Of late, the U.S. Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee has been investigating the booming multi-billion dollar for-profit college industry — think Kaplan University or DeVry for example. What it has found thus far is not pretty.

As I see it, the answer to these problems of imbalance in our institutions is not to weaken the Executive. In fact, I think we need a strong Executive to cope with the rapid changes the United States is experiencing today. However, I also think that the key to these problems is to strengthen the Congress as a collective institution, but to weaken individual Congresspersons and Senators relative to the party leaders in each House and to the institution as a whole. To do that, in turn, I think we have to get rid of the seniority system in both Houses and the filibuster institution in the Senate.

If we did these two things, the leaders in both Houses would be much stronger and more effective. If no filibusters were possible, majority rule could be restored to the Senate, and inordinate delays in passing legislation would no longer be possible. If committee chairmanships were no longer determined by seniority, but through selection by the leaders of the majority party in each House, the committee chairs would be accountable to the leaders. If the leaders, in turn, were accountable to the party caucuses, then we would have strong party and leader rule in both Houses. The parties, in turn, would be accountable to their stated party platforms, which would finally mean something after elections. Of course, in a situation like this, party discipline could also be enforced in the Congress as it is in the British system, and the majority party would have no problem passing positive legislation that it favored.

Conventional wisdomaire Charlie Cook’s political outfit has downgraded Harry Reid’s 2010 re-election to a toss-up despite not knowing who his GOP opponent will be in the general next year.

Bobo the Canary sings warning about social unrest. He tells the Villagers to stay the course and resist social change. It might give us a popular president, responsive to the popular will.

Senator Lieberman has made his position very clear over the past two years, while not investigating any Bush scandals from his chair of Homeland Security and Government Oversight. Why should I help Democratic Senators get to 60 if this is how they reward disloyalty?