Posted on 06/14/2014 2:02:26 AM PDT by Jacquerie
From Charles de Montesquieu Spirit of the Laws, “When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils, but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles.”
There is a fundamental contradiction in the structure of our government that is responsible for the increasing turmoil we’ve witnessed these past few years. Media pleas to “get along” and compromise reflect snowballing social and political tensions.
Unimaginable only a decade ago, our rulers in Washington, DC prepare for societal collapse. Rather than deal with the sickness that afflicts our republic, they respond to the symptoms, through billion round ammo purchases, and administrative agency task forces to investigate, stymie, and prosecute political opponents.
Like a steam boiler with a disabled governor, the building pressure in a deeply divided American society threatens to blow up in racial, economic or police state violence. We see the collapse of society and free government all around and wonder what exactly happened, and what we can do about it.
The source of our long term ailment is simple to diagnose.
Definition: In free government, the institutions upon which the constitution acts have representation in the government. The Framing generation knew this as Consent of the Governed. We must restore this maxim before it is too late.
In the American system, any proposed law that could garner the support of the House of Representatives and a Senate of the States was likely to be acceptable to the people and the states at large. This embrace of both the people and the states into our government served to reduce the possibility of infighting and social disorders among a more or less homogenous people.
The concept of free government wasn’t new in 1787. It is as old as the ancient Greek city-states in which the people participated directly in a government that acted on them. Likewise in the Roman republic, where patricians and plebs alike participated. Under the British system, the whole of society, the commons, lords and king had their place in legislation. Our very own Articles of Confederation constituted free government because the institution which the government acted upon, the states, had representation in the government. Notice the people were not represented under the Articles of Confederation. It wasn’t necessary because the government did not act on the people.
Thus, in broad terms, these free government designs were/are stable systems, for no group was empowered to dominate and oppress another by virtue of the absence of that group from the government. Consent of the Governed.
That changed horribly in 1913. For the first time in history, an institution that had a legitimate and necessary place in free government, the states, walked away and subjected themselves to the caprice of the people. With passage of the 17th Amendment, the United States was transformed overnight from a federal republic into a large, unwieldy democratic republic that held arbitrary power over the states. While the Constitution still acted on the states through numerous clauses, the states were not represented. Despite popular representation in the House and Senate, free government for the states and the people they protected was gone. Not Consent of the Governed.
Booting the states from our system of government makes as much sense as booting the people. It makes no sense.
In order to remain a free government with passage of the 17th, every clause in the constitution that affected the states should have been repealed. That’s right, every one. The states were no longer represented, and therefore the government had no legitimate power over them. Passage of the 17th left behind a federal constitution without federalism.
The cynic would immediately point out that removing these clauses is impossible. The people, states, and the government they created are intertwined in their duties, functions and responsibilities. That is correct. Remove all of the clauses that affect the states and the remaining contradictions would likely lead to violence and dissolution. IOW, what we face today.
The 17th Amendment was a blind alley to arbitrary, despotic government. Republican freedom cannot be restored until it is repealed. Consent of the Governed. Article V to restore our federal republic.
It totally destroyed the "equality of representation" at the federal level between that of the people and that of the states. This destruction removed the safeguard of the states interest in defense of the people's interest. They went hand in hand as a double protection against federal over reach. The 17th destroyed one hand and smashed the other into crippled use such that today, though we have the right to vote, we have no representation.
A very good way of looking at it.
The solution is not as simple as just putting a state-recommended slate of candidates before the people to take into the voting booth. The people today are already inundated with recommended slates of candidates from every special interest group that exists.
That is not the correct solution because it doesn't address one of the core problems, which is campaign funding. The side effect of the 17th amendment popular election of Senators is the need for those Senators and candidates to raise campaign funds in order to be elected. I don't know what campaign costs were like in 1913, but they are nothing like what it costs today, especially since the population of the United States has more than tripled since then.
Today, Senators are beholden to the Party apparatus for their campaign funding, so their first loyalties are to party leaders and not state legislators. In exchange for campaign financing, Senators are expected to support party agenda that are often in direct opposition to the interests of the people in their states.
Do away with the 17th amendment, and you do away with 33 of the most expensive elections that occur every two years, and you do away with the need to raise campaign cash. The repeal of the 17th amendment will have the side effect of weakening the influence that political parties have on setting the national agenda, and put more agenda-setting power back on the state legislatures who send the Senators to Congress.
-PJ
Equal suffrage, equal representation, equal voting, all mean the same thing in the Senate because the purpose of Senators is to vote on bills.
The 17th amendment didn't change the voting power of a state in the Senate because it didn't change the count of Senators for each state.
Changing the way a Senator is selected may change how the state's delegation votes on a particular bill, but it doesn't change the equal voting power of a state in the Senate.
-PJ
On this post, the premise was that a state that did not ratify the 17th amendment was denied its equal suffrage. I said that the premise was not supportable because the number of votes per state delegation did not change.
See a later post of mine on this point for more clarification.
-PJ
Sure it did. It completely eliminated the voting power of the states. Now only the people get to vote for Senators. The states have no representation at all.
Equal suffrage, equal representation, equal voting, all mean the same thing
Can you find a dictionary which agrees with that? Suffrage and representation are completely different things.
What changed is who ultimately controlled the senator, the state legislatures, or the people. We need to enable the state legislatures to regain their control over senators who refuse to represent the interest of their states. My suggestion of having the legislatures themselves provide the candidates would still enable the popular election required by the 17th as well as restore this control.
-PJ
No that was not my premise. All states have been denied any suffrage, equal or otherwise, by the 17th amendment. My premise was that those states that did not ratify the 17th amendment have been denied suffrage without their consent, which Article V does not allow.
This is a red-herring argument. The supposed conflict between the 17th Amendment and Article V is a non-issue.
Even if the argument is one of varying state legislative control over how the Senator votes between those desiring to choose their Senator and those ratifying the popular election of Senators, there is nothing to stop a rogue Senator in either case.
One can argue that the threat of not renewing a Senator's seat in the next term is stronger in the former case, but that is no guarantee that a Senator will actually vote differently. Once there, the Senator remains for six years to vote as he or she pleases.
-PJ
I'm not aware of any non-ratifying state that protested the new senate on the basis of your argument. It is a real shame, for they were certainly denied suffrage, equal or otherwise.
I stand corrected.
I guess that I didn't see this. You are making the distinction that the state-at-large as represented by its government, and not the collection of its citizens, has lost the power of voting in the Senate because the legislature lost the right to select their Senators.
You are making the claim that elsewhere in the Constitution when the word "state" is used it is meant to mean the state as a governing body. I agree with this because the 10th amendment says "reserved to the states, or to the people."
Elsewhere in the Constitution, the people and the states are separated, as in the Electoral College (which is also under attack by progressives).
You are saying that the shift of choosing Senators was done without the consent of some states, and that meant that representation of a state-at-large was lost without that state's consent.
That's a deep, and tough, nut to crack. To go there, one would also have to ask if "consent" was given when the states consented to the amendment process in Article V when they ratified it in the first place.
Even if they didn't agree with the outcome, they agreed to an amendment process that allowed for 3/4ths of the states to decide for all. Even if a state came down on the losing side (in this case against ratifying the 17th amendment), they still consented to the ratification process knowing that they will win some and lose some, because it wasn't a unanimous consent ratification process.
-PJ
Only in the sense that those in government ignore constitutional issues and will ignore this one also. But if that is enough to make this issue not worth discussing then why discuss anything?
Even if the argument is one of varying state legislative control over how the Senator votes between those desiring to choose their Senator and those ratifying the popular election of Senators, there is nothing to stop a rogue Senator in either case.
Nothing except the threat of losing his seat. I think there is a big difference between a big media popularity contest six years ago versus a set of commitments made to a small number of powerful men who are now going to review the Senator's performance.
One can argue that the threat of not renewing a Senator's seat in the next term is stronger in the former case,
Thank you.
but that is no guarantee that a Senator will actually vote differently. Once there, the Senator remains for six years to vote as he or she pleases.
One method of reelection involves standing for another election, where most of the public don't even remember the last election. The other is reappointment by the same small group of people who appointed you in the first place. I think we could expect a big difference in a Senator's behavior during his term of office. I think Senators would tend to be much more willing to stand up for the independence of their state legislatures. The current crop of Senators have completely abandoned that fight.
That has always been my desire, too. That, and reengaging the state's population on local politics. If the people don't like the Senator that their legislature sends to Congress, then the people vote out their assemblymen and state senators and replace them with people who will appoint more like-minded Senators to Congress.
I think that you and I agree on everthing. I was just talking about the narrow point of state consent in ratifying the 17th as an equal suffrage issue.
Otherwise, I have a long history going back to my sign-up date in support of repealing the 17th amendment.
-PJ
Yes. In every single case except this one. Remember the amendment process is Article V, and Article V explicitly says "no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate". It is an explicit exception to the majority rules principle.
The nut of the issue is the question of whether we can have an unamendable provision in a constitution. That's the problem the "without its consent" language was supposed to solve. They really did want equal state representation to be set in stone, but as Grotius and many other philosophers have pointed out, there is no way a legislative body can bind its successors.
FYI: The issue of an unamendable constitutional provision came up in earnest during the proposal and ratification process of the Corwin Amendment, which was Lincoln's attempt to lure the Southern states back into the Union by making slavery permanent. He even mentioned it in his first inaugural address.
Thank you!
Rereading Article V, I still don't see how changing the method of choosing is an abridgement of equal suffrage.
Let me ask you this hypothetical. If an amendment were proposed to increase the number of Senators per state to three and exactly 3/4ths of the states chose to ratify that amendment, would that be a violation of consent to you?
The states will all still have equal suffrage in the Senate, even if some states didn't want the third Senator.
-PJ
Do you mean with the 17th still in place? From my perspective there is no state suffrage to begin with as long as the 17th is in place, so the question would be moot. If you mean repeal the 17th, then increase the number of senators per state to 3, that would not be a denial of equal suffrage and the consent provision of article V wouldn't come into play at all. Article V only says you can't deny equal suffrage without consent. It doesn't say the number of senators can't be changed, only that the numbers have to be equal for each state.
Well I think you had it yesterday. It all comes down to how you define the word "state" as it is used in Article V. I claim state means state legislature since that's what the word means everywhere else it appears in the constitution.
The fact still remains that the 17th was passed and is in force. So what do we do now?
When I said it was a red-herring argument, I meant that if you are saying that the compelling argument to sway states to join in an Article V proposing convention is that the 17th was unconstitutional in the first place via the suffrage consent clause and should be repealed on those grounds, that's a very narrow and esoteric argument to make. You will lose many people in explaining the nuances of that position.
I always thought that the easier sell was to say that it eliminates costly elections, it gets a large chunk of money out of politics when the elections are eliminated, it forces the Senators to pay more attention to their state interests instead of party lobbyists, it forces the people to pay more attention to whom they elect for local offices, it gets the states back at the federal table.
-PJ
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