PING!
So we’ll propose an amendment to repeal the 17th and do it as described above.
Article V it
i have long said that the 17th Amendment was one of the worst of the bad 20th Century amendments to the Constitution and we need to go back to the Senators being appointed by the various state legislatures.
But what I had not thought of was the indefinite terms. In my opinion, that is a wondermuss idea
I would like to see it pushed at the Convention of States. If we ever get a Convention of States.
I disagree.
It’s not about the design of our Constitution.
It’s about the execution of it.
A perfect constitution cannot protect an ignorant public.
Sorry, I will never quite understand the fixation of many conservatives on the wonderfulness of state legislatures.
Have any of those with such notions had any experience actually dealing with them?
Well, I have, in several states, and they are for the most part at least as corrupt as Congress.
I agree that state legislatures should play the role of protecting the people against an overweening federal government. But they simply aren’t going to do it. Most of them haven’t the slightest interest in doing so.
I would add to that- make Attorney General a Constitutional office selected by a majority of state legislators, with 2/3 requirement for removal. Then, a criminal president can’t pick his top cop.
So the AG is selected by the states, possibly with a 2 year offset from presidential elections.
If the 17th Amendment hadn’t been enacted, your senators would be appointed and on call by your state legislature...would that result in better or worse senators in your state? Here in Wisconsin, at least half of our senators would not be there.
So, John McCain forever?
Appears an awakening to the power of Article V is taking root.
Repeating here an illustrative example of how the power of Article V can be unlocked by the States to restore federalism:
************************************************
AMENDMENT XXVIII
To redress the balance of powers between the federal government and the States and to restore effective suffrage of State Legislatures to Congress, the following amendment is proposed:
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Section 1.
A Senator in Congress shall be subject to recall by their respective state legislature or by voter referendum in their respective state.
Section 2.
Term limits for Senators in Congress shall be set by vote in their respective state legislatures but in no case shall be set less than twelve years nor more than eighteen years.
Section 3.
Upon a majority vote in three-fifths of state legislatures, federal statutes and federal court decisions shall be overridden.
************************************************
If Section 1 above can be replaced with a repeal of the 17th, then that’s even better but it may be a hard sale. Section 1 above gets the job done by making US Senators pay attention to their State Legislators and at the same time requiring both to interact with the state voters.
I would strongly recommend the following must-see video be watched, consumed and studied:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdZuV8JnvvA
And I would strongly recommend all to urge respective state senators and state representatives, and the people that work for them, to view it.
Bookmark
“Unfortunately, senators came to be viewed as redundant representatives of the people”
That’s what their backers, The Body Mortgagors, want them deceptively to be believed as.
The Body Mortgagors spend as much as needed pumping advertising into their big media propaganda Bureaus.
These Bureaus, are all backed by The Body Mortgagors. For those of them not actually registered as Exempt, they are made Exempt by huge media salaries.
Much worse than that is the income tax amendment. That gave the politicians not only the power to take as much of our income as it wants and to buy votes with it in order to stay in power, but it also gave them the right to snoop in all of our financial details. And in creating the IRS, it created a club to scare us in line.
Just imagine how much smaller the federal government would be without the ability to tax us at will.
founders had it right it was 17th amdendment via the progressives that ruined the republic.
—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny…
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers…
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
February 2015 grievances…
Heading the list was the continuing saga of big and increasingly threatening government in the Age of Obama. Early in the month, President Obama proposed a budget that would increase spending on social programs and—surprise, surprise—increase taxes on the wealthy. This is in spite of the fact that ever-spiraling federal domestic spending over a half-century has had limited success, caused government dependency to deepen and even expand to the unneedy, and created a more bloated bureaucracy than ever (the major beneficiaries seem to be the legions of federal employees).
Even though Democrats have long cultivated this image of “socking it” too the wealthy, how tight they actually are with them was seen in a news story about how large corporations donated millions to the Clinton family foundation while they were lobbying the State Department during Hilary’s tenure there.
The Democrats are also usually the first ones to tout integrity in government. Another story about the Clinton foundation last month challenged that, too: the foundation has been accepting big donations from foreign interests and governments who would certainly be dealing with a future Clinton administration.
Obama’s unilateral action to regularize millions of illegal aliens continued to stir controversy, with a federal judge temporarily halting it and Congressional Republicans taking half-hearted, uncertain steps to try to defund it. Articles I and II of the Constitution hang in the balance, since control over immigration policy comes right from Congress’s enumerated powers and this is hardly something that justifies a Lockean-type of executive prerogative. It was also revealed that as a result of Obama’s amnesty, illegal immigrants would be eligible to receive the earned income tax credit (even retroactively). The problem is that under Article I Congress makes the tax laws.
Other reports said that the Treasury Department was paying subsidies to health insurers under Obamacare because of steps they have taken to limit out-of-pocket costs by policyholders—even though Congress has never authorized them. Never mind that Article I also says that federal spending requires Congressional appropriation. There was another news report about surveillance overkill. The National Security Agency (NSA) collaborated with Britain’s GCHQ intelligence agency to purloin codes so they could spy on mobile phone conversations worldwide, including Americans’. It was another example of how such pesky concerns as privacy and the Fourth Amendment simply wither when there’s an appeal, no mater how tenuous, to national security. Perhaps our current government operatives should remember Federalist 51: while government has to control the governed, we must also “oblige it to control itself.” We’re told that government needs to spread the spy net widely—have universal surveillance—or otherwise we could not protect ourselves from terrorists. Like the U.S. child protective system (CPS) with its universal monitoring of parents, they don’t get it that when everyone is under suspicion the resources are spread thin and the real bad guys slip through the cracks.
The specter of overreaching government was seen also in the FCC’s vote, at Obama’s behest, to regulate Internet providers—“net neutrality”…
Many more…
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3263338/posts
h/t Stephen M. Krason
I agree - the 17th was truly misguided and wrong.
However, if we have a judiciary that legislates from the bench and an extra-constitutional fed that *clearly* violates the US Constitution both in it’s intent and plain language and does so with impunity — then how will any amendment(s), no matter how well thought out or unarguably, patently clear bring the judiciary and a fearless Fed back into alignment?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a con-con. I hope it will be the slap on the ass that jars all three federal branches back into tight constitutional alignment. That is my hope. But my realistic expectation is that any new amendments would not be be enforced just as the current constitution is bent/interpreted to fit agendas where politically expedient (if not outright ignored).
