The American Senate is a more-unique-than-not institution, departing significantly from the Senate of ancient Rome which was its ostensible model, but having far more powers than comparable upper houses in other legislatures of the world.

In Rome, during the Republican period, the Senate was the ruling body, setting national policy and choosing both civil and military leaders -- a version of "super cabinet" incorporating the nomination prerogative of the American presidency as well as having all the powers of a parliament to call national leaders before it to defend their policies. The Roman Senate's membership, originally determined by patrician birth, consisted of the paterfamiliae, or heads of noble families, somewhat akin to the post-Conquest Curia Regis, which was the origin of the British House of Lords. The virtually plenipotentiary powers of the Roman Senate were first curtailed in 492-93 BC, fourteen years after the city's founding, when the plebs, returning still armed from one of Rome's early wars against a neighboring tribe, met together on one of the hills surrounding the Palatine to demand the right to elect a Tribune (later two) to voice their views before the Senate regarding pending actions affecting the commonality. This interposition later developed into the Tribunal veto.

In the late Republic, non-patricians became entitled to ex-officio membership in the Senate after serving as Consul or Praetor. At an even later period, Emperors enobled some individuals for personal or state service, creating them senators for life.

In only a handful of modern states, largely following the American example, are senators publically elected for fixed terms. The composition of the United States Senate, with its two members per state, resulted from the "Great Compromise" necessary to induce ratification by the smaller states of the Constitution of 1789, effectively giving the lesser states equal voting rights in the senior house of the national legislature where they could hope to modify, or at least slow down, adoption of legislation considered inimical to their smaller populations.

The composition of the American Senate has however had effects far more widespread than merely influencing the constitutions of some of the newer states of the world. Many governments with unicameral legislatures have recently adopted the U.S. notion of using a second legislative body as a check on the first -- if not always in the form of Upper and Lower Houses. South Africa, for example, has in recent years provided separate legislative bodies for Whites and Coloreds. There is, moreover, reason to believe that S.A. is presently considering extending this concept to a third legislative body composed of Blacks. The three major nationalities in South Africa would each elect its own legislature, slowing down social change (presumably to a rate acceptable to the White minority) by requiring new laws to be acceptable to each of the three legislative bodies, instead of just two, as in the United States. And there was, of course, the Fascist experiment of electing representatives of various trades and professions under the theory of the corporate state.

In Great Britain, rising republican sentiment is calling in question not only the power of the Upper House to veto legislation (Lords are now, under the evolving unwritten British Constitution, authorized only to defer legislation until the following Commons), but the very composition of the House of Lords is itself being questioned. There are at present more Lords for Life than hereditary Lords. And agitation for more safeguards and broader democracy is extending to a growing demand for a written Bill of Rights and extension of the income tax to Royalty.

Recent Proposals for Amending the American System

There is in the United States currently a growing sentiment favoring term limitation. Over ninety-seven percent of Senators and Representatives are returned to office in each election. The feeling is that politics is becoming a profession (and a better paid one than any previous professional experience of most legislators) diminishing the sense of sacrifice for public service which characterized the American system during its first century and more of existence. It is felt that after years of living in Washington, such professionals lose touch with the lives of their constituents. Worse, they not only become arrogantly insensitive to the constituents who first elected them, they begin appealing to marginal voters through new entitlement programs to ensure their reelection with little regard to the taxation necessary to pay the bills.

The major argument against such a major constitutional change to ensure regular turnover and a return to the "citizen legislator" is that term limitation would adversely affect both continuity and seniority, elements which have become integral to the operation of the American system of goverment.

Twenty-five years ago there was a movement among some American political scientists to try to modify the American system to bring it more into line with the parliamentary democracies of Europe. The argument was made that had the American Revolution only taken place a dozen years later, the system of Cabinet responsibility which was at the time in process of development, would already have emerged and been adopted as part of the new American Constitution. This step in the evolution of the British system has the merit of avoiding situations in which legislation can be gridlocked by grave differences between majorities of one party in the House and Senate and the Executive. This can now longer occur in Britain, because a vote of the legislature (parliament) against the Executive (the Cabinet) constitutes a vote of "no confidence", bringing down the government and resulting in a new election. The American system, on the other hand, having had its evolution halted at the end of the eighteenth century with our written Constitution, has frequently experienced a legislative majorities of one party and a White House of another political persuasion.

Indeed, with all but one Republican President in the last twenty years, there has only been one term in which there was a (narrow) Republican majority in the Upper House. Papers were written and seminars held seriously examining this proposal. But the upshot was that most scholars were of the opinion that American democracy had gone too far down the road along the Presidential route to successfully be converted to a parliamentary system. French experience under the Fifth Republic, which attempted to blend Presidential authority with a Prime Minister and Cabinet consisting of parliamentarians, seems to have demonstrated the problems inherent in such attempt.

A Halfway House Which Would Solve Both Problems

There is a way for preserving both institutitonal memory and seniority, with or without term limitation, which would constitute an important step towards the virtues of the Roman Senate and the British House of Lords, while avoiding the non-democratic elements of both of these other bodies. The idea has been put forward previously, but has never received serious discussion. Perhaps in the context of term limitation -- which unlike most other proposals for radically modifying the Constitution is receiving truly serious attention -- this concept merits careful consideration.

Unlike both the Roman and Parliamentary systems, upon a change of President, America immediately loses the services of some of its best and most experienced elder statesmen. Were there incorporated in the Constitution a provision for ex-officio Senate floor privileges (with or without vote) for former Presidents, the nation would be able to benefit from the experience and wisdom of its former Chief Executives in ways affecting both domestic and foreign legislation not at present available. We would also be getting some return on the substantial retirement pay and other benefits extended to former Presidents. The group of former Presidents serving as ex-officio Senators for life, would also constitute a significant font of advice for serving presidents, should he wish to avail himself of their collective wisdom, more akin to the original concept of a senate of twenty-six couselors to assist him with their "advice and consent" regarding significant personnel appointments and treaties than can the present enlarged body.

Some Comments on Adopting Such Changes by Constitutional Convention

There is currently more talk of a possible Constitutional Convention to consider a variety of changes in governmental operations (with focus primarily on budget operations) than perhaps ever before in U.S. history. Some oppose such a convocation, fearing that like the original Convention, such a body could undertake runaway reforms utterly changing the American system of government, with unforseeable consequences.

Such fears are groundless. Unlike the situation in 1789, the U.S. now has a successful and long-established government in being. Should a Convention's proposals prove unpalatable, there is no question but that the goverment in being could cause them to be disregarded whatever the reputations of its members. Moreover, a Convention could have its terms of reference strictly limited by its articles of convocation to consideration of matters of prime importance to the nation at the time of its calling, making its work more one of devising solutions than identifying problems to be solved.

It should be evident that under the provisions of the present Constitution, none of a Convention's recommendations could be adopted without the same ratification by two-thirds of the states, as with adoption of the original Constitution -- or any other form of amendment for that matter.

The virtue of a Convention would be that it could consider three or four related amendments, without, as at present, presenting the electorate with a hodge-podge of minor changes, some of which are even today within a state or two of ratification after having lingered on the periphery of political conciousness for fifty years and longer. Indeed, as part of its tidying up operations, a Second Convention could rationally incorporate the existing twenty-six some odd amendments adopted over the past two hundred years into the text of the Constitution, plus new ones providing for balanced budgets (except, perhaps, during periods of national emergency approved by a two thirds vote of both Houses), as well as term limitations, and re-ratification of the present IX and X amendments reserving to the States or the Peoples thereof all matters not specifically delegated to the Federal Government.

Re-adoption of the Ninth Amendment (which is already part of the existing Constitution, though the Supreme Court has never cited it in any of its findings since the Civil War) would send a strong signal to both the National Legislature and the Supreme Court regarding national sentiment on this issue, eliminating from national debate any number of divisive issues which the Founders wisely recognized were best left to communities. Among these are the rights of criminals in non-Federal cases (including what is and what is not considered unreasonable jail crowding); the right to set conditions for public welfare and public education (regarding which the Constitution says nothing, but which the Court in its un-wisdom several years ago insisted must extend even to the children of illegal immigrants, at once providing the strongest incentive for Mexicans near the border to send their children for a free first-class education in Texas and Arizona at the expense of local U.S. tax payers); the terms under which abortion (and euthanasia) may or may not be authorized; the availability of narcotics (most now illegal) for administration to terminal cases to alleviate suffering; prayers offered at graduation services, non-denominational creches as part of the celebration of major holidays, and acceptable standards for such basic social issues as pornography, abortion, and the treatment of homosexuals in terms of owner-control over housing and publically financed social benefits.

(How we can hold legal the declaration of a religious holiday as a paid, non-working day for both Federal and State employees while at the same time declaring it illegal to place a creche in a public square symbolizing why we are using public money to pay public workers for not working on said holiday, is beyond logic. Similarly, opening each day of work in House, Senate, and Supreme Court with prayer by a publically salaried chaplain, and similarly paying several thousand military chaplains to perform like services in our Armed Forces, while arguing that prayer at graduation assembly for high school students is an impermissable imposition of "state religion" is absurd.)

While such issues are clearly matters of public policy, it is equally evident that there is no national consensus regarding them. They are evident subjects for diverse treatment in our nation of workshop states -- and the attempt to impose national solutions can only result in civil dissention and violence, as is, in fact, the case. The Founders were wiser in this respect than we have recognized.

A Further Matter for Consideration

While it might not be difficult to get agreement that former Presidents, who draw retirement pay of $150,000 a year, plus office, mail, staff, secretarial, and security guard expenses, could serve the nation by being (voting or non-voting) senators for life, there might be more disagreement on taking a further step towards the Roman approach to senatorship: i.e. making other former senior statesmen ex-officio senators (either for life, or for one or two terms beyond their demission from office). This is best, perhaps, left to the drafters of a Constitutional Amendment (or Convention) to decide.

Many students of government would readily agree, however, that other candidates for ex-officio senatorial office might include former Secretaries of State, Treasury, and Defense. Conceivably, all former Cabinet rank officials could usefully serve as ex-officio senators for at least one term after leaving office.
One formula might be:

Ex-Presidents = ex-officio Senator (with vote) for life