Mystery:Why is the Senate More Liberal than the House?

As the political struggle over the debt ceiling in July 2011 illustrates, the U.S. Senate is currently more liberal than the U.S. House of Representatives? Other examples include how the House voted to end funding of the abortion provider Planned Parenthood, yet the Senate voted to continue the funding.

Why is the Senate more liberal than the House? Reasons include:

• Natural changes in voting patterns. Over the past 154 years of the Senate, the Senate has been a Republican institution 53% of the time.

• Senate elections are statewide, and thus are more easily influenced by liberal media organizations than local House elections are.

• Senators are elected to a six year term, rather than the two years that members of the House of Representatives are elected to, making the Senate less accountable to the voters. The Senate, for much of its history, has always been more moderate than the House.

• Individual Senators receive more media attention than House members do, thereby making the Senators more full of themselves than House members are.

• Because Senators are elected to six year terms instead of two, the Senate is still Democratic while the House is Republican.

• The course of history is towards increasing conservatism, but the Senate's longer term of office means it is slower than the House in catching up to the increasingly conservative public.

• Because only 1/3 of the Senate is elected each year, only 1/3 of the seats can shift from Democrat to Republican in a given election (excepting special elections). However, the entire House is up for reelection every two years. So, if 60% of voters vote Republican in a given election, roughly 60% of the House will be Republican (actually, that isn't exactly true. It depends on the distribution of Democrats and Republicans among electoral districts. But that's beyond the scope of this discussion). However, since only 1/3 of the Senate is up for election each year, even with significant seat changes, it's still slower to respond than the House. The Democrats lost 6 of the 19 Senate seats they held that were up for reelection this past 2010. In the House, they had a net loss of 63 seats of the 257 they held that were up for reelection (they actually lost a few more than 63, but gained a few too). So, they actually lost a HIGHER percentage of seats in the Senate than the House. However, fewer Senate seats were up for election, so they still controlled it. One of the reasons for the higher percentage of Senate seats lost was because many Congressional Districts will always vote Democrat (or Republican) no matter what. In NY-15, Democrat Charlie Rangel won 80% of the vote in spite of facing massive corruption charges. It helped that NY-15 is the most pro-Democrat district in the country. Rangel won over 90% of the vote in 2008, before the charges. If a Democrat senator were facing those charges, then since the state as a whole would be significantly closer than an individual district, they'd almost certainly lose. (As Republican Ted Stevens did in traditional red-state Alaska in 2008). But since some districts have such great support for one side or the other, it's pretty much impossible to get them to switch sides. Hence, the Senate actually sees more swing in most elections than the House, but since not every seat is up for election, it has less impact.

• Senate election races are less dependent on grassroots activism than on money, which tends to shift the focus away from the social views of the voters

• Gerrymandering and voter distribution. There are House seats that are totally safe for Democrats, and some totally safe for Republicans. Charles Rangel’s seat is a perfect example of one the Democrats will not lose for the foreseeable future. With no fear of losing in an election, you only fear is base. There are lots of Republican candidates that could never lose to a Democrat, but could be ousted by the Tea Party. They therefore have to appeal to the Tea Party and not the centrist voter. Same idea with the Democrats. Now, a certain number of these safe seats occur naturally. Cities will tend to be highly Democratic while certain rural areas will always go Republican. Politicians increase the number of these seats through Gerrymandering. It is in a Democrat's best interest to have conservative areas of his district removed and liberal sections added. It is in a Republican’s best interest to go along with it - because his seat becomes safer as well. The Senate is different. You can’t Gerrymander a Senate seat and the laws of probability will give you a much tighter race that is decided by independent voters and not the base. Senators therefore need to appeal to the independent voter over the base. Just look at the last election. The Republicans were supposed to win in Nevada, Delaware and Alaska. In all three cases the candidates focused more on the base than the independent voter and lost.

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