The Indiana General Assembly would not have kept returning Lugar to Washington... they would have bounced him as soon as he started to turn left.
Repealing the 17th Amendment, and repealing the Income Tax, would do a lot to restore the Republic.
"Republic" means you don't directly elect Senators, BTW.
Bull. They might have replaced him a rat when the rats took the State House, I don't how it worked if the 2 Houses were divided.
You people need to get it though your heads that state legislators are POLITICIANS who are no more likely to be conservative nor to oppose the federal government having a lot of power than members of Congress (many of whom used to be state legislators!). This idiotic scheme would give you the exact opposite of what you want, and that's so breathtakingly obvious that I really have trouble seeing how any intelligent person could not realize that. Put down Mark Levin's book and take a glance at the real world.
If you believe that, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you. Texas would’ve kept Ted Cruz out of the Senate under a 17th repeal and you think Indiana (which has had Dems winning the House with some frequency) would turn out Lugar for someone MORE Conservative ? You’d be lucky they’d not be sending Evan (if not Birch) Bayh as a replacement.
News to the dozens of Republics around the world that have directly elected Senators since the day they were founded. If you don't like that fact, you're free to demand the Czech Republic, Republic of Brazil (which had an appointed Senate when they were the "Empire of Brazil", but changed to an elected Senate when they became a Republic in 1889), Republic of Poland, etc., etc., stop calling themselves "Republics", and try to get other countries to stop recognizing them as such. Good luck with that.
Ironically, most of the countries that use the system you prefer (politicians appoint the upper legislative house for life and the people have no say in the matter) are NOT Republics. An obvious example being the House of Lords in the United Kingdom.