“You’re going to try to convince U.S. citizens to cede their constitutional right to elect their own U.S. Senators to their state legislatures?
My Magic-8 Ball says “Outlook not so good.”
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I agree Its a very difficult political case to make, we would have to have a wise and historicly educated population to understand what we were, and why things are falling apart.
The Short truth is, if we are to restore the Federal Constitution in this essence way it will have to happen in one of 2 ways:
1: Revolution, of the kind that leaves us apart for a negotiated reunion. Negotiated by such people.
2: Legalistic restoration by way of actual reading the last line of Article 5 as it was intended.
Indeed in any political and/or judicial campaign to accomplish the same would likely have to be focused heavily upon that line, as well as the speech and theory’s of the founders and subsequent history.
This would primarily have to be conducted by our State Legislators, who in the process would have to demonstrate themselves as capable and best suited to govern their respective people.
Populism of State legislators that get vocal on any and all issues to which their state’s population disagrees with Congress. (The real practical effect of the 10ther movement)
Go ahead and read the last line of Article 5 and you tell me that wasn’t intended to prevent exactly what has happened in the 17th Amendment.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html
Go ahead and read the last line of Article 5 and you tell me that wasn’t intended to prevent exactly what has happened in the 17th Amendment.
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Uh... no. The last line states: “and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.” This is not rocket science and it’s pretty plain on its face.
Suffrage is the ability to vote. Equal suffrage for each state refers to the two Senators that each state has in Congress. By having an equal number of Senators, each state was guaranteed equal voting ability within the U.S. Senate. Having the general population of a state elect their U.S. Senators directly instead of through their elected state legislature doesn’t change the number of U.S. Senators from their state. Equal suffrage for all states is maintained.
Wikipedia has a nice explanation:
“Thus, no individual state may have its representation in the Senate adjusted without its consent unless all other states have an identical change. That is to say, an amendment that changed this clause to provide that all states would get only one Senator (or three Senators, or any other number) could be ratified through the normal process, but an amendment that provided for some basis of representation other than strict numerical equality (for example, population, wealth, or land area) would require the assent of every state.” - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_One_of_the_United_States_Constitution