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Week 5 Discussion: Congress
Please choose one of the following questions and react to it briefly in the discussion boards.
Discussion question options:
- In recent years people have proposed term limits for Congressional representatives— limiting Senators to two 6 year terms and members of the House of Representatives to four 2 year terms. Do you think this is a good idea? Why or why not?
- The 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913, making the Senate directly elected by the people of each state. Consider how this changed the incentives of Senators — do you think this change had positive or negative implications for the Senate? Why?
- The filibuster makes it (usually) necessary to obtain a 60-vote supermajority to get legislation passed in the Senate. Should the filibuster be done away with? If so, why? If you argue we should keep it, why?
Week 5 Discussion: Congress Answer
The filibuster makes it (usually) necessary to obtain a 60-vote supermajority to get legislation passed in the Senate. Should the filibuster be done away with? If so, why? If you argue we should keep it, why?
The Senate should follow what the Congress did and get rid of the filibuster. With the increasingly polarized political parties in the U.S., filibuster is excessively used to block everything that the other party wants to do—and that is even if the other party wins majority of the seats.