united-states us-constitution us-senate
Can the US Senate be abolished without unanimous consent of the States?
<p>Article V of the US Constitution states, in part:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It has been suggested elsewhere that abolishing the Senate, or otherwise reducing its power, would not violate this clause because it would not affect one State at the expense of another.</p>
<p>In my mind, however, if the intent of the Senate is to give each State equal power with the others, then any reduction in the power of the Senate would, <em>de facto</em>, deprive that State of its equal suffrage. Therefore, moving to a unicameral legislature (for example) would require the unanimous consent of the States.</p>
<p>I would love to get a more informed perspective, though.</p>

<p>There is no definitive answer to any of these questions because nobody has ever attempted to do this or anything similar resulting in judicial review of this portion of the U.S. Constitution or of other authoritative interpretation of it outside the courts applied to a real life case as opposed to a mere advisory opinion.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It has been suggested elsewhere that abolishing the Senate, or
otherwise reducing its power, would not violate this clause because it
would not affect one State at the expense of another.</p>
<p>In my mind, however, if the intent of the Senate is to give each State
equal power with the others, then any reduction in the power of the
Senate would, de facto, deprive that State of its equal suffrage.
Therefore, moving to a unicameral legislature (for example) would
require the unanimous consent of the States.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I would not consider this to be a consensus or widely held view, although there is a colorable argument for it. Article V implicates the relative power of the states, not the power of the institution itself.</p>
<p>This said, an entire abolition of the U.S. Senate might very well implicate Article V because then a state has no equal representation in anything (including a portion of the calculation for the Electoral College) as opposed to equal representation in some, albeit less powerful, institution.</p>
<p>For example, I could see Constitutional Amendment providing that treaties are ratified by statutes passed by both houses, rather than by a two-thirds majority of the U.S. Senate alone, being upheld against an Article V challenge.</p>

<p>A simple answer to the simple question of abolishing the Senate is that it would require an amendment ratified by 3/4ths of the states. Art. 1 Sec. 1 says</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of
the United States, <strong>which shall consist of a Senate</strong> and House of
Representatives</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Constitution asserts that there shall be a Senate, so that's the law tat has to be changed. Many clauses would make no sense if there is no Senate, including the Equal Suffrage clause (which is specifically about the Senate) and the Advice and Consent clauses. Since abolition of the Senate requires a constitutional amendment, all of these questions can be clearly and cleanly resolved with one complicated, well-thought-out amendment. Which only requires 75% of the states agreeing.</p>
