[BikerNYC]

For one thing, it reduced the power of the individual states.

Don't you mean that it reduced the power of a State's elected (and, perhaps, unelected) officials who would otherwise have chosen the State's senator, and transferred that power to the State's electorate?

[TigersEye]

Don't you mean that it reduced the power of a State's elected (and, perhaps, unelected) officials who would otherwise have chosen the State's senator, and transferred that power to the State's electorate?

Except for the unelected part you are right. (state legislators are all elected I think) And it has been to the ruination of the Republic and a net loss in state's powers.

[Mike Bates]

The Founders intended members of the House to represent their constituents; Senators were expected to represent their states. Bruce Bartlett has written:

The 17th amendment was ratified in 1913. It is no coincidence that the sharp rise in the size and power of the federal government starts in this year (the 16th amendment, establishing a federal income tax, ratified the same year, was also important). As George Mason University law professor Todd Zywicki has noted, prior to the 17th amendment, senators resisted delegating power to Washington in order to keep it at the state and local level. “As a result, the long term size of the federal government remained fairly stable during the pre-Seventeenth Amendment era,” he wrote.

[Political Junkie Too]

Don't you mean that it reduced the power of a State's elected (and, perhaps, unelected) officials who would otherwise have chosen the State's senator, and transferred that power to the State's electorate?

By doing so, it made the Senate redundant, since the state's electorate already elected their representatives in the House. The Senate was supposed to be a different, more deliberative body, by NOT being elected by the whims of the people.

-PJ