Ultimately I care only about the ends and not the means, so given our difficulty in winning the Senate and the fact we have the majority of legislatures I am tempted to consider flip flopping on this, only for that reason.
The other “arguments” in favor remain silly. That idea that state governments (READ: STATE LEGISLATIVE LEADERS) should be represented in Washington is absurd. Even GOP state governments tend toward corruption like ALL governments. I would rather take my chances with an open election.
The further claim that Senators would somehow vote differently (read: “better” or “more constitutionally”) if chosen by legislatures is one of the top 5 most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard in my life. Democrats and RINOs in state legislatures don’t care about the constitution anymore than their counterparts in Washington do. If anything they would vote worse, no democrat for example would dare oppose his party on anything for fear of being replaced when fellow party loyalists are his only electorate. The “state rights” people never admit it but state governments (and local) are just as bad as the feds. The problem is bad government, not bad federal government.
The other one the “how dare you change what the founders put in” one is even lamer. The founders are the ones who made the constitution amendable. I don’t recall any advocate of this repeal ever addressing that counter argument.
They passed the amendment for good reason, there was massive corruption in the process and deadlocks when they couldn’t agree (I suppose this would happen in any state nowadays that has split control of legislative chambers).
Knee jerk bad mouthing of anything that was passed during the so called “Progressive era” is not an argument. They also passed good things like this, and the one letting women vote, though with recent elections I must question that one ( ;) just kidding ladies).
Most importantly though is the fact that is is pipe dream of a small handful of paleo-conservative types. Not only will it never happen but an actual mainstream movement to try and make it happen will never happen.
What we need to do is elect conservative Republicans to office at all levels of government. That mission in no way would be aided by any attempt at what most people would view as taking away their right to vote for Senator and giving it to a bunch of politicians.
We must deal with reality, even if it were a good idea, which it’s not, it still would not be viable.
Not in the face Cripplecreek, please, we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Although I do not favor repeal and the legislatures going back to electing both Senators, I have a compromise idea of sorts that I’ll present:
Why not increase the membership of the Senate to 150 members ? In awarding an additional Senator per state, let that particular individual be elected by the legislature, whose mission would that to ostensibly represent state interests. Since the states have 2 elections every 3 cycles for a Senator, let the “off” election cycle be the one that elects the 3rd member in each state. Rather than have the number jump to 150 overnight, it would be phased in in three elections...
As such:
2013
AL/AK/AR/CO/GA/ID/IL/IA/KS/KY/LA/NH/NC/OK/OR/SC/SD (17)
2015
AZ/CA/CT/DE/FL/HI/IN/MD/MO/NV/NY/ND/OH/PA/UT/VT/WA/WI (18)
2017
ME/MA/MI/MN/MS/MT/NE/NJ/NM/RI/TN/TX/VA/WV/WY (15)
Elections would be held by a joint meeting of both houses of the legislature (except NE, which is unicameral), to be held in either November or December, preceding the convening of the next Congress. Those voting members cannot be lame ducks, these would be all the new members elected in November (or earlier in states that didn’t hold legislative elections that year). The new Senator can only serve a maximum of 2 terms (12 years) in a lifetime. (This, however, might see the individual jumping from a state-elected seat to a popularly-elected one). If a Senator resigns or dies, a Governor may not appoint an interim member, but would instead convene a special session of the legislature to elect a new member at the earliest possible time, where they would serve until the next regular election.
Under such a system, the GOP would win at least 11 new Senators for 2013 (AL/AK/AR/GA/ID/KS/LA/NC/OK/SC/SD) the Dems would get 6 (CO/IL/IA/KY/NH/OR), though KY might have enough of a Conservative Dem element to vote in a Republican.
Instead of what will be a 10-seat (55D/45R) Dem majority, it would shrink by half (61D/56R).
Assuming the numbers remained static and the legislatures roughly the same, 2015 would usher in 9 from each party: Republicans (AZ/FL/IN/MO/ND/OH/PA/UT/WI) and Dems (CA/CT/DE/HI/MD/NV/NY/VT/WA), increasing to 70D/65R (and add in that close to 10 Dem seats from the class of 2008 are winnable, means we could still reclaim the majority).
The final 15 in 2017 would add 8 Republicans (MI/MS/MT/NE/TN/TX/VA/WY) and 7 Dems (ME/MA/MN/NJ/NM/RI/WV), though in three of those latter states, the GOP either currently has an outgoing majority (ME/MN) and in 1 (WV), may be GOP by then (or some of the Conservative Dems would vote for a Republican). So you’d have 77D/73R, again assuming nothing changed.
The downsides to all this however are this: it’s no remote guarantee that said legislative-elected members would somehow adhere to the Constitution more. If anything, they may simply be a rubber-stamp for the party that chose them and puppets of the legislative leaders (i.e. Spkr. Mike Madigan in IL). The Dem members would almost be as uniformally execrable as they currently are. The GOP may similarly be disappointing, as their goals may simply be to get as much money for their states as possible, with anything else being secondary. It would potentially produce a huge class of RINOs. Worse than that, if the legislatures put up serious Conservatives, you could easily have a dissident RINO minority join with the Democrats to elect liberal Senators (such could happen, for example, in Alaska, where you have a bizarre Dem/RINO majority governing coalition). Even “Conservative” Texas has a liberal RINO House Speaker, despite a commanding GOP majority. My own state of TN has a two-year nightmare (from 2009-11) when an ugly dissident RINO decided to make common cause with the Dem minority and the powerful outgoing Dem Speaker to elect him, while keeping the minority Dems in power.
Similarly, it’s unlikely you’d potentially have a reverse scenario with the Dems making common cause to elect a GOP Senator, unless the Dem candidate was seriously flawed and controversial, and that Republican would almost assuredly be a liberal RINO (such as a Lugar/Murkowski/Hagel/Chafee type).
In fact, in having presented some of the downsides, I may have managed to convince myself of the fallacies in my proposal !