Lords and Senators

Britain's House of Lords makes for an interesting contrast with the typical American Senate, and now it looks like the House of Lords may become a wee bit more like it's American cousin.

The House of Lords has the following characteristics, among others:

• 746 members (107 more than the House of Commons)
• About 600 members appointed for life
• No directly elected members
• 26 members appointed by virtue of their position as the most important or longest serving clergy in the Church of England
• The house generally has only limited authority to delay legislation and no authority to reject legislation originating in the lower house
• In some cases, the assent of the House of Lords is not required at all for legislation to pass

But the House of Lords is now the subject of a reform movement to make it more democratic (http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8675277), with one version of the reform plan calling for 50% of the members to be popularly elected. Check out these comments from the Economist article:

“Even electing 50% of the Lords would completely ruin it,” argues Lord Lipsey, a
Labour peer who once worked at The Economist. The expertise gathered in the
Lords would, he says, be impossible to replicate with elections. Lord Steel, a
former leader of the Liberal Democrats, also argues that the Lords should be
appointed from among the eminent in different walks of life, even though his
party has long wanted to make the place democratic . . .

Life terms for legislators. Now, there's an idea that is foreign to the American way of doing legislative business. I know, some in the campaign finance reform crowd would say we have de facto life terms as it is. But anyone who has spent time in and around an American legislature knows that the election cycle is a powerful constitutional tool for enhancing accountability. Elections matter to legislators. And if you think they don't matter to the people, try advocating life terms for your state senate. Even on the merits of it, would life appointments for "eminent" individuals really add to the quality of lawmaking? Given the lack of accountability such a system would support, I can see why the House of Lords generally doesn't have authority to stop legislation originating in the popularly elected House of Commons.