Law Professor: 17th Amendment 'Disenfranchised States'

CNS News ^ | December 6, 2016 | Amy Furr

[DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis]

I agree!

[Jacquerie]

Through an Article V Convention of the States.

[Jacquerie]

That’s progressive bullshit.

[antidisestablishment]

Now we have an entire Federal government riddled with corruption. Another utopian solution shot to hell...

[Republican Wildcat]

Those state legislatures voted to disenfranchise themselves, though, as they had to approve the 17th amendment.

[Rockingham]

Unfortunately, public corruption was rife in that era and was a major problem in the US through the 1980s. It took the enactment of strong financial disclosure and conflict of interest laws in the 1960s and the RICO law in the 1970s to break with that past.

[Lurker]

He’s right. It should be repealed along with the 16th.

L

[Rockingham]

Corruption was a frequent and sometimes routine problem in the federal system almost from the start. And, for what it is worth, naked corruption is less now than in any time since the founding era of the country.

[Publius]

Your link doesn’t work.

[antidisestablishment]

Naked corruption like selling million dollar contracts through a shell charity; or utilizing the full force of federal agencies to directly attack political foes; or refusing to enforce laws because they are inconvenient to political views or persons; or arming terrorists to attack a sovereign nation without a declaration of war under the auspices of defeating terrorists? Like forcing persons to purchase a product under compulsion of “law;” or invalidating the expressed will of the people without regard to Constitutional prohibition; like the seizure of property without legal recourse; like the passage of “regulations” without congressional review that carry the full weight of law and subject persons to loss of property and livelihood? Like the bribery on a scale unimaginable to any state under the guise of Federal aid—money stolen from citizens under threat of force? Oh, not that kind of corruption?

Some of us long for the petty corruption of state legislators...

[SuperLuminal]

DUH!

[zeugma]

Absolutely agreed. 1913 was a dark year in American history.

1. The 16th Amendment establishing the income tax
2. The 17th Amendment for direct election of senators, which is a serious blow to the state's power.
3. The establishment of the Federal Reserve System.

Note that all three greatly increased the power of the central government.

[John Leland 1789]

Something is wrong with the link.

[djf]

I’ve said this before, that the 17th amendment was unconstitutional. No state shall be denied suffrage without it’s consent... means exactly that. It would have had to have been unanimously agreed to.

Add to that the scarcity of information on the internet about the ratification of the 17th amendment and you start to see what I mean.

[Rockingham]

By naked corruption in Congress, I mean votes and favors being bought for cash, Senators and Reps on a regular cash payroll from large corporations and interests, and with liquor and prostitutes routinely on offer. What you are riled about is government abuse of the citizens, which is another kind of harm. The great modern remedy against that is the development of federal civil rights law, which was primarily (but not exclusively) the work of liberals in the 1960s and after.

[Wneighbor]

Absolutely correct!

The link doesn’t work for me tho.

[Wneighbor]

Thanks for the link. Disregard my previous comment about the broken one.

[Wneighbor]

Our real, underlying problem is the grip of the political parties. Though Trump's victory is a major win against party power, and may lead to some changes.

While I agree with you about the current political parties being a major problem I also still feel the repeal of the 17th Amendment is needed. This professor only talks about part of the problem with the 17th. The 17th Amendment also removed one of the only redresses to violations of the 10th Amendment.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." We had no easy recourse to the Federal Government's usurping of State's or People's jurisdictions even before the 17th Amendment was passed. With the 17th we have even less.

[kalee]

Exactly!

[sargon]

But over time, I have come to believe that we would likely end up with many of the same problems, and the same Senators regardless of whether they were chosen by the legislatures or the voters.

Not necessarily true. For instance, consider the fact that the GOP now controls, what, approximately 30+ state legislatures and governor's offices?

That fact would mean that the current makeup of the United States Senate, pre-17th Amendment would currently consist of at least 60 GOP Senators, which is a clear governing majority. Changing it to be by popular vote has therefore introduced a needless and undesirable layer of chaos and gridlock, IMHO.

My humble opinion is that the 17th Amendment makes the Constitution too democratic; it was was misguided, clearly weakened the representation of the States in the federal government, and diluted the ability of the majority party to effectively govern and move its agenda at the federal level.

According to my understanding of the Framers' original intent when crafting the Constitution, I therefore staunchly support the repeal of the 17th Amendment.

If the concern was related to corruption state legislatures, then the solution should have been to find a solution at that level, rather than mess up the States' representation in the US Senate, consequently weakening the power of what should be the governing party (in the current case, the GOP).