Free Republic

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...

All: Thanks for responding. Paul, I agree with you, but there is a part of me that believes there might be something we can do. Dan, I agree with some of you your points, mainly the first, which is where I see my effort moving toward. Though, I am not sure how you measure the “corruptness” of the states verses the federal government. I consider the states nothing more than vassals of the federal government, some more than others. Lee, I am serious only to a point. In that I agree with Dan and I see this as first an...

With the prospect of a President Donald Trump or a President Hillary Clinton on the horizon, the growing trend toward the executive acting without the consent of Congress is troubling to all political stripes. Both parties claim to worry about a strong presidency, at least if the other party is in the White House. That trend has been exacerbated by President Obama, but it certainly didn’t start with him. With the exception of Calvin Coolidge, every president of the 20th and 21st centuries contributed to the problem. Many proposals to address the imperial presidency have been floated over the decades....

Utah lawmakers recently approved a resolution calling on Congress to ratify an amendment to the U.S. Constitution repealing the Seventeenth Amendment. Ratified in 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution established direct election of U.S. senators by popular vote. Before the amendment’s ratification, senators were elected by state legislatures. The resolution, approved by the House of Representatives and sent to the state’s lieutenant governor for filing in March, was sponsored by state Sen. Alvin Jackson (R-Highland). ‘A Formal Check’ Todd Zywicki, a professor of law at George Mason University, says the Seventeenth Amendment removed a necessary safeguard against...

While political parties ideally represent the common interests of their members, a contradiction has developed within the GOP over the past twenty years. Leadership and rank-and-file members work toward irreconcilable ends: the retention of power, wealth and status at any cost on the one hand, and change that restores economic prosperity and social cohesion on the other. For years, GOP leadership worked handily with democrat leaders Obama, Pelosi, Reid. Behind closed doors, this common senior leadership develops many thousand page omnibus spending bills. In turn, these assaults on the traditional appropriations process are presented to a membership that is cajoled...

The Washington Post today published an interesting photo essay about the small number of people who are still members of the Ku Klux Klan in Tennessee and Maryland. The photos reveal them to be mostly a bunch of pathetic outcast losers. However, the real reason for this essay wasn't to demonstrate what we already know about the Klan. Just after the introductory paragraph, the true purpose of this entire photo essay was revealed...to slam Donald Trump.

Our previously Free Republic continues to reel from a one hundred and three year old mistake: the 17th Amendment. Pardon me if I don’t celebrate today’s anniversary. Republican theory demands the consent of the governed. From ancient Greece, republican Rome, Saxon Germany, and even in the English kingdom from which we declared our Independence, the component members of their societies had a place at the lawmaking table. Greek ecclesia, Roman tribunes and senators, Saxon Micklegemots, English commons, lords and king, encompassed the totality of their societies. By this, the consent of the governed was present in every law. Unlike simpler...

Even the Founders, a grouping singular in the history of men concerning the brilliance of their intellects and the purity of their motives knew they couldn't trust themselves to form or maintain a government of fallible men to rule over fallible men In America today a debate rages concerning the legitimate role of government. Currently the Federal Government is controlled by a group of politicians who consider themselves the ideological descendants of the Progressive Movement. Beginning in the 1890s, the Progressives led by Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson championed the idea that it was time to progress past America’s old...

On Sunday, The Blaze reported that former Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Ill., said the GOP is on the cusp of a revolution and the third American revolution has begun. He also warned that the "revolution" could get violent. "I think that we've begun a third American revolution," he told The Blaze. "I think people who recoil against both parties and believe in freedom are finally rising up. They're angry -I mean, look at [Republican frontrunner Donald] Trump - and they want to do something about it. I think we're at the beginning of this, and I think you're going to see...

The Bakersfield Californian www.bakersfield.com in Kevin McCarthy’s home District observed in a complimentary article certain key issues to bring “renewed luster for the Golden State.” Directly quoted, these are: Water: Improved prospects for legislation that sends more water to farmers and studies new storage sites. Environment: Diminished environmental regulations, increased oil and gas drilling and streamlined timber harvesting. Business: Silicon Valley and California’s commercial space industry have both received his attention in the past. These are certainly issues of state and national importance. Each is highly focused on their effects on the oil and agriculture economy of the San Joaquin...

Our governing system no longer serves its intended purpose, that being “to secure the blessings of liberty.” In fact, any casual read of the Constitution reveals our government’s wholesale departure from the genius of the Founders. Congress sloughs off or re-assigns its responsibility to craft legislation, determine spending, ratify treaties, oversee the executive branch and regulate the judicial. No longer content with rewriting statutes, SCOTUS increasingly elevates itself above God; its Obergefell v. Hodges ruling which assigned to homosexuals the fundamental right of marriage, is only the latest outrage among many. The decisions of Executive branch agencies mirror the demands...

Our governing system no longer serves its intended purpose, to secure the blessings of liberty. Any casual read of the Constitution reveals our government’s wholesale departure from it. Congress gaffs off or assigns its duties to craft legislation, determine spending, ratify treaties, oversee the executive branch, and regulate the judicial branch. Not being content with rewriting statutes, Scotus increasingly elevates itself above God; its Obergefell v. Hodges ruling is only the latest outrage among many. Executive branch agencies reflect the will of one man, Obama, and not congressional statutes. In response, there is a small but growing minority of Americans...

In our last guest essay for Coach is Right we made an opening case for Article V state amendment conventions, rather than SCOTUS, to deal with major social and governing issues. It is through state conventions rather than the elastic whims of nine unaccountable lawyers that the Framers envisioned a free people would keep and improve their republic. Enlightenment philosophers recognized that whereas power is aggressive, liberty is passive. Unless it is actively pursued, liberty will always fade in the face of encroaching power. Our Framing generation knew this and provided the means by which liberty could be actively defended....

How often at your workplace have you held your tongue out of fear of saying something that could get you fired? Everyone looks out for their interests. Read that again. You and I and everyone else naturally try to do that which best serves ourselves and our families. It’s called human nature and it has served mankind well since the Creation. The people we send to government are no different. They can’t be different, for like us, they are as imperfect as the rest of mankind. First we must understand that most of the chosen 435 in the House of...

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia reaffirmed his commitment to defending the Constitution while speaking to the Federalist Society in his home state of New Jersey on Friday. Scalia, the preeminent conservative firebrand of the court, told the audience it is the structure of the government under the Constitution and not the liberties guaranteed under the Bill of Rights that makes us free. As reported by The Daily Signal: “Every tin horn dictator in the world today, every president for life, has a Bill of Rights,” said Scalia, author of the 2012 book Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts. “That’s...

Some men saw what was coming. Coincident with ratification of the 17th Amendment to the constitution, New York Senator Elihu Root expressed his concerns in a series of lectures at the alma mater of James Madison, Princeton University. He was one of the most respected and influential politicians of the early 20th century. Senator Root spoke freely, without hesitation, the language of our framing generation. As a tidal wave of progressivism swept across America, he clearly feared our overnight transformation from a federal, to a democratic republic. Senator Elihu Root: The Proper Pace of Political Change. (Excerpts): In this country...

There is nothing in which the generality of mankind are so much mistaken as when they talk of government. The different effects of it are obvious to everyone, but few can trace its causes. Most men having undigested ideas of the nature of it, and attribute all public miscarriages to the corruption of mankind. They think the whole mass is infected, that it’s impossible to make any reformation, and so submit patiently to their country’s calamities, or else share in the spoil. Whereas complaints of this kind are as old as the world, and every age has thought their own...

Instead of watching helplessly as our republic devolves into crown government, let’s distract ourselves with a counterfactual. What if senators were appointed by state legislatures for indefinite terms?The Senate was designed to preserve the federal nature of our system. Members of the House represent the people, but the Senators were to represent the states — really, state governments.Had this worked, the people would have benefited. (Sometimes, you win by grabbing all the power, but sometimes you win by ceding power to critical allies. The states were the people’s only allies in the War Against the Feds.) Unfortunately, senators came to...

As opposed to what the Left believes, the purpose of government is not to impose social justice. As often happens, that was forgotten in Scotus’ 1964 Reynolds v. Sims ruling. Citing a non-existent “one man one vote” principle, eight Warren Court black-robes ruled that state legislative districts must be of approximately equal populations. Through a rogue interpretation of the equal protection clause, these masterminds imposed a democratic republic form of government on all fifty states! Never mind the constitution simply guaranteed a republican form of government, Scotus illegally overruled centuries of wisdom and imposed democracy. Republics demand consent of the...

An Indiana state senator wants to change the way US senators are elected. Until the 17th Amendment was ratified a century ago, senators weren't elected directly, but by state legislatures. Charlestown State Senator Jim Smith says the idea was to make senators responsive to their states‘ concerns. He argues the switch to direct election has contributed to a shift in the balance of power from the states to the federal government. Smith says it‘s separated senators from state concerns and made it harder to remove them. "As the needs of the state of Indiana change," says Smith,"then we would essentially...