I long ago concluded that the 17th could never be repealed because the senate would not permit it. They enjoy their privilege of being free agents, not beholden to their state and its people.
However, there is an alternative, that duplicates the original senate to a great extent, and restores the balance between the federal government and the states.
Each year the federal district courts send some 8,000 cases to the Supreme Court, which can hear only a few dozen, representing a huge bottleneck in the judicial system.
On these grounds, a constitutional amendment could create a subordinate court, *not* a federal court, but a court composed of judges appointed specifically by the state legislatures. Two judges per state, on concurrent terms with their US senators.
Because this Second Court of the United States would not be a federal court, it does not determine the constitutionality of laws, a job for the federal courts. Instead it first determines if a law being appealed to the Supreme Court is in reality a constitutional issue, or should be returned to the state of origin for decision.
That is, it is a jurisdictional court. And one large enough to hear 8,000 federal district court cases over the course of a year. Not to determine their constitutionality, but to decide whether or not their are federal, not state issues involved.
Importantly, these cases would continue on to the SCOTUS, but if the SCOTUS refused to hear them, the jurisdictional decision of the Second Court would come into effect, *instead* of, by default, the decision of the federal district courts. *Only if* the Second Court decided a federal issue was indeed involved, would the case then revert to the decision of the federal district court.
This would give the states as a group the ability to “de-federalize” cases that were originally the prerogative of the states, but had been “federalized” by any one of hundreds of federal judges.
In doing so, this would strip the federal judiciary of much of its legislating from the bench.
The other purpose of the Second Court would be original jurisdiction over all lawsuits between the federal government and the states. So instead of such cases taking many years, through several layers of appeals, even though they can only definitively be decided by the SCOTUS, the *states* would have first crack at such lawsuits.
For example, right now, dozens of states would be happy to join a lawsuit to overturn Obamacare in its entirety. And they could likely decide (as a safe equivalent to a constitutional convention), to do so.
Because, and this is a zinger, if two-thirds of this court agreed to a decision, it would be in effect the number of states needed to call a constitutional convention. And if three quarters of the judges rejected a federal power grab, it would have the effective force of a constitutional amendment.
That is, the states would have a means to overrule congress, the president, and the judiciary, without the risks inherent in a constitutional convention.
If I were a Democrat or liberal Republican, I’d want repeal of the 17th. It would make my job a helluva lot easier at getting elected. I’d only have to focus my attention on bribing, coercing and manipulating the members of the legislature (what was pretty much being done post-mid-19th century).
As for state legs appointing judges, I’d be just as wary. Again, you’d have 20 states that would NEVER appoint non-Democrats (hence, safe moonbat in the mode of the 9th “Circus”). Now you might get some Conservative judges in those GOP states, but only by accident, as said jobs would be used as a reward for party loyalists (party, not ideology).
Regardless, the entire governmental system as it is is very messed up.