So, we need to answer a few questions to get to the bottom of whether this is a good idea.
1st: Is there more or less corruption in the Senate today than in 1913? Or more precisely, is the corruption we have now a larger or smaller problem than what we had then?
2nd: Does returning Senate appointments to the state legislature mean that a Senator would no longer be a lapdog of their specific party? The way I see it, they stay in office by supporting their state legislature even if it is Democrats. But the Democrat party itself isn’t expending resources to elect or hold them in line... right? They either support their state or they get replaced correct?
This should also in theory make it MUCH harder to get Senators to agree or operate in simple lockstep with a particular party because the party doesn’t keep them in office so much as the individual state does.
This would be a dramatic improvement over what we have now, even if the state legislature’s are mostly Democrat.
Or am I missing something?
A party can effectively place its man in the Senate by telling the legisl00ters to vote for him, or lose funding for their next election campaigns.
1. We have more corruption than we had then. The institution of a national income tax with the 16th Amendment gave the Congress all manner of nefarious powers to hand out indulgences to those who had lobbying firms to fight for their special treatment. This has now become manifest in the recent Obamacare legislation, environmental legislation, etc, etc.
The Founders’ intent was that the Senate represent the interest of the states and the House represent the interests of the people. One of the outgrowths of the 17th Amendment has been the craven buying of votes with populist legislation that imposes unfunded mandates upon the states, along with “one size fits all” legislation because the Senate is no longer accountable to the state legislatures that put the senators there.
2. They might still be a lapdog to their party, but in different ways than today. Today, the Senate is controlled by the highest-spending politicians in the nation short of the POTUS. We now have some senators spending $25 mil and up for their seats. I think that campaign spending would go down, and the influence of lobbying groups would not be as strong if they had to put their case in front of the state legislatures, who know quite well who they want in a senate seat and why.
3. You’re not missing anything. The populists who think that the GOP would lose the senate forever have their heads in their nether regions and have been ignoring the success of the GOP at the state level. Right now, I count 26 legislatures in GOP hands - which would mean 52 senators appointed by GOP-controlled state legislatures. That’s not some huge shift from where we are.
Further, there are five legislatures with split control. Maybe they end up sending one Democrat, one Republican to the senate.
With work, there are at least two states where the GOP could gain control of the entire state legislature (VA and KY), which would mean two more GOP-appointed senators - bringing the total to 56 senators, then add a couple for split state legislatures, and suddenly things don’t look so bad, do they?
The Founders had an idea: Balance of power. They also knew, without saying it too loudly, that most people are morons, what we now call “low information voters.” Letting the morons have too much power in their vote was a dangerous thing - and that’s why we’re a republic rather than a democracy.