Posted on 12/06/2016 2:31:55 PM PST by george76
The 17th Amendment, which allowed the popular election of U.S. senators, “disenfranchised” state legislatures and altered the U.S. Constitution's checks and balances, Chapman University Law Professor John Eastman told an audience of state legislators in Washington, D.C. last week.
The amendment made it easier for Congress to pass legislation, which eventually led to the massive growth in federal power that the states are still grappling with today...
“What the founders did is come up with this counterintuitive notion that adding an extra layer of government would provide less government and greater liberty. And it only worked if those governments were in competition with and in conflict with each other,”
That all went away when we disenfranchised .. the states from a role in the federal government by removing their ability to choose the senators,” ..
Before the ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913, each state legislature chose the state’s two U.S. senators while House members were elected by popular vote. This meant that the interests of the state would also be represented at the federal level.
...
the 17th Amendment has drastically altered the system of checks and balances that the founders carefully designed.
...
The 17th Amendment “has been a significant factor in turning what originally was a federation of state governments into a national system, where the federal government sits firmly on top of the states
...
Who are senators dependent on today? The media. The donors. The special interests. Right? They’re dependent on everybody but the states whom they were originally intended to represent here in the nation’s capital
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
Is that really true? Or was it just that people didn't want that much legislation before Wilson and the Roosevelts came along? Cleveland and Harrison didn't want to do much legislation-wise, and voters didn't want Congress to do that much either.
Twenty years later, voters and the people they elected were in a very different mood. One of the things they wanted was popular election of Senators, but if they hadn't gotten it, wouldn't they have gotten their way through the old system, as they did under the new?
If the Senate hadn't become popularly elected, another amendment probably would have reduced its powers, since bodies that weren't popularly elected tended to be regarded as not fully legitimate in the 20th century. When we were passing the 17th Amendment, Britain was restricting the powers of their unelected House of Lords. Something similar could have happened here.
And if we go back to the old way and let state legislators choose their US Senators, the power of the Senate would probably be reduced. Countries that do allow bodies that aren't popularly elected to have a say in legislation usually make it clear that those bodies are second class in comparison to the popularly elected house.
It’s not that the 17th was put in place for no reason, and not that it was put in place for bad reasons.
It is just like anything else the left does - they take advantage of a crisis or problem, or create one if it does not exist, so that they can install their solution.
The remedy for the stated problems in 1914 was to fight the corruption. NOT to disenfranchise the states. But the left *used* it to disenfranchise the states.
They are working the same kind of thing today to abolish the Electoral College.
Yes. Agree.
Duh
Absolutely!
The 19th gave us forever expanding govt under the guise of compassion. Appealling to govt to save and fix everything with public funds and programs. Gave the politicians cover to expand their power and get votes.
The 19th amendment made it easier for legislation to be passed. Hugely.
Thank you.
It also deprived the states which did not ratify it of their equal suffrage in the Senate, in direct violation of Article V, which forbade amendments that did that.
In Germany, the Bundesrat’s state delegations are led by the Premier and state governments play an active role in policymaking.
The states rather than the people are directly represented in the upper chamber’s deliberations.
Another remedy was for the people to send stronger representatives to the House to counter the Senate.
-PJ
It’s also led to a state of affairs where senator critters refuse to take an afternoon to impeach a lawless IRS commissioner because they consider themselves more federales than reps of their states.
Bump
Most Americans have no concept of a state, except some quaint imitative entity that disburses federal monies and names local flora and fauna as symbols. The idea that states were intended to act as a bulwark against the Federal government is as incomprehensible the deleterious effects of compound interest with regard to debt.
The Seventeenth Amendment has been promoted as a great victory for Democracy, and it truly was. Federalism suffered a mortal wound on its passage, and the Leviathan was born. Constitutional powers are now considered anachronistic and the archaic concerns of those dead white men will be proven false by the adherents of the modern god, equality.
Article V Convention of the States....the only way 17a will be repealed.
Pretty much.
Agree. Need to repeal it, but how ?
Agree. Need to repeal it, but how ?
One of the reasons for the change was that by the end of the 19th century, state legislatures were notoriously corrupt, with the selection of a US Senator often determined by bribery.
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