It is a common observation that allowing the president to nominate persons for various offices and the Senate merely to take or leave his nominees makes the president far more powerful than the Senate, with respect to that process.
But it could have been worse for the Senate.
And much worse for each senator.
Imagine that for each job he sent them two persons of whom they had to pick one.
That would make the president even more powerful vis a vis the Senate.
And now imagine there were eighty million senators.
And imagine you were one of those senators, and had not the tiniest shade of influence on the votes of others.
If nobody paid you to show up to vote, why would you, no matter how much you cared about the outcome?
And now consider the case of ordinary legislation.
Again, if you were a senator and there were eighty million senators and you had no influence on the votes of others and nobody paid you to show up to vote, why would you?
Henry Maine points out the vote is so contemptible the people commonly sell them for drinks, where this can be done without fear.
I once sold mine for a six-pack to a Democrat who wanted me to vote for Bill Clinton.
And I did.
And he paid on election night as we watched the returns.
Popular Government.
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