The Same Only Different

As far as I know, the length of the terms of both US Senators and Representatives has always been the same as it is now. What has changed is the way senators are elected. They used to be elected by the legislatures of their respective states until 1913, when the 17th Amendment provided that they be directly elected by the people of their states. The original intent was that the senators would represent their states, while the house members would directly represent the people of their districts. The 17th Amendment kind of changed that, but not really. The senate still represents the states, the only thing that has changed is how the senators from each state are elected. It's important to remember that, if the bicameral compromise had not been made, there probably never would have been a United States of America. To change it now would require a constitutional amendment, which would require the ratification of 3/4 of the state legislatures. I doubt that the less populated states would ever agree to that.

The idea of a bicameral legislature probably came from Britain, where they still have the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The lords are not elected by the people, they are appointed by the queen, I think for life. The original intent of that was to provide a check and balance against the power of the rabble, but the commons now have more power than the lords. I'm not sure if the lords can veto an action of the commons, if so, I don't think it happens very often. Until a few years ago, the lords had a function something like our supreme court but, last I heard, Britain was planning on instituting a regular supreme court like ours.

Since we don't have lords here, we probably wouldn't have a bicameral legislature if that compromise hadn't happened. It makes sense on  a national level, when you think about it, but I think that it makes a lot less sense on the state level. I don't know why the states ever adopted it, unless they were just copy catting the federal. Some time ago, the state of Nebraska changed to a unicameral legislature, but the rest of the states didn't follow suit for some reason. When Nebraska did it, their people were really pissed off at their legislators about corruption or something. Apparently it takes more than that to piss off the people in the rest of the states, maybe because we're used to it.