I agree that the 17th Amendment should not have been adopted, and I go further and say that its ratification was irregular. The concluding phrase of Article Vno State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.should properly have been understood to require that the state governments should permanently retain their representation in the senate. Under the 17th Amendment, none of the state governments are represented in the Senate. The people of each state, rather than their state's government, are represented in the Senate.De jure, then, the ratification of the 17th Amendment should have been unanimous to take effect. De facto, each state consented to that usurpation when first it conducted a popular election of one of its US senators.
I assume that the 17th Amendment will never be repealed outright. What I would propose instead, then, is that senators be elected as running mates of governors. At least the governor would have less slack to pass the buck to the Congress when unfunded mandates cripple state budgets.
My proposal would, I admit, require that the terms of senators be changed from six years to either four or eight years in order to align with the gubernatorial elections.
Yes, not all states ratified the 17A. I haven’t researched why those that didn’t went along with popular elections.