[Paleo Conservative]

Yes and this undermines the whole premise of the Senate which is equal representation of all states regardless of population. With so much money for these races coming from out of state, do senators who get elected represent their constituents' interests or their donors'.

The 16th amendment radically changed the relative power of the federal government versus the state governments. Prior to the 16th amendment, the state legislatures appointed senators. This meant that senators had lots of incentives to prevent passage of legislation that would take power from the state government and give more power to the federal government.

Direct election of senators means senators are more concerned with pleasing the marginal voter within each state to get reelected every six years rather than maintaining good relations with the state legislature back home. Another thing that should be mentioned is that marginal voters can be located anywhere within a state. When legislatures elected senators it was important to pay attention to different constituencies throughout a state, because gain a large number of votes in a highly concentrated geographical area would not help elect a senator. A senate candidate would have to win votes from state legislators representing at least 50% + 1 of the districts in each house of the state legislature. With direct election of senators, a senator can safely ignore vast areas of his or her own state and pile up huge majorities in large urban areas. This is why states with very large urban areas elect much more leftists senators.

[Thoro]

That was the 17th amendment. The 16th was the creation of income tax, another great idea. /sarcasm.

The 17th amendment really needs to be repealed. Campaign finance reform would have never have been needed if it didn't exist. The founding fathers set this style of government up purposefully, and rather ingeniously. It's a shame that so few people realize the difference between a democracy and a republic. The 17th amendment made us less of a republic and more of a democracy, which in result made our darling senators more concerned with the momentary whims of the population. The house of representatives was set up for that purpose, and the senate was set up to temper that impulse.

[Thoro]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/619597/posts

A link to a Freeper's essay about the 17th amendment.

[Temple Owl]

Another thing. Once these guys are in, they are entrenched. They are there forever because the machine will not remove them. We need term limits.