Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message hereThis has been one of the wrongs I believed needed righting long ago. But who, or what group, is going to take the lead to reverse this evil?
Instead of "moderates" (who stand for nothing) running around in search of a cause or two, perhaps a few would join true conservatives to change this back to where it made sense. If this hadn't happened there would be no lifers like Teddy Kennedy, Bobby Byrd-Brain, Patrick Leahy et al.
I think somebody like Newt (or someone of that caliber) has mentioned this in the last couple of years. Of course it fell on deaf ears.
But the current crop of dems would not allow this to happen - it would cause them even more loss of power (which would be a good thing).
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message hereWhile I am no fan of the 17th amendment it did not change the government from a republic. It is still a republic. Even the change itself was made according to the constitutional methods.
Anyone believing the legislatures would make better choices needs to watch mine in action. Though it is true that most are probably not as stupid as Illinois'.
BTW the Senate was not to represent the interests of the states but to be the equivalent of the House of Lords and look to the long term interests of the country. It still is the least democratic of the houses of Congress due to the longer period between elections. Our Founders were concerned to moderate the instanteous effects of democracy.
It is difficult to find info on the net relating to the supposed ratification of the 17th amendment.
Some say it was never properly ratified.
I think repeal is a pretty good idea, but I think a more severe flaw was built in at the nation's beginning. Look at the "factions" described in Federalist 10 whose effects are supposed to be ameliorated by the separation of powers. Political parties themselves are factions!
Such factional interest keeps the 17th in its place. It's the interests of the national or state parties at stake, not the interest of the state itself.
Should the 17th Amendment be repealed?
Lando 
Sadly it will probably never be repealed. It's much easier for Senators to influence the public every six years than it would be for the to influence the legislature. They'll never vote to change it.
I've been saying for years that the 17th Amendment was the worst thing to happen to this country.
Try telling somebody that the Senate no longer exists. They may give you blank stares, but tell them that we really have two houses and NO senate. I've converted a few to my line of thinking that way.
Amen.
Things changed from 1787 to 1913: 1) People convinced themselves that government had to be more democratic, with greater power for electoral majorities and fewer checks on their choices, 2) states ceased to be as economically significant as they had been, and 3) corporations came to be much more important. So the senator from West Virginia or Montana or Rhode Island would be seen as representing the coal mining or copper or textiles or oil, and not some specific set of WV, MT, or RI values.
Under the circumstances either 1) senators were going to be popularly elected in order to preserve the power of the upper house or 2) senators would remain chosen by the state legislatures and the Senate would lose authority and become more like other upper houses (the Australian or Canadian Senate, the British House of Lords, or the German Bundesrat).
I notice on the Internet, though, that one advocate of returning to the old way of doing things suggested letting the Republican and Democratic caucuses in state legislatures choose their party's senatorial candidates. It's an interesting measure that doesn't require anything more than a change of state laws. It could be a good indication of what a return to indirect election might yield.
As it is, though, I'd rather be governed by the first thousand names in the phone book, than by my state legislators, who tend not to be more honest or more reliable or even more intelligent than the average citizen.
The 17th Amendment is on the short list of problems FR was created to address. The 14th Amendment would be problematical if reversed since among other things it is the basis of the creation of the modern corporation, which is a huge part of the economy.
From the angry rant No Filibuster, No Re-Election for Blue State Senators:
If a stab-us-in-the-back senator in a blue state failed to support the filibuster we MUST find strong, tough candidates to run against and BEAT them. We must raise money for candidates, even if they are not running in our states.
Do you really want these angry people from New York, Massachusetts, and California messing with the selection of Senators in Hawaii, West Virginia, the Dakotas, and Delaware?
-PJ
But the real juice behind XVII in the first place was that the birdbrains in your and my state capitals were not doing a very good job of senator-choosing to begin with.
Do you think they would do any better now?
Ping to one of our favorite subjects...
You would still have Kennedy, and a few of the others, but the system would work better with a repeal.