This is a double-edged sword. Not sure about this one.
I would HATE to have the New Jersey Legislature choose our Senators.
On the other hand, considering the blathering idiots (Corzine, Menendez, Lautenberg, “Dollar Bill” Bradley) the majority of New Jersey voters have sent to the Senate, maybe it would make no difference here but might improve the picture in sane places like Georgia.
When states appointed Senators, whom to appoint was an issue in every state assemblyman’s campaign. Not atypical were the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, in which the candidates hoped to convince listeners to elect supportive State legislators. Voters were necessarily more circumspect of the candidate Assemblyman’s opinions and positions on the spectrum of state and federal issues. By this, State appointments encouraged a higher level of competence and judgment in state legislators. They would, for instance, have to have an opinion on treaties in work by the President and SecState. Imagine asking your state rep for his or her opinion on the Law of the Sea Treaty, or Agenda 21 floating through the UN, or if they would support a preemptive attack on Iran.
Today’s State Assemblymen rightly receive far less respect than their pre-17th ancestors because less is asked of them.
Would State legislators really turn a blind eye toward certain federal court nominees? It wasn’t long after the 17th, that FDR’s judges, for all practical purposes, did away with the 10th Amendment. Would radical Leftists like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, lead attorney for the ACLU, have sailed through Senate confirmation? Probably every democrat judicial nominee since at least the days of Jimmy Carter was hostile to the 9th and 10th Amendments. For no other reason, would the States have just rolled over and accepted these hostile jurists?