Found this when I looked up the 17th:
“Under the original provisions of the Constitution, senators were elected by state legislatures; this was intended to prevent the federal government from indirectly absconding with the powers and funds of the states.”
Do you think state legislatures would be any less corruptible than the masses?
It’s easier for the states to make their own recall laws to get bad-apple lawmakers out of office than it is to amend the Constitution to recall corrupt federal lawmakers.