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 !
Interesting idea.
The rat/RINO coalition in the Alaska Senate is ended, GOP gained a 14-6 majority (with the rat leader winning by a few votes and facing a recount) and all but 2 RINOs made peace. The New President and Maj Leader will be Senators who were NOT in the coalition while 2 former traitors will chair the rules and co-chair the finance committees. Only 1 rat was given a committee chairmanship.
For some reason one Senator, rat Dennis Egan currently repping seat B and will for 2013 will hold seat P, did not have to face reelection. I don’t know why, very weird.
The RINOs ARE still there in both houses. Also a problem in Kansas. And would be in NH if we had kept control there. Almost a 3 party system in some states.
I support adding a third senator per state for independent reasons, but I would prefer that all three be elected directly by the people, not through state representatives elected in gerrymandered districts.
As for the phase-in of the third senator (irrespective of how he’d be elected), it couldn’t be done the way you say, DJ, since Article V of the Constitution (the one that permits amendments) specifically declares that no amendment may deny a state of equal representation in the Senate without its consent. So every state must elect a third senator at once, and the phase-in must be done the way that it was done for the 1st Congress—by making the initial term for the new senators 2, 4 or 6 years so that each class has the same number of senators and no state has more than one seat up the same year. So if the election for the third senator is in 2014, FL would elect a senator for 6 years (its current senators are up in 2016 and 2018), GA would elect a senator to an initial 4-year term (its current senators are up in 2014 and 2016), and RI would elect one to an initial 2-year term (its senators are up in 2014 and 2018).