Posted on 06/01/2010 11:59:35 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Few members of the Tea Party have endorsed Rand Paul’s misgivings about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but a surprising number are calling for the repeal of an older piece of transformative legislation: the 17th Amendment. If you don’t have the Constitution on your smartphone, that’s the one adopted in 1913 that provides for direct popular election of United States senators.
Allowing Americans to choose their own senators seems so obvious that it is hard to remember that the nation’s founders didn’t really trust voters with the job. The people were given the right to elect House members. But senators were supposed to be a check on popular rowdiness and factionalism. They were appointed by state legislatures, filled with men of property and stature.
A modern appreciation of democracy — not to mention a clear-eyed appraisal of today’s dysfunctional state legislatures — should make the idea unthinkable. But many Tea Party members and their political candidates are thinking it anyway, convinced that returning to the pre-17th Amendment system would reduce the power of the federal government and enhance state rights.
Senate candidates have to raise so much money to run that they become beholden to special interests, party members say. They argue that state legislators would not be as compromised and would choose senators who truly put their state’s needs first.
Around the country, Tea Party affiliates and some candidates have been pressing for repeal — though there also has been a lot of hasty backtracking by politicians once the voters realized the implications. In Idaho, two candidates in last month’s Republican primary for the First District House seat said they favored repeal, including the winner, Raul Labrador...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It should absolutely be repealed.
You can clearly see how liberals are opposed to states rights.
Pretty soon there will be a move to abolish the Electoral College.
When we adopted the 17th amendment our Senators became Federal animals.
By repealing it, they will again become a state animal as was so wisely intended.
From Wikipedia:
The following states neither ratified nor rejected the amendment:
1.Alabama
2.Kentucky
3.Mississippi
4.Virginia
5.South Carolina
6.Georgia
7.Maryland
8.Delaware
9.Rhode Island
10.Florida
It would also pave the way for Conservatives in Britain to resist democratizing the House of Lords (though that seems too far along to halt, now).
State legislatures are just breeding grounds for CongressCritters. They are clearly too retarded to pick US Senators.
The Times is too dumb to realize that the Senators are supposed to represent the states as entities. That is why they were to be appointed by the local democratically elected representatives, in order to reflect the interests of the individual state.
It’s a good idea.
Today, Senators are elected by K Street not main street.
It may be true that appointed senators, accountable only to state legislators, would never approve of many useful federal mandates designed to put the national interest above local parochialism — including everything from the minimum wage to the new health care reform law.
Yeah, that's the point.
The fact that the 17th amendment was enacted in 1913 says volumes. Woodrow Wilson liked it, and income tax, and the Federal Reserve, The League of Nations, A virtual cornucopia of progressive ideas.
In December 1829, Andrew Jackson wrote his first State of the Union letter to Congress. (It was a letter then, not a speech.) In it he proposed the following amendments to the Constitution:
He got the last one, but it was 76 years after he left office.
He probably wasn’t too opposed to the ideas of eugenics either. He may have been the most virulently racist president America has ever had.
The repeal of the 17th Amendment would also increase interest and participation in elections for state legislatures.
Congressmen represent the people. Senators represent the states. That’s how it was designed. The states lost their representation after the 17th, and now look how much power they have left.
--one of the primary reasons for the adoption of the 17th amendment was railroad domination of several state legislatures-----
it’s a good idea when state legislatures aren’t corrupt. It seems somewhat insular in this day and age.
Thanks for posting. That was what I was thinking and was about to post as well.
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