One more thing...
When the Framers created the "more direct methods," those methods assumed a Senate controlled by state legislatures. That is no longer the case.
Since the 17th amendment was passed, the states became bystanders to the federal government. Since Congress isn't about to propose a repeal amendment, the only way for states to take back control of the Senate is to propose, on their own, an amendment to repeal the 17th amendment.
If there were only one amendment to come out of a states; convention, I would like it to be that one.
-PJ
On the issue of the 17th amendment (and the 16th for that matter) we agree: these two devices allowed the fedgov to become a monster.
I would strongly favor the repeal of both.
However, while I agree that this does indeed tie the hands of state gov’t’s, they do still have all kinds of tools at their disposal to wreck havoc on the fedgov’s plans.
Take Obamacare. What would the fedgov do if a state banned the federal exchanges in their state and refused to allow the navigators into the state to work? What if the dept of insurance banned any insurance company from both providing insurance directly and/or through employers and providing coverage through the exchanges?
What would the fedgov do if a state decided that they didn’t want to participate in Medicaid anymore, at all (a huge driver of most state budgets)? You keep your Medicaid dollars, we’ll provide the care we deem appropriate.
What’s Washington going to do? Send out the national guard? Let them. It would make a point as large as the filibuster.
On the point of the 16th and 17th we agree. Still, the states, especially if a few worked in concert, could put a stop to quite a bit of the crap coming from Washington. The only question is if they’ll tolerate putting a stop to the gravy train that comes with the crap.
That’s a problem for my proposed solution. It’s a problem for yours.