Posted on 08/09/2017 1:28:17 AM PDT by Jacquerie
Former Governor Mike Hucakbee and Col. Allen West believe it could.
Gov. Huckabee pointed out in a tweet last week that repealing the 17th Amendment, which instituted the popular election of Senators, would ensure that Senators work for their states and respect the 10th Amendment.
"Time to repeal 17th Amendment," he said on July 28th. "Founders had it right-Senators chosen by state legislatures. Will work for their states and respect 10th amid."
Col. Allen West made a similar point in a much longer piece on his website:
Imagine if those GOP senators who blocked the repeal of Obamacare could be recalled by their state legislatures! If they could be subjected to a vote of “no confidence” and be removed! How differently would these senators act? Or any senator? It would certainly preclude the arrogance and defiance of what has become a very lucrative club — not of citizen servants but of those who believe their political position entitles them to lord over us with no retribution, enabling them to become career politicians.
Yes, I believe it’s time to talk about the 17th Amendment, for people to understand what it is, and why we changed the original vision of Madison, Hamilton, and Jay. Our U.S. Senate is not a House of Lords, albeit they tend to believe they are. Yes, the 17th Amendment gave the state’s governors the power to appoint a replacement, until a special election occurs or until the next election cycle. But it’s time we assess the repeal of the 17th Amendment, and give state legislatures the ability to elect, and recall, their senators. I just have to ask, if the 17th Amendment didn’t exist, would Arizona, Maine, Alaska, West Virginia, and a few others be looking to replace their current senators?
(Excerpt) Read more at conventionofstates.com ...
The 14th.
Not in and of itself, mind you, but due the made up jurisprudential doctrine of incorporation
.
How's that?
Well, consider the commonly held belief that the government [federal, state, county, municipal] cannot regulate (e.g.) speech due to the first amendment — this is the result of incorporation — but when you look at the actual text of the first amendment its first word is Congress
and thereby names exactly who or what it applies to. Since states/counties/municipalities don't have a congress applying the first amendment as written to them would do nothing, therefore the amendment is altered to suit the situation in order to apply against the applicable government entity… but this requires a de facto amendment altering the first amendment.
— that is how the judiciary usurped the power to alter the Constitution, and it is from that that the majority of the damage the Judiciary has done stems.
I agree with this assessment of the 17th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Direct election of Senators was not part of the ‘great compromise’.
JoMa
Article V ping. Former Cong. Allan West and former Gov. Mike Huckabee have endorsed the Convention of the States movement.
At this point each state needs to vote in their legislative assemblies to call for a Convention of States. Three amendments should be at the forefront.
The first should be to repeal the 17th amendment.
The second should be for term limits.
The third should be to require that in Presidential elections each elector be required to cast their electoral vote for the Presidential Candidate who received the majority of votes in their Congressional District, not in a winner take all statewide count.
The real effect of the 17th was probably just to change the location of corruption from state capitals to DC. Resistance to the repeal of the 17th does indeed also come from many conservatives who say they just don’t trust their state government! Presumably, switching corruption to a place where they don’t know as many of the players allows them to sleep better.
For a serious deeper look at the history around the 17th Amendment, here’s a lengthier treatment:
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s10401.pdf
It's easier to manage 50 corruptions localized to their individual states, instead of the collusion of corruption at the federal level that is nationalized.
At least with the states, you have the self-interests of the other 49 states to balance the corruption of a runaway state. National corruption ends with weaponizing the arms of government against its people in order to protect the establishment.
At the very least, doing away with the elections will dry up the existing money spigots, such as McConnell's NRSC. He will have to rebuild a new power network to replace it, since it would be harder for McConnell to use national money to influence the state appointment in Mississippi or Alabama, like he's doing now.
-PJ
State corruption also can’t draw on an endless supply of deficit spending the way DC corruption does. (Although states like CA and IL are certainly trying!)
End 33 of the most expensive elections that occur every two years, and you also stop the the flow of money from the donors to the media, laundered through the campaigns.
Kill the MSM beast by repealing the 17th amendment.
-PJ
Out of necessity, our republic was a compound form; it featured both democratic and federal elements. It could be no other way, for the states would have never subjected themselves to a government in which they were not represented. Until the 17th Amendment, no republic in history denied the lawmaking consent of a component member. Since 1913, the states have been subjected to arbitrary, despotic rule – tyranny. While the Constitution and subsequent laws and court rulings still act on the states, the states have no say in the government of their creation.
Left in the wake of the 17A is federalism without a federal government!
The Bitter Harvest of the 17th Amendment.
The 17A not only didn't solve the shallow problems its Progressive acolytes claimed, it violated fundamental republicanism: consent of the governed.
Amendment 16: federal income tax (1913)
Amendment 17: direct election of U.S. Senators (1913)
Amendment 18: Prohibition (1919) (repealed by Amendment 21, 1933)
Amendment 19: woman suffrage (1920)
I would encourage all to study a little history. The reason the 17th amendment was passed was because of corruption on the state level. We never eliminate corruption, we just move it around.........................
“... The reason the 17th amendment was passed was because of corruption on the state level ...”
-
That’s not entirely true.
Corruption was one of three rationales given,
the other two were chronic vacancies in the senate,
and the populist movement in general.
Corruption has been revealed to be just a lame excuse
and not really a nationwide problem.
Ultimately the 17th was pushed forward by the populist movement.
I recommend that anyone interested should read this:
“Ulysses at the Mast: Democracy, Federalism,
and the Sirens’ Song of the Seventeenth Amendment”
by Jay S. Bybee of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas
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Here is a link to the 74 page pdf file:
http://scholars.law.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1365&context=facpub
See post #54.
Now that’s a great story.
YES, LET’S DO!
As blogger Instapundit says,”Embrace the healing power of ‘and’.”
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