Maybe the author should instead ponder the damage done to Congress by the 17th Amendment.
**Maybe the author should instead ponder the damage done to Congress by the 17th Amendment.**
The root of this issue. A problem ‘solved’ just creates another.
Yep. They wanted “more democracy” and passed the 17th Amendment. Now senators answer to the people. They’re getting what they deserve.
Every author, editor, and publisher who touches this subject without addressing the issues of the 17th does not have credibility.
The disconnect between post-17th senators and the Framers intent for the institution is there for anyone to see, but was putridly on display in the aftermath of Obamacare.
By January of 2011, twenty-seven states challenged the constitutionality of Obamacare in federal court. Twenty-two senators from those states had voted for the law. In seven of the twenty-seven states, both senators voted for Obamacare!
IOW, Obamacare would have been a dead letter in our Framers' Senate.
Having dispensed with representing state legislatures since 1913, these at-large politicians from geographic areas called states gather in an institution with little apparent purpose beyond reelection and accumulating wealth.
The modern senate is as useful to the continued life of our republic as an appendix is to the human body.
Both are vestigial organs that long ago lost their original functions. Like an appendix, which can burst and kill its owner, a senate without institutional pride and purpose may, through neglect of its duties, one day endanger the continuance of our beloved republic.
https://articlevblog.com/2018/01/federalism-in-the-first-congress/