BLANKLEY: To re-empower our states (repeal the 17th Amendment)

The Washington Times ^ | January 26, 2010 | Tony Blankley

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

As I was preparing to write a column on the ludi -crous maligning of the Tea Party movement by liberals, Democrats and the mainstream media (which I hope to write next week instead) I started thinking about one of the key objectives of the Tea Party people - the strict enforcement 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.").

As an early-1960s-vintage member of the then-new conservative movement, I remember us focusing on the 10th Amendment during the 1964 Goldwater campaign. It has been a staple of conservative thought, and the continued dormancy of 10th Amendment enforcement has been one of the failures of our now half-century-old movement.

But just as the Tea Party movement seems in so many ways to represent the 2.0 version of our movement, so I again thought about the 10th Amendment anew. After about 10 seconds' thought, it struck me that the best way to revive the 10th Amendment is to repeal the 17th Amendment - which changes the first paragraph of Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution to provide that each state's senators are to be "elected by the people thereof" rather than being "chosen by the Legislature thereof."(As I Googled the topic, I found out that Ron Paul and others have been talking about this for years. It may be the only subject that could be proposed and ratified at a constitutional convention with three-fourths of the state legislatures.)

[fieldmarshaldj]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_v._Carr

This one led to Reynolds, though. It was in my state where redistricting hadn’t occurred for the legislature (by the early 1960s) since 1901, and was dreadfully out of whack with the population. The state was dominated by rural pols in counties with very small populations while the cities were drastically underrepresented. After the ruling was made, TN’s House went from 2/3rds Democrat to half-and-half by 1968, so Black Democrats, urbanites, and Republicans benefitted from the decision.

[Gordon Pym]

I think we are missing the point here. It doesn't matter as much how our politicians are elected as much as it does what they do once they are. (Personally I think the closer you can get to the people the better the outcome ) What we need to do is to reclaim as much power as possible from the government dictators and return it to the people. If we are going to repeal any amendment to the constitution it should be the 16th. If we remove the vast flood of money going into the federal government and the ability they have to snoop into how much money each individual American makes, How they make it and where they choose to spend or invest it we would take their means of controlling these aspects of our lives. We would also kill the most evil organization ever to defile the face of the earth — the IRS.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I just read the Reynolds description, so you're correct on that one, too. Of course, by that reckoning if you applied Reynolds nationwide, the U.S. Senate is out of whack with the population. Why should Wyoming get 2 Senators with 544,000 when California, with 37,000,000 also just get 2 ? Adjust it and CA should get 68 Senators.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

The Supreme Court couldn't apply it to the U.S. Senate because of the clause in the U.S. Constitution that said no state shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate, as far as I can guess (from Article V, if I remember correctly). It's a good thing, too, because otherwise, the Congress would be dominated by California, Texas, and New York. While Texas doesn't bother me, California and New York definitely do. Equal suffrage is the only thing the small states have left to their advantage in the Congress.

[fieldmarshaldj]

No, I understand that. You know what I’m getting at, though, if you were to similarly apply such a ruling at the federal level. I understand the justifications for applying it at the state level, but in doing so, in many of those states, it rapidly eliminated GOP dominance that kept the states from going moonbat or (as you put it) being overwhelmed by urban interests. Each state should’ve been within their rights to have a population imbalance with respect to the State Senates if they so chose (such as having 1 member for each county, regardless of population). But I don’t think that genie is gonna be put back in the bottle.

[Lurking Libertarian]

and having the requirement of obtaining tax money from the states instead of directly would help instill that. It would also remove the need for the entire IRS department at the federal level.

Repealing the 16th Amendment wouldn't accomplish that. Even before the 16th Amendment, Congress taxed the people directly and didn't go through the states. (The original Constitution gives the Congress power to "impose taxes, duties, imposts and excises," which is pretty broad.)

When the first income tax was passed (during the Civil War), the Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality. When the first peacetime income tax was passed (in 1894), the Supreme Court unanimously held that it was constitutional as to earned income (salaries and wages), and held 5-4 that it was unconstitutional only as to rents on real property. That was actually the only thing authorized by the 16th Amendment that wasn't authorized already.

[AmishDude]

What kind of Republicans do you think will be appointed from states with GOP legislatures?

Would they pick Crist or Rubio?

[Monorprise]

Indeed the 1964 ruling Reynolds v. Sims, came just 1 state shy of a 2nd Constitutional convention to overturn it.

Unfortunately the convention process takes so long that most of the state legislators were replaced by the time of the last state.

This the extraordinarily dangerous problem with investing the Federal Supreme court with the power to excursively dictate the meaning of the United States Constitution rather then simply matters under the constitution.
As that makes the 9 federal government appointed employees of the court NOT the constitution the Supreme law of the land.

This particular case was funny in the degree of ignorance and hypocrisy, as the court justified the contracting existence of the U.S. Senate on the grounds that it was in the U.S. Constitution as if the State Constiuttion mattered not.

Ultimately this like a great many bad court ruling including Row v.s. Wade, incorporation, hail form the easily exploited wording of the now otherwise defunct 14th amendment. We could undo all manner of evils simply by repealing the 14th amendment.

[Monorprise]

While I’m all for repealing the 16th Amendment as well truthfully it never did anywhere near as much damage as the 17th.

The power to directly Tax the states ill-respective of their populations is in practice nothing compared to the interest in Federal control thou unlimited tax and spending powers, (which STILL require congress to ignore its Constitutionally limited scope of powers.)

Technically speaking under the original meaning of the General welfare clause, congress does not have the right to tax or ensue dept unless its in the interest of the general(not class,state, or group spesfic) welfare or common defense of the united states in addition to only using the forgoing powers.

To that end Congress and the Congress appointed courts(anyone else see the conflict of interest?) which support them(big surprise) are overstepping their authority in terms of most of what the Federal Government now does.

This is why we need as many states as possible passing Federal Escrow Tax bills like this one now being looked at in Georgia:
http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2009_10/versions/hb877_LC_18_8555T_pf_2.htm

or this one being looked at by the Oklahoma state Legislator:

http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/2009-10bills/HB/HB2810_int.rtf

Or this one in Washington State:

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/documents/billdocs/2009-10/Pdf/Bills/House%20Bills/2712.pdf

We may not have the Senate as a tool to help prevent theses usurpation from coming into congressional acts in the first place but we still have the Constitution and our backup options for its enforcement.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Probably Crist (sigh). As I believe I implicitly stated before, the Republican agenda has a decidedly socialist bent these days (nationalized education, their own version of SS (accounts), actually using protection of Medicare as a reason to oppose Health Care Deform, etc.). They merely oppose Obama’s junk without opposing all the junk put in place beforehand. All these country club swine would no doubt be more comfortable with a guy who actually hugged Obama, rather than an actual conservative.

Certain legislatures, such as Oklahoma’s, could prove an exception to this unfortunate rule. :-)

Once again, it appears to be up to us to do the heavy work.

[Monorprise]

It is possible that politicians of all stripes who get that far simply desire power?

I don’t dispute your point about republicans, although i would like to see Social Security and Medicare moved into private individual accounts as a vehicle to get it out of the Federal government all together, without screwing all the people who were forced to spend so much of their money into the program over the last 70+ years.

The point is, all politicians of all stripes, state, local, federal, Republican, independent, or democrat, with few exceptions desire power.

This makes all of them predisposed to the socialist bent as socialism grant the politicians as apposes to the individual the greatest degree of power. We cant change this basic natural fact about politicians, it is after all what motivates them to run for office just as too much of it corrupts them while in office.

All we can do is check that need power by making them fight for it. In elections, between branches of government, and between levels of government.

It is precisely that check on power between governments which we are attempting to help restore with repealing the 17th amendment. Along with the 10th amendment movement, Federal politicians have become hopelessly corrupted by the boundless power they have usurped to themselves. That power must be dramatically reduced if we the people are to regain effective control of them.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

After reading fieldmarshaldj’s take on legislative history, I suspect that corruption has been a problem in local governments all along. In the disant future, scrutiny of local politicians will also be more local. By that time, scrutiny of our Federal leaders will have reached critical mass, and the idea of weakening an informed voter would be even more absurd.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I don’t know whether I mentioned it before, but when you get right down to it, I think we know the absolute least about those members closest to us (i.e. State Rep, State Sen, Councilmember). Unless you happen to get a glossy flier in the mail or hear their name mentioned on a local newscast, you often have no idea what they’re up to because they’re rarely followed. With everything being DC-centered now, better than 90% of attention is focused on federal elected officials. Of course, when nobody is paying attention locally, corruption is allowed to fester, and I think a lot of the local pols think they can get away with murder because they’re not being scrutinized greatly.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

I’d say that this thread is actually resolved. The only arguments remaining against your points are circular. God bless you for being informed and taking out the time. FRegards ....