“...How would Senate look if we repealed 17th Amendment today?...”
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I’m all ears.
I think this is a great idea!
Repeal of the 17th would only serve to empower the already corrupted establishment types and bosses in the state legislatures. You’d have an utterly unaccountable body made up of the same ultra-Marxist Democrat moonbats from 1-party states and go along to get along big gubmint RINOs looking for pork. No Ted Cruz or Rand Paul types need apply.
Sure. Let’s not do it because it’s the right thing to do. Let’s do it because we think it will help Republicrats.
The author doesn’t even have it right. Even with popular election, the Senate still gives some equality to the States with equal representation.
What’s missing is a balance to populism. The hyperbolic House was supposed to be balanced by a chamber less likely to be a knee-jerk reaction to contemporary fads and idiocy - like a House of Lords. Instead, we have crazy Diane Feinstein and all the rest. Just what you’d expect in the House, only worse. Representing millions of people each, in some cases, they are responsible to no-one, except those who fund their election campaigns.
It’s always far easier for stupid people to break what it took real genius to create.
The 17th Amendment is certainly wrong, but for reasons beyond the understanding of the author.
I could accept a compromise on the 17th. Give every district 1 vote for senator. Basically model it after the electoral college the same way I would like to see my state vote for president.
AMEN to repealing the 17th. Throw in the 16th for good measure (and sometimes I wonder about the 19th as well/jk,sort of)
Why is CA purple on the bottom map? They have a 2/3 Rat majority in their legislature.
It would be easier to pass welfare reform than to take one french fry to the Senators who believe they are entitled.
How would it look? There would be a wholesale rejection of just about everything today’s libs believe in, and the democrat party would be much more conservative than it is now.
Imagine what the pork-hungry, power-hungry legislators of the state assemblies would put in the Senate. Would the situation really be any less communistic?
It won't matter what party the appointees are... the fact that they are appointed by the state legislature and can be recalled by the state legislature means they will answer to the state legislature.
And all the self serving power grabbing trips in the US Senate will stop and the balance between the states and the federal government will be restored.
"...the federal government quickly ratified the 17th Amendment, ..."
To begin with, I find it disturbing that the article in the OP included the wording above. Only the states, not the federal government, have the Article V authority to ratify proposed amendments to the Constitution.
Next, the 17th Amendment is practically meaningless imo. After all, senators swear to defend the Constitution and work within Congress's Section 8-limited powers no matter who elects them into office. The reason that voters are so interested in who runs DC is that voters are evidently clueless that the Founders had reserved the lion's share of government power to serve the people to the states, not the federal government.
The problem with the Senate is the following. As I have mentioved in related threads, Justice John Marshall had officially clarified that Congress is prohibited from laynig taxes in the name of state power issues, issues which Congress cannot justify under Sectian 8 of Article I.
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." --Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
And one of the likely reasons that the Senate was originally established was to kill any appropriations bills from the House of Representatives which not only wrongly usurped state powers, but also stole, as Justice Marshall had clarified, state revenues associated with usurped state powers.
So the Founding States had the right idea with respect to having the state legislatures elect federal senators. The Founders had undoubtedly envisioned that state sovereignty-minded state lawmakers could give the boot to federal senators who helped the HoR to pass bills which usurped state powers and stole state revenues.
Unfortunately, what the Founders had likely feared concerning the Senate has been going on for decades. The corrupt Senate has been helping the House to pass Section 8 noncompliant taxing and spending legislation, the DC elite and their rich supporters essentially partying on the illegal taxes.
After all, why engage in the risky business of robbing banks for a living when you can get elected to Congress and make legislation that robs people by means of illegal federal taxes?
Bump for later consideration...
ping
Repeal the 19th while you’re at it.
I am only half-kidding.
