A Congressman is caught buying out a competitor to drop out of a race.
Could this be an example scenario in a repealed 17th amendment Senate to show how hard it would be for a party to influence state legislatures with PAC money when there are no more Senate elections?
Note that the bought candidate pleaded guilty, but the bribing Congressman was not charged.
-PJ
Superb observations and questions put forth by PJ, Paul Jacob as posted by Kaslin.
I say corruption is endemic to every thing made by man. Everything. Our homes, autos, marriages, families, congress . . . and our very souls are assaulted every day.
The Framers were well aware of man’s shortcomings and ability to put his interests far above the common good. It is why their design of government didn’t attempt to do the impossible, to outlaw man’s natural propensity to enrich himself at the expense of others.
Instead, they designed institutions whose natural proclivities tended to cancel out the natural corruption of their fellow institutions. It sounds crazy, but James Madison was a genius whose theory proved sound.
IOW, despite the expected corruption of individuals, the Framers’ bicameral congress derived from two distinct sources PROVED that institutions do not require the membership of angels to secure liberty.
A senate filled with corrupt senators is of little interest to me if the senate does its Constitutional duties.
<>Could this be an example scenario in a repealed 17th amendment Senate to show how hard it would be for a party to influence state legislatures with PAC money when there are no more Senate elections?<>
Directly to your point, you may wish to read “Electing the Senate” by Wendy J. Schiller and Charles Stewart. They examine, in exhausting detail, the effect of party on the election of senators between 1865 and 1913.