The US Senate remains a clubby good ol' boy network of mostly rich, white males, writes Earl Ofari Hutchinson
The almost certain election of black Illinois legislator Barack Obama to the US Senate in November has ignited almost as much excitement as his acclaimed Democratic convention keynote speech.
He would be only the fifth black person to sit in the Senate to date. If Georgia Representative. Denise L. Majette wins the August 10th Democratic primary run-off for the Senate nomination, she also has an outside chance of winning a Senate seat. If she doesn't, Obama may well be the lone black senator for years to come.
But the Senate's glaring diversity problem goes far beyond Obama. There are no Hispanics, no one who is openly gay and only one American Indian, one Chinese-American, one Japanese-American and 14 women in the Senate. While there's the faint stir of reform in Britain that could turn the House of Lords, which for centuries typified the ultimate in political snobbery and class privilege, into a more democratic body, the Senate remains a clubby good ol' boy network of mostly rich, white males.
It has sole power to approve a declaration of war, debate treaties, approve nominations to the Supreme Court and decide the guilt or innocence of an impeached president.
The founding fathers made no secret that they wanted the Senate to be an Olympian law-making body. James Madison bluntly wrote that the Senate should be the ultimate check to prevent the people from "overwhelming" government.
For nearly a century and a quarter, state legislators elected senators. Though the 17th amendment changed that in 1913, it did not end the Senate's political insulation and elitism.
At least 40 US senators are millionaires. Many have been in office for decades and are almost impossible to unseat. The six-year Senate term of office is the longest of any elected body in America. That spares senators the need to continually discuss and debate issues and policy directly with voters. It also shields their actions from public scrutiny.
Mississippi is a near-textbook example of how changing racial demographics have little effect on incumbents. Blacks make up more than a third of the state's population and more than a quarter of the voters. They are solidly Democratic.
Mississippi had the second-highest percentage of black delegates at the Democratic National Convention, yet the state's two senators, Trent Lott and Thad Cochran, have been in the Senate for more than four decades between them. They are doctrinaire, conservative Republicans. In Lott's case, there's evidence of lingering segregationist sentiments.
Senate candidates also must raise millions of dollars, get their party's official stamp and appeal to conservative, white, middle-class voters to get elected. Obama raised a record $4 million from April 1st to June 30th.
He must draw support from conservative white Democrats and neutralise Republicans across Illinois. As a top Democrat, he also must adhere tightly to Democratic presidential contender John Kerry's campaign emphasis of toughness on national security and the war on terrorism.
Unlike the US House, the Senate is not based on proportional representation. Senators represent broad geographic areas instead of specific districts. Although California's population is 70 times greater than Wyoming's, it has the same number of senators. The chance of a constitutional overhaul to change that is nil.
Finally, a shameful racial example of the Senate's unlimited power to make and enforce its own rules was aimed at Mississippi Senator Hiram Revels, the first black in the Senate.
When Revels presented his credentials to the Senate in February 1870, some senators demanded they be rejected as he did not meet the nine-year citizenship requirement for a senator. He did; the move was defeated and Revels was seated. He served barely a year. Other than the single term Blanche K. Bruce served a few years after Revels, it would be nearly a century before another black, Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke, entered the halls of what stands as the world's most elite and august chamber.
With the Senate's frozen conservative tradition and the granite resistance to reform, Obama's election wouldn't do much to change that. - Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a political analyst and the author of The Crisis in Black and Black