Senate’s Intransigence Should Prompt Repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment [Reader Post]

Loading

As of today, it has been 1,028 days since the U.S. Senate last passed a budget.

That’s about 20 dog years.

Imagine if you were employed in a business where one of your duties was to plan an annual budget for each upcoming year and you just decided you weren’t going to do it.  And 1,028 days later, you still had not done it.  Assuming your employer hadn’t already canned, assuredly you would lose your job after such a long failure.  If you are a Democratic Senator, however, you not only keep your job because a majority of the people still vote for you, you get greater influence and power.

To give you an idea of how long 1,028 days is, let’s look at some historical events. Since the Senate last passed a budget on April 29, 2009, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV campaigned for 20 months, was reelected to the Senate and has served more than a year since his reelection. The entire Lewis and Clark expedition in the Pacific Northwest took 862 days. John F. Kennedy served 1,036 days as president before he was assassinated, only 10 more days than the Senate’s current budget failure. The Korean War lasted 1,128 days until the armistice ceased active hostilities.

If ever there was a time for Congress to address the fiscal federal government crisis, this is it. And yet the Senate continues its intransigence even going so far as to say the Budget Control Act passed last year to deal with the debt ceiling is enough. That’s like saying it is just as acceptable for you to increase unilaterally and without any analysis your annual household budget expenditures and borrow the extra money to pay for the increase, as it is for you to actually review your income and expenditures and craft a budget based on the numbers. That might work for a year or so, but 1,028 days is far too long especially given our national debt and deficit crises, the increasingly risk to our nation’s credit rating and currency valuation, and the stagnant economy.

One big reason why we see this is most senators know their constituents will never vote them out. Do you think of senators like Reid, Kerry, Feinstein, Boxer, Schumer, Durbin, Murray, and Mikulski fear losing their seats?  They and their liberal brethren might as well have life-time appointments given their constituencies.  Before you point out Senator Scott Brown, R-MA taking over for Ted Kennedy, he is a rare exception who had to wait until Kennedy died–after Kennedy served in the Senate for several decades. And Brown has turned out to be a Massachusetts moderate who will doubtless face a serious election challenge from the left.  So the Senate will continue not doing its job and liberals will continue to accuse Republicans of leading a “do nothing Congress.”

Now that’s chutzpah.

I have little confidence that Reid and his cronies will act with any degree of fiscal responsibility. Given President Obama’s sorry excuse for a budget proposal–not to mention his penchant for profligate spending–I have no confidence in him either. Frankly, I also don’t have much confidence in Republican House and Senate members either, outside of the few who are truly committed to cutting spending, lowering taxes and reducing the size and scope of the federal government.  Meanwhile, our state and local governments are stretched increasingly thinner as the federal government takes more money, mandates more restrictions and curtails people’s freedoms.  What is largely missing from the federal government’s current operating structure is a designated place at the table for the state governments to have their interests considered in the process of national governing and budgeting.

There is a crisis in the Senate that must be changed.  Now is time to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment.

The Seventeenth Amendment states in essence that senators are to be elected by popular vote. Previously, Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution vested in each state legislature the power to appoint its two senators.  Now if you are conservative, and tend to favor a smaller, decentralized federal government with more power, liberty and freedom in the hands of individuals and state and local governments, you might question the wisdom or merits of repealing the Seventeenth Amendment since it gives additional power to voters. Yes, the power ended up with the people but it was taken from the state legislatures, leaving the states with no institutionalized legislative voice at the federal level.

When the Founding Fathers were considering language for our Constitution regarding the make up, function and election of legislators, they debated the issue of how to balance federal and state sovereignty while ensuring federal and state governments would function with an appropriate degree of interdependency.  In Federalist No. 59, Alexander Hamilton described this balancing act with recognition of concerns that states could shut down the Senate if given the authority to appoint senators.  Hamilton concluded that vesting power in state legislatures to appoint senators was “an evil; but it is an evil which could not have been avoided without excluding the States, in their political capacities, wholly from a place in the organization of the national government.”  In other words, states would have no political place in the federal government absent their power to appoint legislative representatives.

Hamilton’s concerns were well founded in the late 1780s.  Northern free states and southern slave states distrusted each others motives and wanted to ensure equal power sharing.  Sparsely populated states were concerned about the influence that more heavily populated states like New York would have if Congress had two houses with straight proportional representation.  States with no claims to western lands feared losing clout to those with potential to expand territory westward.  Reflecting the political climate, the Founding Fathers feared one or more states could effectively stall the Senate by refusing to appoint one or both of its senators.  However, Hamilton argued that giving states the power to appoint House members every two years, instead of senators every six years, would mean, “every period of making [the House appointments] would be a delicate crisis in the national situation,” potentially resulting in the dissolution of the Union. With state representation considered vital, the best place for it was the Senate.

James Madison also addressed the issue in Federalist No. 62.  Madison did not spend much time on the topic but simply recognized that state legislative power to appoint senators is, “probably the most congenial [option] with the public opinion.”  He continued noting, “It is recommended by the double advantage of favoring a select appointment, and of giving to the State governments such an agency in the formation of the federal government as must secure the authority of the former, and may form a convenient link between the two systems.”

This represents a small example of the astounding brilliance of the Founding Fathers.  Learned men of faith were attempting to invent a system of governance that divided power among federal, state and local governments, and the people, and strike the proper balance among them all.  And this issue shows their concern for all parties with a solution that struck just such a balance.  The senate would give each state government equal representation in the federal government to provide a balance against federal tyranny and, as Constitutional Convention delegate Edmund Randolph put it, “to restrain, if possible, the fury of democracy” that could arise from the House.

Vesting power in state legislatures to elect senators was not, however, without potential problem.  Possible corruption loomed largest as the founders wondered whether senate positions would be bought and sold.  The other primary issues were possible state collaboration to thwart Senate function and individual state legislatures deadlocking on choosing senators.  None of these potential problems manifested to any significant degree to disrupt the Senate in its first century.

Meanwhile, the push to reform senate elections sputtered for more than a century.  Many state legislatures had passed laws for the people to vote for Senate candidates in a non-binding advisory capacity.  There developed a perception that the Senate was becoming out of touch with the people and increasingly “aristocratic.”  As populism and progressive politics continued to rise in the early twentieth century, the states ultimately ceded their authority to the people by ratifying the Seventeenth Amendment and creating two “peoples” houses in Washington.

For the last century, the states have no legislative branch to represent their interests and check federal power.  As a result, the balance of power has tipped dramatically in favor of federal government power.  We see this in countless federal legislative acts throughout the last century including, for example, FDR’s New Deal programs and more recently Obamacare.

Repealing the Seventeenth Amendment will restore governmental balance.  It will not fix all of the Senate’s problems over night but it would be a huge step forward.

Could state legislatures of today “buy and sell” Senate seats if they are returned power? Yes, but the current system is not immune from this type of corruption.  One need only look at disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D) to see a recent example.  Could states refuse to appoint senators or band together to bring Senate business to a halt?  Yes, but the differences between states today in our fully developed nation are miniscule compared to the real disputes over slavery, territorial expansion and influence that existed 230 years ago.  Could the Senate become an “aristocratic” body if the legislatures elect them?  Frankly, it already has.  It is hard to imagine a more aristrocratic legislative body than our current Senate.  Many of the members listed above are among the wealthiest people in America and scores of senators of both parties accumulated their wealth while serving in the Senate.

Our economic crisis is so severe, the federal government’s power so large and unwieldy, its taxing, spending and borrowing so extravagant, that the balance of power must be reestablished.  Term limits might help but even popularly elected, term-limited senators would not have motivation to represent their state government’s interests.  It’s still the people who vote.  Change can only come if senators are accountable to their respective state governments.  Only then can the states act again as an effective counterweight to federal power. 

The people have their voices represented in the House.  Representatives are elected every two years so the people do not have to wait long to “throw the bum out” if they choose.  A Senate that goes 1,028 days without a budget is irretrieveably broken and unresponsive to either the people that elect them every six years or the states that are supposed to share government power with the feds.  It’s time for the states to regain their place of influence the way the Founding Fathers so brilliantly intended.

Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment.  And impose term limits while your at it.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
20 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Direct Senatorial elections did not stop illinois from selling Senatorial seats!

How the states were to choose the appointment was left up to them but clearly the intent was that Senators would be those responsive to the states and be the protector of their interests under the 10th amendment.

Since the 17th was done Senators have become a self actuated group and pursue their own personal interest rather than that of the state.

If it was still the old way you would likely see many fewer unfunded mandates handed down for the states to cope with. Also it is likely that they would be more aggressive in protection of their state from over reach by regulatory agencies.

The Washington Examiner’s Editorial Board turned a nice phrase about this yesterday:

Geithner’s formulation — we know we can’t keep doing what we’re doing and we don’t have a plan to change, but we sure don’t want your plan — is an apt summary of Obama’s overall budget strategy since the beginning of his administration.

One great thing about Obama and his Dem Senate’s lack of a budget is that, although Republicans buckled and agreed to a new debt ceiling last year, Obama had expected that top number not to be met until AFTER his election campaign was over…….but Obama is spending too fast!
LOL!
Obama is spending $132 billion a month (and going up) that we don’t have.
We are at $15.3 trillion now with only $16.4 trillion ceiling.

The debt ceiling will be reached this September instead of next year!
All the new taxes Obama had built in won’t save him from a debt crisis during the last days of his campaign.

Question….while I doubt we could accomplish impeachment…would it be legal to sue certain ones (i.e. Reid, etc. ) in federal court ?
Also if we could repeal the 17th amendment we would have to add on hard term-limits as well as other ways to make sure they remained responsive to their individual states people. If you do not box them in tight they will surely find a way to corrupt the system again. The pol’s of these days have very little if any Honor.

I could not agree with you more! Repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment would be a start in the right direction.

The debt ceiling will be hit before the election but Turbo Timmy will use every accounting trick in the book to push a vote on it till after the election and Reid will assist in that effort.

@Larry Uloth:

If Senators choice is returned to the State they could choose term limits or not or even add recall elections if they so choose to.

A constitutional one size fits all approach is less desirable.

As a consequence of the ill-conceived 17th Amendment, the Senate no longer does it’s job to stop the HoR from making legislation with not only wrongly usurps state powers, but also steals revenues associated with usurped state powers. Federal legislation which steals state revenues is evidenced by the following case precedent established by Justice John Marshall. Justice Marshall had clarified that Congress is prohibited from laying taxes in the name of state power issues, taxes which Congress cannot justify under Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution.

“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

So not only is federal Obamacare, for example, constitutionally indefensible, the 10th Amendment clarifying that the Constitution’s silence on public healthcare automatically makes healthcare a state power issue, but based on Justice Marshall’s official words, neither can Congress lay taxes in the name of healthcare. (Are you listening bankrupt California?)

The problem is that, since the time of the corrupt FDR administration, Congress has been wrongly ignoring it’s Article V requirement to petition the states for specific new powers via constitutional amendments.

What a mess! :^(

It’s always interesting when someone proposes repealing a Constitutional amendment, and perhaps in the belief it will be a solution. My personal repeal favorite would be the 16th, or course… since we’re in wishing mode. But it all does get the brain cells in gear.

Not withstanding the Herculean effort it would take to get thru a Constitutional Convention, I’m not so sure that returning Senate seats to the individual states’ legislatures would result in the desired effect – assuming it is to eliminate cronyism and corruption. As @chicken thief correctly pointed out, the “purchase” of power via a Senate seat without the 17th Amendment in place didn’t stop IL’s William “the blond boss” Lorimer from doing just that in 1909. Lorimer was, of course, a Republican. Then compare the circa post 17th Amendment events, and most recently Blago.

Still seems to come down to IL, doesn’t it? LOL

So the 17th Amendment was proposed by the Democrats/progressive reformers, and against the opposing Republicans like Elihu Root. Was this necessarily because those Republicans preferred to exploit corruption? Not really… it was all about populism and direct democracy. The heart of the progressives displeasure with the original Constitutional set up was the inherent belief that the state legislative election, and not the populus, was too indirect a “democracy”. But then, it’s a common trait in that party membership to assume this nation was founded as a “democracy” and an edict that a majority rules. Thus why they continue to try to reinvent and morph the nation’s founding.

But obviously, what they hoped the 17th would cure, did not happen. The Senate became corrupt before the 17th, and remains elitist and corrupt in it’s wake today. Elections are still purchased, but just using a different format. As C. H. Hoebeke wrote in his 1996 article in Humanitash . The going price for Senate seats hovers around the $5 mil… and likely more today for the more powerful states. Then top it off with the idiocy of McCain-Feingold, which begat the SuperPACs… and I’m not sure a repeal of the 17th will eliminate the problem of money picking the electoral winners. Nor is there anything stopping a state legislature from also being pressured by special interest groups and money, influencing their own selection. The special interest groups may spend less, bribing the legislature, but money will still buy a seat for a state’s favored son or daughter.

Technically, I think that the checking of an overbearing central government (when it comes to the interests of the states) still exists by the Senate, and that a repeal of the 17th wouldn’t change that one iota. What has changed is what the states consider their “interests”. No longer do they exhibit great desire to hold the central government at bay. Instead, they tend to want to hold it hostage, or parlay favors, for cash, benefits, subsidies and aid. The increasing dependence on the feds for state funding was not an issue of such enormity during the 19th Century.

So I tend to think that it’s a political culture that has been nourished – in a negative way – by the expansive growth of the federal government since the New Deal. That is not because the 17th Amendment was put into place. And removing that Amendment will not pose a solution to that dependent mentality.

And just as an observation above to @CommentDude, certainly term limits could be imposed simply by the fact that the state legislature opts not to fill the seat with the same Senator after a term or two. It’s an interesting question… as to whether the States can impose term limits on their Senators when the Constitution has none.

I don’t see that as impossible. But I do see it as unlikely. If they had a Senator that consistently brought home the federal bacon for the state, I’m not sure they would want to be constrained with term limits, and would like to keep that option open.

BTW, for anyone loving the more extreme perspectives, here’s an Oct 2010 article on Rense that says you can’t repeal an Amendment that was never legally ratified to begin with. That’s not a new argument to my ears… the legitimacy of the 17th. In fact, Delaware didn’t ratify it until 2010, and ten States, to this day, still haven’t ratified it.

@MataHarley:

I used to believe strongly that the 17th needed repeal. I commented here, and elsewhere on the original argument for the Senate, including how they were chosen, pertaining to the Constitution.

I no longer feel that the 17th needs to be completely repealed. The idea, actually, of the citizens of a state actually voting on their state’s representation in Congress has merit, even if in practice as it is now it has major problems.

I see the biggest problem being that the Senators are paid by the federal government, instead of their individual states. Their loyalty is questionable at best. In my opinion, the 17th should be replaced with an amendment providing more stipulations upon the Senators designed to ensure they pay attention to their states’ interests first.
-One, they should be paid by the state they were elected in.
– Two, allow for the recall by the state’s legislature if they feel the senator is not placing their interest first and foremost.
– Three, any retirement benefits are paid by the state, not the federal government.
-Four, the Senator’s staff would be paid from a fund, with the amount to be decided by the state.

One immediate effect this would have is to prevent the late-night voting on pay raises for Congressional members, or their benefits, without feeling any repercussions from the states for the salaries and bennies being voted on. Another effect, and this is big, is that legislation like Obamacare would effect the senators directly, as their health insurance would be paid for by the state.

Well, those are interesting thoughts, johngalt. But Constitutional Conventions aren’t easy to come by in this country. Most especially one that would require the states picking up the tab for Senators (only?) when Article I, Section 6 mandates they are paid out of the US Treasury. Somehow I’m guessing that none of the States are going to give a thumbs up on changing that, and absorbing the debt themselves.

INRE the recall of federal Congressional members, Benjamin Shelton at Heritage did a blog post on this Feb 2010, saying that altho it was revisited from time to time, Congressional members under constant threat of recall would hinder the deliberation they wanted to bring to the chambers. He’s a younger intern at the Heritage Foundation, so I don’t know anything about his expertise or background, but it does bear some thought.

In 1999, the CRS put out a publication on recalls and removing legislators from Congress. They, of course, reiterate that the Constitution doesn’t not provide for a state’s recall process for the members. But I found something else of interest in there…. states cannot change or impose term limitations that are contrary to the Constitutional founding and ratification by all the states.

The recall of Members was considered during the time of the drafting of the federal Constitution in 1787, but no such provisions were included in the final version sent to the states for ratification, and the specific drafting and ratifying debates indicate an express understanding of the framers and ratifiers that no right or power to recall a Senator or Representative in Congress exists under the Constitution. Although the Supreme Court has not needed to directly address the subject of recall of Members of Congress, other Supreme Court decisions, as well as the weight of other judicial and administrative decisions, rulings, and opinions, indicate that (1) the right to remove a Member of Congress before the expiration of his or her constitutionally established term of office is one which resides exclusively in each house of Congress as expressly delegated in the expulsion clause of the United States Constitution, and (2) the length and number of the terms of office for federal officials, established and agreed upon by the states in the Constitution creating that federal government, may not be unilaterally changed by an individual state, such as through the enactment of a recall provision or a term limitation for a United States Senator or Representative. Under Supreme Court constitutional interpretation, since individual states never had the original sovereign authority to unilaterally change the terms and conditions of service of federal officials agreed to and established in the Constitution, such a power could not be “reserved” under the Tenth Amendment. Even the dissenters in the Supreme Court decision on the Tenth Amendment and term limits, who would have found a “reserved” authority in the states regarding “qualifications” of Members of Congress, conceded that the exclusive authority to remove a sitting Member is delegated to each house in the expulsion clause of the Constitution, and that with respect to “a power of recall … the Framers denied to the States [such power] when they specified the terms of Members of Congress.”

This would put the kabosh on CommentDude’s suggestion in #7 that if the state legislators were again in control, they could impose term limits legislatively. Altho, as I mentioned, a state legislative election could impose term limits by simple disallowing another consecutive term. But then, I’m not versed on how each state put forth their nominees for the Senate position prior to the 17th Amendment.

As far as the staff members you mention, I’d have to ask “which staff”? There are personal, committee, leadership, institutional and support agency staff members. Assuming you mean the personal staff to a particular Congressman, I find it interesting that House members have less personal staff than Senators… who have no limits like Representatives do. Their respective budgets are decided by the state’s population… I guess meaning the more people you have to service, the more people you’ll need addressing their concerns. That’s if you can ever get thru to an elected one.

All in all, I’m making the bet that the States wouldn’t want to pay their Representatives’ or Senators’ staff anymore than they would want to pay the elected ones (or just the Senator). One would think all these elected officials could all do with less people at their beck and call, tho. Since they don’t read any of the legislation put before them, they must have ample time in between committee meetings.

@MataHarley:

While I agree that it is highly unlikely we would see anything like what I suggested, I merely put that out there as a solution to the biggest problem with the Senate right now. That is, their loyalty does not lie with the state in which they were elected, but rather, in DC and their national party politics. The senate is in the unique position overall of not being beholden to anything but their ideology and their own death. That makes for very poor legislation where it’s members ofttimes vote against their state’s interests on that legislation.

johngalt: While I agree that it is highly unlikely we would see anything like what I suggested, I merely put that out there as a solution to the biggest problem with the Senate right now. That is, their loyalty does not lie with the state in which they were elected, but rather, in DC and their national party politics.

You know, I always find the observation of states’ interests to be somewhat confusing in modern context. Congressional members are to be the eyes, ears and votes of the states on federal and international matters. Any legislation proposed/passed affects all states (theoretically) equally. It’s not surprising that both House and Senate members end up being so disconnected from their constituents because they spend all their time dealing with things as a nation, and are very involved with foreign relationships such as treaties and trade agreements.

When one considers an energy policy, the representative’s state may not be directly involved. Then ideology and political agenda takes over. Something that’s always annoyed me is that I can’t vote for other state representatives, but what they do affects me in my state.

My point is that state’s interests can only go so far when you’re speaking of national and international issues, which is their sole focus… aside from state targeted earmarks that are involved. And I’m not sure that will ever change since that was their original purpose. To be the state’s voice and vote on the larger national/int’l issues.

The easiest way I explain the 17th to people is:

In the beginning the Founders saw the need to divide the two houses of Congress between a lower house that would be built to be fickle…to ride the mood of present temperament every couple years with a popular vote election cycle. Those from the lower house could afford to be populist “vote whores” as it were.

To temper this they designed the upper house to come from the states themselves (but did not go far enough in specifying for instance that Senators should come from experienced State Legislators)…these men would owe their positions to their state governments and only by extension to the populace of the state. The idea being that this upper house would be a conservative rock to counter-balance the potentially wild and wholly lower house…an elegant way to get a “house of lords” without all that pesky peerage and whatnot.

The 17th changed all that and made the upper house “vote whores” as much as the lower house…effectively erasing the boundary between the long-term conservative outlook and short-term populist response mechanism.

The very premise of the 17th (as much more notable people than myself have pointed out above) to combat corruption was and is flawed…in the end it may just have worked out similarly anyway with numbers of R, D, and I’s in the Senate through the years…but their *accountability* mechanism may have had a greater influence on their votes than simple party loyalty does now…we’ll never know for sure, but *in theory* there should be some slightly greater error to fiscal conservatism if nothing else.

Leo Shishmanian
thank you for the interesting POST.
repeal the seventeenth , is not advisable in this kind of GOVERNEMENT EVEN LESS,
THE FOUNDERS brilliance put it there for many reasons and no LAWS OF THE LAND should be repeal as long as AMERICA IS ALIVE,
you repeal one and 10 more will go by this PRESIDENT TIME so fast that nobody will even have time to contest it, that law is there not to be repeal but to be implement fully and if it’s not been done it is for the faulty human holding the seat who should be repeal with the full force of the law, and this apply to all other amendments written since THE UNITED STATES ARE HERE, THE PEOPLE REPRESENTING THE CITIZENS CAN REPEAL ANY ONE WHO DISOBEY THE LAWS OF THE LAND including a PRESIDENT NOT
DOING HIS JOB ACCORDING TO THOSE LAWS, and the next election will clearly show the WISDOM of WHY those AMENDMENTS are there and needed always,

bees: THE FOUNDERS brilliance put it there for many reasons and no LAWS OF THE LAND should be repeal as long as AMERICA IS ALIVE,
you repeal one and 10 more will go by this PRESIDENT TIME so fast that nobody will even have time to contest it

Ms. Bees, to help you out on this, being as you aren’t an American, the Founders did not put the 17th Amendment in the Constitution. Our Constitution, without the Bill of Rights (what we call the first 10 Amendments), was ratified in 1788 when the 9th state signed on. The Bill of Rights didn’t get ratified until three years later in 1791.

The 17th Amendment, discussed here, is more than a century later. It was proposed in 1912, and considered ratified (controversy involved) in 1913. Not all of the states have signed on even as of today, and Delaware only did so in 2010.

Additionally we have repealed an Amendment… the 18th that banned liquor… with the 21st Amendment.

So we have made changes… 17 times, as a matter of fact, since the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791. And it’s not always a fast pace either. The last Amendment (the 27th) was proposed in 1789, but not ratified/accepted by the minimum amount of states needed until 1992.

Just a bit of Constitutional trivia for you.

@MataHarley:

The states’ interest is not being served, Mata, by the current method of choosing the senators. Instead, we have northeastern states, such as NY and MA, and far western states, such as CA and WA(and your own OR), that overall are liberal and tend to wield large amounts of power in the senate, and their influence spreads to the other liberal senators. Conversely, the southeastern states generally have GOP senators as their representation, and occasionally can garner enough power to influence the direction of the senate.

The result is that the senate itself generally acts as a single entity, albeit with many working parts, in the interest of the coastal, liberal states, when the Democrats are in power. There is very little actual influence the “flyover” states wield within the senate. So, what we see is that the national issues tend to get addressed as per the national mood, instead of each senator truly representing their own state’s interests.

The original design of the government was to have a President, who represented the national mood of the people, Congress, split into two groups, one being the House representing local interests, and one being the Senate, representing the states’ interests, and finally, the Judicial branch, which represented the supreme law of the land. All of the most important entities that made up the United States were represented. Instead, with the 17th Amendment in place, we now have two entities representing the national mood overall with none representing the states’ interests.

Doesn’t it make you wonder, or stop to think about, the fact that the 17th Amendment coincided with the initial push towards progressivism? I’d say that the loss of representation for the interests of the individual states had a large impact on why we got “The New Deal”, and generally a continually growing government, both in size and influence.

johngalt: The states’ interest is not being served, Mata, by the current method of choosing the senators. Instead, we have northeastern states, such as NY and MA, and far western states, such as CA and WA(and your own OR), that overall are liberal and tend to wield large amounts of power in the senate, and their influence spreads to the other liberal senators.

jg, I do believe you are mixing up the bulk of liberal population that dominate New England or the coasts with “large amounts of power in the Senate”. When all is said and done, every state… from RI to California.. has but two Senate representatives, two votes. They have no more power than Wyoming or Montana Senators. But if more of the states are voting in lib/prog Senators, there’s not much you can do about it. They are elected via the state’s voters, and that’s the way the system works. Other than perhaps a different name, a liberal state is just as likely to have a liberal dominated legislature, who would also pick a lib/prog Senate pre 17th Amendment.

The point is the corruption does not go away with a 17th repeal. It was there before the 17th, inspiring the Amendment. And it’s there after the Amendment.

I suspect the only thing that can stop an elected official from being totally corrupt is term limits, and the allowable time they can be on the take from special interests. But Congress would have to put that thru to get to a Constitutional Convention, and I don’t see them imposing term limits on themselves.

As far as original intent for the two chambers, I’m sure that some circa framing/founding years felt just as you described. I’ve subscribed to the other more common reason for the two chambers… that being the chamber bestowed with the primary power to appropriate, the House, should be representative of the states’ population, but that the Senate was to be the more deliberative body, with the ability to hold the more popular/populous voting power in check with the Senate’s equal representation of all states, despite size or population. I see the two chambers as a check and balance against each other, and that members in both chambers are representative of the “states’ interests”.

Since I’m aware of how the 17th Amendment came about… this post made me go review history, which is a good thing…. yes I am aware that it was a progressive push. It was also the same push that had been tried multiple times in the century before it. I suspect that the Blond Boss’s elections gave the ever growing progressives in the chambers a good talking point to get this by the public. It’s like the Dems and McCain, trying to convince us that McCain-Feingold was a good thing.

The 17th is an amendment that reflects the base belief that the central government should be more populous conscious… that “direct” elections by the people was superior to “indirect” elections. i.e. appointees coming from the state legislature, who were elected by the population. I can only say that at this point in time, I see no advantage of repealing the 17th, except it would probably cost less to get a representative to the beltway. What money may have been spent on elections would likely find it’s way into the pockets of the state legislators, or into their pet projects.

Power will be purchased in this country, no matter how you set up the rules. It’s always been that way. However in the past, there was less power in the central government to be coveted than there is now. So the problem is not the 17th, who picks the Senators, or even the amount of money involved. It’s the fact that the prize has become the quintessential big lottery prize… a stake of influence in an out of control behemoth federal government, for as long as you can hold on to it with more money and votes.

MATA
sorry I’m late to thank you for the good explanation, I alway can take a lot more, and compare to you I’m just down the ladder, I APPRECIATE FOR TAKING THE TIME FOR ME, I know how your time is precious,
I was worry of not getting my comments feed back and all these 2 days they where coming in the SPAM,
WHERE I never go to check, glad to have found them all just by accidently going there,
they must have been screaming at me to go and free them 42 from the spam.
bye