You think the House would be more sane if we had preferential voting??
TB was advocating proportional representation rather than preferential voting. I actually think that could work out ok for your House. As it stands, it seems to me that the House has functioned best when each major party included a number of factions and caucuses which could negotiate beyond the party line. It made it possible to build workable coalitions for individual pieces of legislation (hopefully knocking off some of the rough edges in the process). It's become dysfunctional now IMO because the parties have become more ideologically distinct and party discipline has increased. (By which I mostly mean the Republicans, who couldn't cough up even one member that favoured compromising to stop the worst financial crisis in 80 years over scoring political points.)
Not entirely true - I also blame the Tea Party bloc, which is IMO a rabble of rank amateurs willing to plunge the world back into economic chaos because they don't understand how the political process works. Screw sending outsiders to change Washington, I'ma vote for the competent professionals.
Anyway, point is, PR would potentially lead to much the same situation as you had when party control was looser, with various factions providing checks and balances on one another. (It needs to be well designed; in some countries it's just led to chaos and revolving-door governments. But in others it's worked well, and I think the US system gives reason for optimism here.)
FWIW, I don't know whether the House (and the Presidency, and the Senate) would be more sane with preferential voting, but I do think it would better reflect the will of the people. It might just take the edge off pandering to extremists as well.
Finally, though, I agree with you. I think Senate rules are in great need of reform. (By the way, apparently Harry Reid is saying that he's not planning to remove the filibuster; instead he says the problem is the motion to proceed. Could someone more conversant with Senate rules translate for me?) But I don't have a problem with a bicameral system. Here I will note that historically, Senators have been less extreme than House Reps (needing to persuade an entire state, not just a small, unrepresentative corner), and more willing to reach a deal. Filibusters were rare and noteworthy. (Go back and watch the West Wing ep, the Stackhouse Filibuster; was that ever a different era, where it was a quixotic act of individual defiance and not a deliberate strategy to destroy the legislative process.) Again, the Repubs are to blame; but I believe reforming the Senate rules to prevent dog-in-the-manger obstructionism would be sufficient.
Ok, not quite true. I wouldn't be averse to some shift in the balance of power between the two chambers, the House is closer to providing a democratic representation of the country; but America isn't about to adopt a parliamentary system, and that's ok. There are many things that can be done to reform the political process without going that far.