The Georgia Senate race felt, for me, like the most stressful political race of my lifetime. This may seem shocking, considering the fact that the elections of 2016 and 2020 remain some of the most contentious and divisive of any presidential election ever, but when it came down to it, those presidential races felt like migraines, as the three candidates pushed to the frontlines made gaffe after gaffe on a national stage. Plus, most of my top candidates didn’t make it past early primaries, so really, I’d already lost.
That Georgia Senate race, however, proved a nightmare. Two Georgian Democrat newcomers had to knock off an incumbent senator and a senator personally appointed by a relatively well-liked governor for Democrats to get anything done. Otherwise, the country gets stuck in a gridlock for four years, and no progress gets made. And worst of all, because the Senate majority depended on the outcome of this race, only one percent of the country made the decision that would shape our country’s next two years, and probably more. Why should that be allowed?
The Senate feels like a monarchy disguised as representative democracy. Though the president has a limit of eight years in office, the average senator serves ten years and has no limit to how long they could potentially serve. This means that in the most consistently blue or red states, senators serve for upwards of thirty years, oftentimes with the backing of huge donors and other monetary contributors. I’m not opposed to a state sticking to party lines if the constituency wants that to represent them. I am, however, vehemently opposed to a state being unwittingly stuck with a senator that hasn’t had to change their strategy since before the legalization of gay marriage. Senator Leahy (D-VT) has served since 1975, and recently made the news for throwing the narrowly Democratic Senate into a panic after a hospitalization. Of course he suffers from serious health concerns; the man will soon celebrate his 81st birthday.
I don’t blame the senators for wanting to stay in the Senate any more than I blame the Green Party for putting someone on the presidential ballot, because why wouldn’t you? If you can hold more power than over 299 million people in America, then you keep that power. However, that doesn’t change the fact that the Senate has broken America. The Presidential election often doesn’t matter nearly as much as it should because the Senate majority votes for another party, resulting in vetos and bills falling into the “we’re just not going to bring this to a vote” box. At some points, voters get stuck choosing between a gridlock and what they view as backward progress, which shouldn’t be how America works. The Senate needs less power, and term limits would make for a good start.
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