By my model, unless an article V convention repealed the 17th amendment, the senators would never agree to its repeal, because they like being “free agents”, working solely for the federal government.
So what I am proposing is to create a Second Court of the United States. Superior the the US courts of appeals, but inferior to the SCOTUS. It would be the only other court directly incorporated into the constitution.
Importantly, it would be like a judicial version of a permanently seated constitutional convention. Majority decisions could be appealed to the SCOTUS, but 2/3rds decisions would require an exact, not extrapolated, quote from the constitution to reverse them. And 3/4ths decisions could be nearly interpreted as changing the constitution in their seriousness. The SCOTUS could not overturn such a decision.
It would also be a huge help in busting up the judicial bottlenecks that exist today. That is, the courts of appeals now send more than 8,000 cases to the SCOTUS every year, even though it can only hear a few dozen, so most cases are stuck with their courts of appeals decision.
And many of those cases are very frivolous, local and state cases that have been “federalized” by some federal judge for his entertainment. This, too, represents a huge power grab by the federal government. Often these cases are very redundant as well, such as the infamous “Bong Hits for Jesus” case that has been accepted by the SCOTUS, *twice*.
In any event, the Second Court could read the lower court constitutional rulings, and still decide that it was a state, not federal matter. So they would decide jurisdiction, not constitutionality. And a hundred state judges would be able to plow through 8,000 cases a year.
The other power of the Second Court, to hear lawsuits between the states and the federal government, would make for effective nullification, if other states agreed. States could sue the federal government over longstanding abuses, and the court could order them stopped.
The founding fathers were wise in understanding that written rules will be undermined even before the ink is dry, so it is necessary to have competing groups of people in contention, which is why the constitution is filled with any number of checks and balances.
The 17th amendment upset this balance of power, so perhaps an Article V convention can restore it. And a Second Court of the United States can hang on to those gains.
Good food for thought.