Laz,
Let’s assume for the sake of argument and assume that you’re right, that Senators would refuse to leave office under a repeal of the 17th Amendment. We should still repeal that amendment via an Article V convention. The reason is that most people would not believe that such an occurence could happen without actually seeing it. If we don’t exhaust all legitimate, Constitutional means to reign in Federal power and jump straight into more extreme measures, we are deemed kooks and nuts by the general populace, and our cause is hopeless.
However, if we use a legal, constitutional measure, such as repeal of the 17th Amendment via an Article V convention, such an action confers legitimacy on our side. If, in that case, Senators refuse to leave office even though the law states that they must, the general population concedes that we were right all along about the tyrants in the government, and will support our cause. Now we may have a chance to rectify the situation.
We must exhaust all legitimate, Constitutional remedies first. As I pointed out before, how does doing so cause harm? At worst, the Feds will ignore these actions and we are no worse off than we would be had we not done it.
If that were to occur, we would be worse off because the Constitution would no longer have any meaning. But that's not a reason for not doing it.
The federal government is elected by We the People to represent us and the states. If the feds begin to ignore explicit Constitutional terms on their positions (not boundaries of their power), then their entire license to operate becomes invalid and we now have a tyranny where rulers refuse to vacate.
That is really what the intent of Article V comes down to. We must separate the proposed amendments that limit power from the proposed amendments that constrain the terms of office, and first focus on the term limits, because there cannot be any wiggle room to enable an existing Representative or Senator to stay beyond their term.
Currently, terms in Congress are constrained by a person's ability to get reelected. At the very least, we must restore federalism in the Senate by returning the appointment of Senators back to the states. If a state wants to keep sending the same person back term after term, so be it. If the people of a state feel compelled to replace state officers in order to change the selection of federal officers, all the better.
But if a sitting Congress member refused to vacate, then we move into something completely unchartered.
-PJ