Reply #10: Short answer is no

[Bert]

The senate itself is a defense against majority rule. Despite all the brainwashing I have been fed in my american education this is why I still believe that the senate is a barrier to progress if you believe in a representative democracy or democratic republic, unless you believe that 150,000 people should have the same voting power as 26 million people. This is probably why no other respectable democracy to my knowledge has anything like it. And the house of lords has no official power to my knowledge, being merely a symbolic figurehead much like their monarch.

So when we then say that 40 senators who may represent less than a third of a country have more power than the other two thirds the simple answer is get rid of it unless your goal is a dysfunctional government.