The US Senate is a fundamentally anti-democratic institution

Now that we've been reminded that the minority of Americans represented by the Republican Senators have a stranglehold on legislation, it's time to remind ourselves (and our elected officials) that the Senate is not a democratic institution.<br><br>51 Senators from states with a combined ~38 million residents can block any legislation if it doesn't represent the will of those 38 million people. In other words, Senators representing about 12% of the population get to decide what laws get passed for the remaining 88% of the population.<br><br>While the founding fathers did intend for the Senate to ensure smaller states (by area, not population) have a voice in government, that is no longer a valid justification for such gross inequality.<br><br>After all, we used to have slaves too. We used to not let women vote. And Washington D.C. wasn't even allowed to have representation. Society changes, and our structures of governance need to change with it.<br><br>Now I know some of you are going to say, "but the House is based on population! The Senate is supposed to be a separate institution!" And that's all well and good. But there is no excuse for a situation in which Senators representing 1/8th of the country get to block legislation for the other 7/8ths of the country. This is inherently anti-democratic, and it's time to change it.<br><br>So what are the solutions?<br><br>The best solution would be for the Senate to be apportioned like the House of Representatives, with Senators allocated by population. Of course, that would take a Constitutional Amendment, which isn't going to happen anytime soon. It's not even worth trying.<br><br>Another solution is to simply increase the size of the Senate, but keep the equal number of Senators per state. After all, the Constitution only says that every state must have *at least* one Senator, it doesn't say how many Senators there must be in total. We could increase the number of Senators to 1,000, ensuring that states with large populations have more Senators representing the views of their residents. This is something Congress could do on its own, but it would also dilute the power of each individual Senator, so it's not going to happen either.<br><br>A compromise Senators could reach is to reform the filibuster. Right now, we have a supermajority requirement to break a filibuster. But that supermajority is based on the number of Senators present, not the number of Senators representing a majority of Americans. It should be a simple thing for the Senate to reform the filibuster to require a supermajority of *Americans,* not Senators.<br><br>But that would require Republicans to act against their own interests, so it's not going to happen.<br><br>In conclusion, the US Senate is a fundamentally anti-democratic institution because Senators representing a minority of Americans get to block laws for the majority. There are plenty of ways to fix this, but none of them are politically feasible. Still, Americans need to be aware of this, and our elected officials need to be reminded of this.