Posted on 08/13/2004 11:22:59 AM PDT by Aquinasfan
SPRINGFIELD - If Illinois voters elect Alan Keyes to the U.S. Senate, he'd prefer they not get another chance.
Keyes, a Maryland Republican who just moved to Calumet City for the campaign, supports returning to a system abolished nearly a century ago of letting state legislators pick U.S. senators rather than voters.
In fact, he's dubbed the constitutional amendment that switched to public election of senators one of the country's greatest mistakes, vowing in past campaigns to re-examine it if voters ever sent him to Washington, D.C.
"He does still support repeal of the 17th Amendment," Keyes campaign adviser Dan Proft said Thursday, but added it is "not near the top of his agenda."
"This is not to be a centerpiece item of his legislative agenda should he be elected," Proft added. He described it as an issue befitting debate in "the hallowed halls of academia" or a "PBS special."
Obama contends the switch to voters was good for democracy.
"I certainly trust the people of Illinois and other states to choose who they want to represent them in the U.S. Senate. That is the very basis of our democracy," Obama said. "I would hope that Alan Keyes would trust those voters too."
Before approval of the 17th Amendment in 1913, state lawmakers picked their U.S. senators. The amendment moved that power to the people. Illinois supported the switch.
Although his aides say it is not a top issue now, Keyes highlighted the topic in the past. During a discussion with a caller on the Feb. 19, 1999, episode of Keyes' radio program, he said the change ignored the fundamental difference the nation's founding fathers wanted between the U.S. House and Senate. Originally, the House represented the people, while the Senate was considered to represent state governments.
"And we changed that, disregarded that, and I think it's hurt us deeply," Keyes said, according to a program transcript.
The push in the late 1800s and early 1900s to publicly elect senators was provoked by lingering impasses at the state level to name senators and questionable appointments.
During one of his presidential bids, Keyes named the switch to public voting for senators as one of the federal government's biggest mistakes along with income taxes and the Federal Reserve Bank. A news account in the Riverside Press-Enterprise from a 1995 fund-raiser in California includes Keyes promising to re-examine those topics if elected.
Asked about the irony of the situation, Proft replied: "You run under the system that's in place."
Of course, if the old system was in place Keyes would be a political underdog. Democrats control the Illinois House and Senate.
I'm assuming you are referring to U.S. representatives when you say 'congressman' since senators are technically congressmen, also.
It was the state legislatures who chose senators (until the 17th Amendment was enacted), not U.S. representatives, since the Senate was designed to represent the interests of the states, which created the federal government and endowed it with certain limited, specifically-stated powers. The Tenth Amendment was added in order to insure that the states retained their powers and had the option of leaving if a tyrannical situation was created in the future.
For the caveat, see my post #103.
That done, Yes in retrospect it does.
In my personal experience it has been people who didn't want the responsibility or the power who did best when put in such a position.
(There are exceptions, of course. and as always.)
I'll have to track that book down, haven't heard about it before, or if I did it didn't stick in my noggin.
Congressmen never picked the Senators. Each States legislature decided who the Senators from their State would be.
This makes sense even today. The Federal Government would be represented by the individual people (The House of Representatives), the individual State Governments (The Senate), and the nation as a whole (The President).
The House was given the pursestrings, the Senate was the watchdog over the Executive branch, and the President had control over the nomination of judges.
Now the Senate no longer acts as a watchdog over the Executive branch, it acts as the Senior House of Representatives.
The 17th Amendment needs to be repealed to bring the checks and balances back in order.
No one. Alabama (my state) sends 7 of 9 Republican Congressmen to Washington. At the same time, we have a heavily Dim controlled state legislature. Why? In our system of Federalism, the State gov't is relatively powerless. We just aren't affected enough by the Dim bozos in the state legislature to put up much of a fight.
Bump!
Right. And neither did any other candidate they had in mind.
It seems that the ONLY candidates that many "Republicans" on this site would have supported as the GOP nominee was Obama. He was the ONLY candidate that polls showed had a chance of winning. Should the IL GOP SCC have selected Obama or someone that "had no chance of winning"?
If he like the way it was, perhaps e can go back thre and the congress will be part-time, that is the best thing that could happen, in my humble opinion of course.
They could come back when there was an emergency then leave!
Calumet City? Make very, very sure of the street address. Calumet City sits right on the state line, across from Hammond, Indiana, and some little wavers in the plat lines in the 2nd PM actually put certain parts of Calumet City in Indiana.
It took an amendment of the Constitution, done in the days when Progressives were at their peak, to change the selection of Senators from the state legislature, or appointment by the state governor, to direct election. Right along about the time of the Federal income tax, IIRC. There is still a provision that allows states to appoint Senators to fill unexpired terms between the normal date at which a Senator would be elected, normally given to the governor if the power is not taken away by the legislature.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column, "Says the Wuss: Ma, He's Touching Me"
If you haven't already joined the anti-CFR effort, please click here.
P.S. Speaking as a lifelong student of the Constitution I think Keyes is twice-times right. He's right that the 17th Amendment was a disaster, and also right to not make that any part of his current campaign.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column, "Says the Wuss: Ma, He's Touching Me"
If you haven't already joined the anti-CFR effort, please click here.
When the states ratified the 17th amendment, they surrendered their sovereignty to the federal government. Direct election of senators permits pandering senators to sacrifice states' interests to the interests of political parties. When senators were responsible to legislatures rather than the general electorate, the states could preserve their rights and interests. Now, however, the federal government draws all power into itself and will, eventually, we will lose are liberty.
Can't wait for the debates.
I think we should repeal all but the original 10
Of course, every time I bring that up my sister says "but then I couldnt vote"
Then I remind her that she was stupid enough to vote for Bill because she liked Hillary, and my Grandmother voted for JFK because he was good looking
I do strongly agree with Keyes on this subject - the states are not being properly represented the way it is now.
On a slightly different subject, I do seriously believe that only landowners should be allowed to vote on matters involving property tax. Here in Illinois landowners are getting screwed.
LOL! That pig's teeth... I was wondering where my store boughts had gotten to, now I know.
lol ... ya got me there. but that's the point. Rigorous, constitutionally conservative anti-pandering stands sound great to principled folks but will NOT get you elected.
Keyes may be a good talker on these issues, but the sheeple wont understand it, especially when presented by the lamestream press without explanation.
Keyes - TO WIN - needs to find a FEW key issues, stick to ONLY those issues, and get the voters behind him. His pontifications in the past on every issue under the sun make hi interesting but, alas, harder to elect.
Originally the electorate influenced the U.S. Senate through their legislators whom they elected. Each state could set their own term lengths and other electoral particulars for that. The legislators were presumed to represent the state's interests as a whole as that is what they were elected to do. They appointed a U.S. Senator to represent the state's interests in the Federal Congress.The electorate had their own interests more closely represented, by district, apportioned by population, through their Congressmen. That is why Congressmen have shorter terms than Senators so that the electorate could more rapidly address their ever changing wishes in Congress. Senators were presumed to be chosen for their abilities by a more stable and better informed body than the electorate, the state's legislature. That is what they were hired to do by the electorate. Manage the interests of the state.
Now Senators are hired by the electorate, two per state, no apportioning, and go off to D.C. for six years where they entrench themselves in a self-protecting bureaucracy where they are unanswerable to state officials by censure or recall and nearly unanswerable to the electorate having found an unlimited trough of re-election funds and a good-old-boy re-election support network.
The Senate was to be a check on the House. The House, working directly for the people, would craft laws and treaties and bills. The Senate (which could also do those things) would represent the individual state's interests. The Senate, being longer tenured and more narrowly chosen, was to be the august tempering body that kept the more mercurial, temporal and widely dispersed interests of the House in check.
The state loses power to the feds because they must now grovel at a Congress's feet for authority and money. (One is usually tied to the other it seems.) So now both Senators and Congressmen are elected by popular vote which is fickle, being relatively easily manipulated in comparison to state officials, and self interested rather than interested in the state's sovereignty and welfare.
The 17th Amendment was a bill of goods sold to the people with the basic slogan of the Dems after election 2000; "the people are being disenfranchised." It was a way for the feds to consolidate more power and the people who pushed for it knew that. They were well aware of the maxim of pure democracies, to paraphrase; "once the people find that they can vote themselves largesse from the government they will do so until it is bankrupt." For wannabe petty tyrants that's a great thing. The more instability there is the more power they can assume. It was a major and necessary step towards socialism and the eventual dictatorship that we will have.
Next step: Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations.
Next step: FDR and Supreme Court supremacy.
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