[ZULU]

I don’t know the answer to your question. To every state with rational, patriotic, informed Americans like Georgia, there are states like New Jersey and Massachusetts and Maryland and New York and California and Illinois who have large urban populations of uniformed, uneducated, mindless government subsidized drones.

Would the balance of Senators overall be any diffferent than the balance today? I don’t know.

Also, I was under the impression that back then, most politicians were like Cincinnatus. Their political careers were brief interludes to a relatively normal like, unlike the plethora of long term, “professional” politicians who plague us today.

I just can’t tell which system today would be better.

[FatMax]

My very simple theory is that state legislatures would elect senators according to their party makeup. Utah, with 80-plus percent Republican control would likely elect two Republican senators. Hawaii, with 90-plus percent Democrat would likely elect two Democrat senators. Iowa, with a 50% split in the state legislature would elect one senator from each party. My post, which includes data and maps showing the current senate makeup and what the likely makeup would be following a repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment is here: http://victoryinstitute.net/wethepeople/archives/15 Although quite simple, my analysis is that Democrats would lose 12 seats to the Republicans. That is because state legislatures have quite a bit more R's than D's.

[Jacquerie]

Good point and it brings up one of the little known reasons Progressives pushed for the 17th. State legislatures in general, better reflected rural, Republican interests. Before the bogus Scotus One-Man-One-Vote ruling, State Senators could represent counties. In most states there were more rural counties than urban counties, and pubbies in the aggregate had a leg up in representation.

We'll never know for sure the ramifications of the 17th, but if Senators had not been beholding to the whims of the people just as Congressmen are, had not been charged with spreading the wealth these past 100 years, I think it is fair to say our nation would be far different. The mindless urbanites would probably be fewer in number, for there would have been less money for democrats to breed them for the past several generations.

Under the federal system, there was feedback between the States and Senators. With the 17th, the feedback moved to between the mob and Senators. I just don't think the FDR, LBJ, Obama programs of spreading the plunder would have had a chance without the 17th.

[Jacquerie]

Oops. I wandered off topic with One-Man-One-Vote, which came later. The 17th was designed in part by Progs to give the urban counties more power. It did so, without the Scotus ruling.