Country could do without Senate

David Klamann, Las Vegas

Monday, Dec. 10, 2012 | 2:01 a.m.

The L.A. Times editorial about reforming the Senate filibuster process totally missed the boat. Just get rid of the U.S. Senate; it’s an antiquated, undemocratic institution that needs to be disbanded and have its responsibilities rolled into the House of Representatives.

Finally, we can slash the size of government and make our leadership more democratic at the same time! None of this ineffective, tiny, baby step “reforming” of the ridiculous rule of the filibuster.

The main problem with the Senate is that it’s not one person, one vote. It’s grossly unfair that the voters of Wyoming have the same percentage of the vote in the U.S. Senate as the people in California.

In effect, because of their population differences, a vote in Wyoming is worth 69 votes from California. It gets even more ridiculous that with the Byzantine rules that those senators have made for themselves, it takes a super-majority to pass anything. Now a tiny fraction of the voters can blackmail the entire country.

The Founding Fathers weren’t perfect, but they didn’t expect time to stand still when they started the noble experiment they saw as the United States of America. We’ve made major changes since our nation’s founding: abolition of slavery and getting women the vote. It’s time that we rid ourselves of this undemocratic, useless, expensive extra cog of our government. What we need is a constitutional amendment to abolish the Senate.