous Consent Calendar.
Now, wait. On the one hand, there is too much publicity, and on the other hand, there’s too much secrecy. And by the way, the House also has roll calls, Consent Calendars, and whips to remind his party’s Reps of the painful consequences of leaving the Hive. (The pressure is why two from each party became Libertarians last session, where they had no pressure and thus no theme, only a date with election oblivion.) And what about the concealment when a hundred good bills (including limitations on future States of Emergency) were bundled into the Budget Companion Bill? None of us demanded separate bills, one issue per bill, as we tend to do, because we and our Reps knew that the Governor would veto each of them; he couldn’t veto HB-2.
Julie says that it’s easier to be true to yourself and your constituents in a sea of 399 other Reps, but my part of the state is only interested in two of them, and none of their public acts are made hard to follow by the size of the House. Does Senate “corruption” simply mean the author’s opinions often don’t prevail?
I can accept Julie’s proposal of a unicameral New Hampshire General Court, though there is a benefit to having two chambers, even if we apportion them in an identical way. A chamber leader’s strong will, or even personal whims, and sessions in which Republicans run one house and Democrats the other make it harder for both chambers to enact identical text, and that is a safeguard.
Julie, what do you say about my proposal — Keep the Senate but make it structurally different from the House to reflect philosophies rather than our geography? Nothing. Over to you!
