EVERYONE SHOULD BE WATCHING C-SPAN2

C-SPAN2 ^ | January 14, 2003 | THE BELOVED DEB

[Deb]

The Democrats are in the process of shutting down the Senate to stop the GOP from chairing Senate hearings.

This is going to be two years of total war. Let's see if the media notices!

[Digger]

Why would you waste time in talking to socialists/communist? A bunch of talk will NEVER get these people to react. When these people won't live under the law then the laws are meaningless & thus more drastic measures must occur. This is where this nation is heading & the only solution is for these commies to change, which they will not do.

[Mat_Helm]

I know the feeling with Boxer and Feinstein. We will just have to add Byrd and Rockefeller to the axis of evil!

[Political Junkie Too]

The governors don't appoint Senators, the Legislatures do.

I'm thinking more in terms of process. If state legislatures to appoint senators, the people would pay more attention to local politics to vote for legislators who represent them. Those legislators would in turn appoint senators.

You also won't need campaign finance reform because you'd eliminate 33 of the most expensive campaigns that occur every two years.

-PJ

[Wphile]

Cantwell and Murray belong in that axis as well.

[marajade]

I'm still in favor of letting the people decide who their senators are...

[jayef]

Direct election of Senators was the first step in dismantling republican government. The next shoe . . . the Electoral College. What kind of country will we have when this becomes a democracy? When we are ruled by the mob? When everyone is scrambling to vote themselves a check? Sadly, as today's episode shows, we may already be too late to save it!

[jayef]

REPUBLIC, REPUBLIC

[ken5050]

Call 'em collect.....

[jackbill]

And don't forget Mikulski and Sourbrains

[Humidston]

"Senator Nobrains".... So many there that it's mind-boggling!

[ken5050]

It's an interesting discussion..which state has the worst pair of senators....NY, NJ, Mass, WV..Cal...man, that's a tough call...without a doubt, however, the good people of Iowa win the most scizophrenic electorate award....Harkin and Grassley....talk about your odd pairing....

[Miss Marple]

Thank you for this thread! I have been gone all afternoon and didn't know this was going on!

It is too late for me to call Senator Bayh, but I will call first thing tomorrow if this is still going on!

[ken5050]

Re#351..I forgot MD

[aristeides]

The House is popularly elected. Why should the Senate be appointed in the same way? That just defeats the system of checks and balances (especially considering how presidents nowadays are also selected by something that comes very close to popular election) -- all the branches of government are staffed by popularly elected politicians, who have the same interests and thus little interest in blocking one another. (Even the one exception -- the federal courts -- are now staffed by people nominated and confirmed by popularly elected politicians, so that they are unlikely to oppose them either).

When the Senate was appointed by the state legislatures, the people in the Senate tended much more to be statesmen. And those statesmen had veto power over legislation, confirmation of presidential appointments, treaties, and so on. In those days, when the senators truly represented the states, federal judges, including the Supreme Court, paid much more attention to states' rights.

I'm not at all sure it's practical today to restore the old pre-17th-Amendment way of selecting senators. An alternate way of restoring checks and balances that I have thought about is to adopt the old Athenian way of selecting the members of the lower houses of our legislatures, including the U.S. House of Representatives: choose them by lot. Ancient Athens chose most of its officials by lot.

[Miss Marple]

Indiana has the moderate schizophrenia...Lugar and Bayh. Ha!

[ConservativeDude]

what is actually going on, right now?

[LisaFab]

Just got off the phone with Dodd's office. Told them in so many words that I'm sick of the baby-s**t tantrums the Dems are using to thwart the will of the people.

BTW Ken, got a taste of the degradation you feel of your hometown being singled out vis-a-vis celebrity scum yesterday...Stamford & LIEberman dontcha know.

[ken5050]

and paranoids have enemies....LOL

[Timesink]

Direct election of Senators was the first step in dismantling republican government. The next shoe . . . the Electoral College. What kind of country will we have when this becomes a democracy? When we are ruled by the mob? When everyone is scrambling to vote themselves a check? Sadly, as today's episode shows, we may already be too late to save it!

Chill out, man. We're not holding a Constitutional Convention here. And today's episode will blow up in the RATS' faces, just like everything else they've tried in the last two years to destroy the GOP. They're the Wile E. Coyote of politics.

[Howlin]

I bet if you call, they're still there!