Should the U.S. consider repealing the 17th Amendment?

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I've been reading for the past few weeks a book by K. Cleon Skousen called The 5000 Year Leap - The 28 Great Ideas that Changed the World.

While the book gets into a great deal of the nuts and bolts of the building of the constitutions, the philosophies and philosophers who shaped it, as well as all of the socio-political influences of the times which gave the founders a framework of what to do and what not to (strangely almost all of the political dynamics we see today existed back then - little has really changed aside from scale).

Through reading this I see where all of his points come from, all of them are interesting, but one thing stuck out to me in a big way and I had to drop in here to see if anyone wanted to kick it around.

I'll admit, I've read the constitution through a few times, know a bit about the checks and balances provided between the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches, about some of the delegation of powere between the federal government and states.

One thing that kind of illuded me though and it really shocked me in terms of just how practical of an idea it was - originally the senate was not voted on in the same matter as the House of Representatives was. It was actually members of state legislature voted in by the legislature; effectively representatives for the state rather than the people. It makes a lot of good sense in this way - when all in congress are beholden to election by the populus, they're pretty much beholden to a great deal of pork; thus they use the federal government to bring money back to their states through the federal government. The problem is - it seriously erodes states rights when you think about it.

The Seventeenth Amendment reads as follows:

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AMENDMENT XVII
Passed by Congress May 13, 1912. Ratified April 8, 1913.

Note: Article I, section 3, of the Constitution was modified by the 17th amendment.

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.

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I know there has to be a reason it was past in the first place - and, absolutely, there was. The issue seemed to largely revolve around partisanship - that nominees to the Senate were being strung up in the election process based on which party dissented to the candidate (obviously not their own). I don't know what other issues there were but, if this was the dominant one - seems like we're having this problem with just as much ease when you factor in all kinds of missing ballots, 'voter intent', it doesn't really seem like it would make a huge difference in the here and now as the climate's already like that in the popular election process.

My thought is this - if we lost a very important internal check on the quality and integrity of congress; we really should try and get it back. We may have sold ourselves short for too few grievances on this one. That's just my thought right now though.

Does anyone here have some light to shed on this one? I can think of a few names that I know will drop a good gem or two on this - it'd be interesting to hear what you guys have to say.

i dont care about the senate. what can they do? hold a vote? most power it seems like to me is in congress, and the president. who cares anyways reguardless america is so publicised today that anything goes, good or bad is put on trial. thats bad business really but when it is found out you can bet the public knows all about it.

Aaaaahhhh ... The Senate is the half of the Congress and in some respect the more powerful than the House: The Senate confirms appointments (from Supreme Court Judges to high ranking civil servants and ministers to the Board of Governors of FED) and ratifies international treaties.

Perhaps I'm misreading this, but it seems to me like this entails that Burris should only temporarily have his position until the Illinois legislature can run an election. Or am I misreading that due to my lack of legalese training?

I think what it's saying is that the state legislature can call for a special election to fill the seat permanently if they don't want the person the governor appointed to be representing the state in Congress. So if the Illinois state legislature does not call for a special election, then I guess Burris will finish out the remainder of Obama's senate term which lasts until January 2011.

the 17th is a stopgap measure, in case of death or other incapiciting event, the governor can have a temp serve until an election is held.

No. I'm saying that every two years, one third of the six year terms in congress were voted on and elected by - state legislature; up until 1913. In the case or Burris, the governor elects a new senate member when they leave the council, its a state-held power to feed that position so; Burris is completely in his right to be there as filling voids is a completely separate matter.

What I'm really getting at with the purpose of repealing the second amendment is that your supposed to have two sides of an idea as it goes through - one side proposing the grand schemes and the other saying - can we afford it? Is it practical? And truly, the side asking if its practical doesn't have to care in that sense to ask 'is it popular?' because- they *aren't generally elected officials*. This is exactly what we lost in 1913; self interest started running in one direction and while I can't say that I know the entire history of how it functioned beforehand it seems like for a tripartite government of checks and balances between powers to work - you need to have all three capable of providing checks as well as having themselves in check as well as possible. The Tenth Amendment was designed to keep the power of central government somewhat minimal - the ideal of the founding father was to have very strong and participatory local government, slightly weaker state government, and ultimately a federal government who had very clearly detailed spheres of power which it was confined to and had no right to cross any of the lines not delegated to it by the constitution. The very notion of having the entire senate elected by legislature rather than popular vote was how the Senate was supposed to be there in the first place to act as a governance or control on the House of Representatives which they knew would be prone to populist whims - now that's both houses since there's barely a difference aside from the pro-rate state percentages. Also, they founding fathers knew that to have power in check you had to pit power against power - thus giving the states bargaining power at the table with federal government where both sides were forced to compromise.

Here's the specifics of what I'm talking about and what got aborgated by the seventeenth amendment:



No figurative language - it was an entirely different system of appointment for all members.

I want them to repeal the 221st amendment that states ice cream is evil! I want it repealed!

I mean I hope all of this isn't too cryptic. I'm simply stating that the whole celebrity circus we've come to think of as congress really lacks the room full of 100 diligent, well-informed, well-educated nobodies who aren't glamour or popularity driven and who - by the very way their brought to sit in power - can be pragmatists without having to worry about their reelection being based on people who quite often otherwise would be voting for them purely on (R), (D), whether they think the person is 'hot', whether some random 'cool' person they know says its who they should vote for, and *most* importantly it dodges the bullet of having to pull votes based on who you promise to give what to - you get a house where the stupid stuff hopefully gets eliminated and the rewards of what the stupid stuff gets in elected officals no longer has to choke an entire wing of government and then have that corrupted influence spill over into the executive and legislative branches.

THAT's the topic I'm really wanting to discuss - ie. would that idea in reality work as intended? Where it did come up short, to what extent and what ways - were those ways worse than the problems we have now? I'm not throwing all this out there to be esoteric . I think we really need a nonglamourous house of nobodies again, for the sake of our own future as a country.

The reason for the amendment in the first place was that by the late 19th and early 20th centuries, an increasing number of states were holding popular-vote 'beauty pageant' elections for USSenate with their legislatures then rubber-stamping the results. It had simply reached the tipping point.

Now, *DON'T* get me started on the SIXTEENTH Amendment....



Mike

No - I'm againt the whole concept of "states rights." It's usually used when a state's doing something bigoted. I'd like to repeal the electoral college and have a direct popular vote for president. I'd also like to repeal the second ammendment but that's another story.

I am not sure that this change is ultimately a massive one when it comes down to it, but I don't know.

It is probably true that democratizing the government more can lead to subjecting governmental processes to the whims of people who might not have good ideas for policy. However, I am not sure if real changes are put forward by this, at least enough so that the 17th Amendment is a terrible idea. I think I might be more cynical towards it than I am optimistic, for the sole reason that the pre-17th Amendment system would provide more insulation against unpopular decisions by the senate, which would be better, but I cannot say that I could prove this intuition is more or less true.

In any case, I wouldn't regard this as a "state's rights" issue too much. I mean, I suppose that this forces the state to use a specific process, whereas before the state had freedom, but I do not think that this is likely a big deal, as the state itself still exercises the same national control before as they do afterwards. I do think that this issue is more likely one of political stability, in as much as this Amendment undermines the resistance to whim, but I do not have a cost-benefit analysis, and I would bet that the ideals behind this amendment given that the Senate is still a millionaire's club.

In any case, to address MattShizzle's comments about states rights, I can understand such a perspective, as "states rights" is a rallying cry for conservatives, and for the Confederacy, however I wouldn't dismiss such a concept so quickly because of those stupidities. States rights also protects states from seeking to defy norms that contrast with those upheld in general by the government. An example of a this is seen in Gonzales v. Raich, where the government ruled against the state of California legalizing medicinal marijuana. Now, if states have rights, then California would have the right to allow medicinal marijuana. A non-bigoted move. However, the US government did not want to respect such a right on the part of California, and so California was no longer allowed to have medicinal marijuana. As well, states rights also allows for a more direct democracy, by reducing the voting population and the population governed, allowing areas to better fit their constituencies, and allowing for people to leave the areas with stupid policies with greater ease. For if the US government implements a stupid policy, then you have to go to Canada or Europe, but if Arizona implements a stupid policy, all that has to be undertaken is a move to California. Both the increase in voice(in terms of voting) for people, and the increased ease of exit seem like desirable aims.

I think the most likely secondary consequence if state's rights got too out of hand would be more interstate disputes over trade, how one's laws effects another based on the populous traveling between the states, etc.. That's where I think it still needs to be a happy enough medium (ie power between federal and state) to where those kinds of differences don't become irreconcilable.

Mostly though my concern is that senate and the house aren't able to work enough like yin and yang when their both under pressures from the same direction. As for far right fundamentalists hijacking human liberties though, it would have to mean almost neutering federal government, right now the only thing I'd suggest is to try and do something that would swing it back into equilibrium. One of the things I have to agree with conservatives on is that local government being the most important, state government being second most, and federal being for very specific things only; it seems like about the most productive idea out there - too much to federal means they, by necessity, need huge bureaucracies for every social program they have to support and the whole country is under the thumb of one economy that will make them sink or swim, which to that end I'd much rather see towns sink or swim than states or even entire nations. Federal being mom (no offense to the Brits) is too many eggs in one basket.

Full majority rule on everything would probably be worse by your standard though. Not only would the reds in a blue state be voting against something that's strictly or more commonly a blue issue but the predominantly red states would be voting on what you can and can't do as well. I'd also figure that if people felt states rights were going to far the outrage would come back in the other direction and push it back toward center. In a federation of states as we have under the constitution, they only have so much room as it is for diversity of laws based on what spills from one territory to the next through their boarders and free passage of citizens and commerce between states.

What I'd really like to see in Washington is more pragmatism, fewer opportunities for pork, and senate with a few modifications could make a nice septic filter for what comes from the House. That and when states drive themselves into bankruptcy, they need to be in a position where they have no wiggle-room to get out of the outrage that their constituents rightfully have with them (like my thought on California right now - its GM, the more money you throw at it the fewer hard decisions have to be made and the longer it can keep living deeper in red ink; not fair to the people or California and very unfair to the other states giving a 'loan' to the drunk cousin that you know won't be paid back; enabling just makes matters worse).

Hehe, nice thing is that now its too late for that anywhere - Congress, the Presidency, I'm thinking even the Supreme or Appeals courts are going to be getting worse. Even with corruption, narcissism, and big money in one place I'd like to think it will be corruption, narcissism, and big money with opposing interests to the other corruption, narcissism, and big money rather than being in unison.

I think I'm remembering that the 17th amendment was to allow people to vote for a Senator, because prior to that, they were elected by government officials (this was the 'spoils system', in the middle of the 'gilded age')

if you really want to clean up Congress and the presidency, get rid of the Electoral college....