Excellent point. That would do far more to bring state legislators back in line with what the "founders" envisioned, than simply repealing the 17th amendment and expecting modern day state governments to magically behave like their 1789 counterparts.
I've been saying for years that state legislatures should resemble the way the federal congress is organized, with one house representing population interests and another house representing geographic interests. The anti-17thers simply ignore the fact that the population vs. geographic differences is a far bigger distinction between the two bodies than elected vs. appointed (Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee will never be a Senator Shelia Jackson Lee because her ideology is nothing like Texas as a whole!). Its interesting the anti-17thers ignore this and claim we might as well abolish the U.S. Senate if its not appointed, but none of them are demanding we abolish state senates that DO represent the exact SAME interests of the state houses.
Bottom line, if say, the Illinois State Senate was set up the way the U.S. Senate was, Cook County would only have 1 seat out of 102. Under the current gerrymandered map, they currently control over half the seats (same as they do in the Illinois House). Imagine the huge changes this would make is the political interests of state legislatures in New York, California, Michigan, New Jersey, Florida, etc., if the upper house was changed to represent geographic interests.
I've heard going back to that system might take a constitutional amendment as well. Fine with me. We'd be far better off with a 29th amendment that repealed "1 man 1 vote" federal laws, than a 29th amendment giving modern state legislatures the power to appoint whoever they want to the U.S. Senate.
About 2/3rds of the existing 59 senators would be forced into runoffs with other incumbents who represent parts of the same county (several of them represent multiple countries, so I went with the theory that they'd relocate to the county where they have the best chance of keeping their seat). Of course, this would include nearby every Chicago area state senator. Cook County, largest in population, would end up with a 34 incumbents being widdled down to 1, DuPage County would go from 9 to 1, Kane County would go from 4 to 1, and so on. The downstate senators would largely keep their jobs, though their districts would be shrunk down to about 1/5th of the area that they used to represent, since now they would only serve their home county and none of the surrounding areas.
After the smoke was cleared, there would be about 20 incumbents left that keep their jobs, and about 80 "vacant" seats for countries that have no existing state senator and would have to hold new elections. In theory, I suppose some of the vanquished run-off Senators could carpetbag some county that's a 2 hour drive from them, and run for office there. Madigan would probably even be able to make it competitive by trying to fund credible Democrats in 50-60 downstate countries, but they'd have to run a lot of Lipinski or Poshard type Dems to have a shot at winning control of the IL Senate in a geographic-based system. By default, about 75% of the countries in Illinois vote Republican. If the IL GOP weren't incompetent and/or in bed with the Dems, it would certainly be possible in theory for the GOP to get a veto-proof majority in the IL Senate (winning 61 out of 102 country-senate seats), to balance out the Dems veto-proof majority in the Illinois house.
I'd have to change the names to update my map, though. I had Emil Jones as the lone Senator left from Cook, and Kirk Dillard as the lone Senator left from DuPage.
I don’t believe that “one man one vote” is even a federal law. I haven’t heard of it as such, anyway. All I know is the court decision, which, if I’m right, is just more legislation from the bench.
I still believe in repealing the 17th, but I know that would not be enough. Re-organizing state Senates along the lines we discussed is essential, or else we would basically have U.S. Senators appointed by Chicago in Illinois; Batimordor, Montgomery and P.G. in Maryland; and San Fransicko, L.A. and Sacramental in California.