Lamb: Should States Have a Voice in our Federal Government?

GOPUSA ^ | January 10, 2011 | Henry Lamb

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

The states created the federal government; they designed it carefully to be sure that the federal government could never gain unlimited power to govern as a tyrant. Today, however, the federal government recognizes no limitations on its power, it issues edicts to states and individuals alike, with no fear of retribution. It has gained the power to rule as a tyrant

[el_texicano]

Amen. Repeal the 17th

[supercat]

BTW, my understanding is that many state legislatures used to be set up with one branch allocated according to population, and another branch allocated by county. Unfortunately, some judges decided this violated some imaginary “one man one vote” principle, notwithstanding the fact that the Founders seemed to favor a bicameral legislature in which one branch was decidedly not allocated by population.

[philman_36]

BTTT

[Doug Loss]

That doesn’t answer my question as to the immediate drivers of enacting the 17th.

Oddly enough, the Wikipedia page about the 17th seems fairly even-handed in it's description of the history. Also, FindLaw talks about the reasoning for the amendment in the annotations section of their webpage on it.

[gogogodzilla]

And you can also see that still in effect for Presidential elections. The people vote in the election, but then the states have their say in the electorial college (where it really matters).

Just like how the Senate used to be.

[aruanan]

My understanding is that Congress passed the 17th amendment because almost 2/3 of the states had already petitioned for a constitutional convention to propose it.

And it, like Prohibition, was a bad idea.