Utah Senate Votes to Repeal 17th Amendment

Townhall ^ | 2/25/2016 | Christine Rousselle

[Fhios]

In a bit of unusual news, the Utah Senate voted 20-6 to ask Congress to repeal the 17th Amendment of the Constitution. The 17th Amendment allows for the direct election of senators. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Al Jackson (R-Highland) argued that the 17th Amendment was not what the founders of the country had intended and changed the meaning of the role of the senators.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

I would agree if there were no term limits. But the combo of appointments and term limits changes the dynamic completely.

Voters are less emotionally invested in a legislative appointee.

It’s easier to chew out a legislator over a bad apppointment than it is to turn against the bad candidate you voted for.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

You will find that low info patriots have felt completely shut out by the ‘G’ OP when it came to safe borders. ‘Not a dime’s worth of difference.’

The DNC has been drawing low info voters all this time, and finally we have a clear message about how to place America first. Both Trump and Cruz make it clear that the USA comes first. And now? Low info patriots see a clear choice.

At long last.

You have your low info socialists, the dregs of the DNC, and then the rest of the nation is uniting against them.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Also note my profile.

The DNC painted GW as Hoover and Obama as FDR. Trump doesn’t carry that baggage with him. He tackles smarter trade, getting US businesses back, etc. He doesn’t preach in any way to prop up the Bush family.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

‘It’s bad enough I’m effectively disenfranchised and have no representation.’

Then no matter what system we have, you are ‘SOL’.

That’s a non-issue to be honest. You are trapped behind enemy lines, and yet you still help us, such as that informative post earlier.

We in the liberated areas will do our best to help.

FRegards ....

[Da Bilge Troll]

"if an Article V convention takes place — triggered by agreement between 2/3s of the states, Congress cannot interfere."

Pretty much what I said. The states don't need to beg. They have the power, if they will use it.

[BillyBoy]

>> It’s bad enough I’m effectively disenfranchised and have no representation. I’m in a State House district that elects White moonbats. I’m in a VRA-mandated State Senate district which only elects racist Black moonbats, my vote as a White person doesn’t matter. I’m in a Congressional district that hasn’t elected a Republican since Ulysses Grant won a second term in 1872 (and that only because two Democrats split the vote in the general, one running as an Indy). So U.S. Senator is the only office where I can conceivably have a say. Take that away, and I’ve got nothing. And I’m in a heavily GOP state ! <<

The anti-17thers always conveniently ignore the fact that congressional districts and state legislature seats tend to be heavily gerrymandered and rigged to elect a certain type of legislator. Probably 60-70% of americans are effectively powerless in the outcome of their congressional races and state legislative races. I know I'm in that boat. Several times, a solid majority of the regions in my district have voted for a Republican to represent us in the state senate, only to see the district go Democrat as a whole because 1/3rd of the district is in within Chicago city limits, and that portion gives 95% of its votes to the RATS, thus disenfrancing the other 2/3rds of the district's residences. A small bloc of black voters in Chicago basically guarantees that my heavily suburban state senate district will elect nothing but white Democrats.

My current "representation" in the Illinois State is some worthless Mike Madigan sock puppet. He's so wedded to Madigan's agenda that even though he's a state senator, he won't even prioritize bills that originate from the senate or his own Democrat caucus, if his boss Madigan has some house bill they want to fast track.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Good point about gerrymanders. And judges are meddling in gerrymanders more and more. Dangerous.

Certain geometric shapes [such as concave] could be forbidden unless there is a waterway as an official barrier. Something along those lines.

Few terms are more clear than the mathematical kind.

[Hoffer Rand]

If it would get rid of Hatch, I’d support it, but in Utah’s legislature’s case, they’d probably coronate him.

People who live outside Utah think the state is conservative, but you’ve never seen a bigger bunch of nanny staters than the Utah state legislature.

[Hoffer Rand]

If not for the Seventeenth Amendment Bob Bennett would still be the junior senator from Utah and not Mike Lee.

This is the truth. Last time he ran, Hatch got more of a scare than he wanted, as well. I think this is the legislature (chock full of RINO nanny staters) continuing their tradition of believing they know what's best for We The People and wanting to dictate that, as opposed to a true desire to return to original Constitutional principles.

[patlin]

Spoken like a true unpatriotic ignoramus. Patriotism begins by learning the law, then applying the law, then standing up for it when uneducated voters like you try to usurp the law.

And do please tell me how is it that you think I , who does pay taxes to the IRS annually, just not “income ‘excise’ taxes”, how does this make me a tax protester?

[patlin]

LISTEN UP ignoramus, the “income tax” is and “EXCISE” tax. Do you know what an “EXCISE” tax is and what it applies to?

Obviously NOT!!!

[BillyBoy]

>> I would agree if there were no term limits. But the combo of appointments and term limits changes the dynamic completely. <<

I would say the odds of passing a 17th amendment repeal by itself are about a 0.000000001% of it happened, and the likelihood of passing it IN CONJUNCTION with "term limits", measuring to prevent gerrymandering, etc., is even less so.

It's like how the anti-death penalty crowd is always refuted by comments about how murderers given "life" sentences are often paroled and commit more crimes. Their "solution" is to just use the talking point that there should be MANDATORY NATURAL LIFE sentences for murder, and that will solve this loophole, since "letting the murderer rot in prison for the rest of his life is a much better punishment than killing him quickly. That's the coward's way out"

But we know the reality is that not one single country or state that abolished the death penalty, has done it IN CONJUNCTION with a new pass that mandates murderers MUST serve natural life in prison and CANNOT be paroled.

I see the same reality with places that let politicians appoint politicians to "represent" people in the upper house of government. None of them have resolved any of these issues. Countries have such a system of appointed legislators, like the UK and Canada, absolutely loathe their unelected government overlords. We still have such a system in place for the judicial branch (federal judges appointed for life by politicians, people have no say in the matter) and people loathe it. There's no likelihood those judges will be term limited any time soon.

You can talk all you want about how this package of reforms will solve the problem so your repeal plan works. Whether the anti-17thers would actually do that is another matter.

[PeterPrinciple]

Awesome. Senators would represent state governments...as was intended.

---

Remember, the reason it was changed was that corruption was so bad in state governments.

The problem is the nature of man, not the form of government....................

[i_robot73]

Presuming Schiff was right, Fedzilla is so unconstitutionally huge, it still made him pay...plenty of years in the debtors prison (Oh, we don’t *technically* have those, do we?).

We all know the serfs haven’t a chance against the leviathan, whom can tax and spend to their heart’s content.

I seem to recall something about the multitude of agents eating sustenance, or some such....

[patlin]

Schiff is wrong in the fact that, he based his conclusion on the false premise that the 16th Amendment was not ratified because a few of the states either mistakenly added or mistakenly left out a few punctuation marks when they sent their copies back to Congress.

Schiff is not wrong, however, in the fact that the “income tax” is an “excise” tax and therefore is limited in its scope. You see, an “excise” tax is a tax on activity and the tax is determined by the amount of money one makes from their participation in those taxable activities.

And the IRS agents who have been prosecuted, were rightly prosecuted because they based their arguments also upon the false premise that the 16th Amendment was not properly ratified by the states and then some other nonsense that has no weight whatsoever fro the law itself.

The 16th Amendment “income tax” is 100% constitutional. The IRS is a 100% constitutional agency created by Congress under the authority that Article 1 of the Constitution gives them. It is not the IRS’s job to teach us the law, it is their job to collect all that is owed to the federal government.

The American citizens and their representatives are the ultimate enforcers of the laws that they create. If we do not inform ourselves as to the nature of the laws and how those laws apply to our wealth, then we only have ourselves to blame when the IRS tries to collect that which some federal form, that is to have on it ONLY that which pertains to Article 1 federally connected activities, says is owed to the federal government. Once those forms are signed under penalty of perjury & filed with the IRS, unless rebutted by filing the proper rebuttal forms, the IRS can only assume that what was on those original forms was true & correct.

I read recently about a guy who worked as an independent contractor in the oil fields of Alaska, a pipeline inspector I believe. He tried to deny that the revenue he made from his job was not subject to taxation, however, 100% of his income was derived from the privilege of earning that income on federally owned lands. As the SCOTUS has ruled:

United States v County of Allegheny, 322 US 174 (1944): “The Government is an abstraction, and its possession of property largely constructive. Actual possession and custody of Government property nearly always are in someone who is not himself the Government but acts in its behalf and for its purposes. He may be an officer, an agent, or a contractor. His personal advantages from the relationship by way of salary, profit, or beneficial personal use of the property may be taxed...”

[i_robot73]

“The 16th Amendment ‘income tax’ is 100% constitutional.”

The rest I leave to ponder. Here, on the other hand, we will disagree.

Set aside the ratification debate (for punctuation *can* radically alter the meaning; just look at what they try to do w/ the 2nd verbiage). The 16th blatantly violates the 4th, 5th and 13th Amendments. There is NO over-riding verbiage in the 16th as there is with the 21st. Void, on its face.

[patlin]

The 16th blatantly violates the 4th, 5th and 13th Amendments

You cannot just put out a blanket statement like the one above without telling me specifically, why YOU believe that statement to be true.

How does the 16th Amendment violate a persons right to be secure in their persons, papers and effects & from unwarranted searches and seizures?

How does the 16th Amendment violate ones 5th Amendment right of due process?

How does the 16th Amendment violate ones right to be free from involuntary servitude?

I have been trough IRS audits and NONE of the above I witnessed to be as you claim them to be, at any time during those audits.

[Jacquerie]

<>The problem is the nature of man, not the form of government<>

+1

[vmivol00]

The current system with lobbyist, PACs, etc. is just as, if not more corrupt.

Additionally, you don’t just throw out a piece of the Constitution because it is being abused. You prosecute those who are abusing it.

An analogous argument would be...we should replace the 2nd Amendment because of mass shootings. See how illogical that is?

[Publius]

You bring up an interesting point. By the late 19th Century, senators were known by the companies or industries that had bought their state legislatures. Pennsylvania's senators were known as "the senators from King Coal," Montana's as "the senators from Anaconda Copper," and California's as "the senators from the Southern Pacific." In other words, the locus of corruption was in the state legislatures.

The primary change wrought by the 17th Amendment was to move the locus of corruption to K Street in Washington.

Wouldn't repeal of the 17th Amendment simply move the locus of corruption back to the states? Would 50 loci of corruption be an improvement over just one festering sore in DC? I'm merely posing the question, not proffering the answer.