SICKLY SENATE NEEDS SURGERY

Because James Madison compromised to enact a Constitution, President Obama is now willing to compromise to transform our health-care system.

Had Madison known that Americans would now be debating health-care reform, he probably would have predicted that the U.S. Senate might be the real stumbling block. The man who would become our fourth president believed 222 years ago that the compromise Connecticut plan to create the Senate as we know it would be unhealthy for democracy.

Madison and other delegates to the Constitutional Convention proposed proportionate representation for a national legislature precisely because the minority in this country can obstruct legislation that the majority wants. It is safe to figure that the majority in 23 states with a combined population of 168 million are demanding health-care reform; if we count swing states, including Florida’s 18 million residents, the number would likely top 200 million.

The largest Jewish communities are concentrated in many of these states.

Madison probably would have expected Sen. Kent Conrad’s pronouncement that “there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option.” Conrad, a Democrat, represents North Dakota, third from the bottom in population, at 641,000 people. New York and California, whose senators all back a government program for health insurance, together represent one-sixth of the population with a combined population of 55 million.

Conrad and other Democratic senators representing at least five swing states fear they may lose their seats if they vote for a health plan with a public option.

As a result, Obama is willing to compromise, just as Madison was in 1787. Madison’s Virginia delegation introduced its Virginia plan which proposed proportionate representation in the national legislature, but delegates from small states balked out of fear their interests would be subjugated to that of the larger states.

The delegation from New Jersey, a smaller state then but now 11th highest in population, introduced the New Jersey plan to protect their clout. Then came the compromise Connecticut plan - Connecticut is now the 29th most populous state - which left us with our current system requiring a crucial difference in voting powers between the House and the Senate.

Every member of the House has nearly equal clout, each representing the same number of constituents. Each state is represented by two senators, and they hardly have equal clout. California’s senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, afford their 36.7 million constituents as much power as Wyoming’s senators, Michael B. Enzi and John Barrasso, whose state is the least populous with 532,000 people.

Madison and other delegates ultimately came around simply because they wanted a Constitution. He even helped sell the Constitution to the public when he wrote one-third of the Federalist Papers. He supported the Senate plan, but even then he warned that the system could be “injurious.”

Obama cannot be blamed if a health-care bill as he wants it will be discarded by Conrad and company. The President cannot convince them to come on board so long as they are convinced their constituents oppose the public option. In the Senate, the will of the majority does not matter. What counts is what the majority in the majority of the states want. The tail wags the dog in the Senate.

The system is doubly unfair because we all pay the same tax rates and, presumably, the larger states pour the most tax money into the federal treasury, especially from places like Beverly Hills, New York’s Upper East Side and Greenwich, Conn.

Nice racket. It gives the term “other people’s money” new meaning. The racket must end. That the present Senate should be replaced by a chamber that affords more proportionate representation is long overdue. However, the Constitution itself makes that difficult at best. Two-thirds of both chambers and three-fourths of the states must approve any amendments.

On a practical level, lawmakers from the more progressive states can exploit their power of the purse. If any smaller, conservative states clog up a proposed national policy, the House can withhold money for these states. Maybe they can authorize a nuclear waste dump next door to North Dakota’s state capitol.

Interestingly, Senate Democrats began considering a Senate procedure which would circumvent a filibuster and require only a majority vote to pass a reform bill.

Meanwhile, liberals from Greenwich Village and Berkeley can move to these states to offset the old-school votes. Not me. To paraphrase film satirist Al Brooks, you spend the winter in North Dakota.