Would you prefer those same two be elected by your Sacramento legislators and make them 100% directly unaccountable to the voters ? With the 17th amendement in place, CA would’ve had no Republican Senators after the 1960s, the last time they had majority control of the entire legislature (1969). In my state, the Gore family would’ve controlled the Senate seats for a half-century, perhaps longer (because the Dem legislative majority would’ve returned Gore to his old seat after he lost the Presidency).
You may not like the 17th, but you’d have a far worse scenario as I described.
Let me counter your argument. I’m going to use West Virginia as an example. I don’t know what the makeup of their state legislatures are, Republican or Democrat. Lets say they have a majority democratic legislature. Currently, Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller (their two Senators) are for Cap n Tax.
Now, even if they appointed two Democratic Senators that were responsible to the state legislature, do you think those two Senators would be for Cap N Tax with a state legislature that needs the Coal industry like West Virginia does? Byrd and Rockefeller are influenced by interests outside of West Virginia to vote for Cap N Tax, if they were dependent on West Virginia’s influence, there is no way they would vote for Cap N Tax...
“Would you prefer those same two be elected by your Sacramento legislators and make them 100% directly unaccountable to the voters ?”
That’s the point. My two nutjob senators are exactly what the Sacramento legislators would have appointed to the US Senate. These senators are supposed to represent the interests of Michigan, not California.