DANIEL WIRLS, STEPHEN WIRLS. The Invention of the United States Senate. (Interpreting American Politics.) Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2004. Pp. x, 274. $18.95.

Abstract

Unicameral legislatures are today the norm among democratic nations. Daniel Wirls and Stephen Wirls additionally note that “most bicameral legislatures have upper houses that are less powerful or less consequential in comparison to the lower house” (p. 3). The U.S. Senate, by contrast, possesses both constitutional autonomy and institutional legitimacy independent of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Senate also exercises its distinct powers in politically consequential ways in the production of annual budgets and legislative acts with the House, the approval of treaties and executive appointments with the president, and the selection and confirmation of members of the federal judiciary. Moreover, until the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, which provided for popular election of U.S. Senators, the composition of the Senate was defined by the explicit preferences of each state legislature, thereby linking the U.S. Senate to the most powerful set of political actors outside of the federal government. From this perspective, as James Madison claimed in 1787, the U.S. Senate appears as “the great anchor” of the U.S. government. This book aims to provide a detailed history and analysis of this legislative body's theoretical and practical predecessors, the deliberations and original design decisions made at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, and the Senate's early development as a working legislative institution. Although many steps taken along this path cover familiar terrain, no previous work offers an account that ties the theoretical and practical origins of the Senate with its early institutional development. Wirls and Wirls prove to be able guides and their journey worthy of our efforts.