Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment

May 17, 2005 | Thomas J. DiLorenzo

[muawiyah]

The US had many of the same problems with Senators before the 17th that it had after the 17th. Neither the amendment nor its repeal are all that meaningful.

It has to do with the sort of people who strive for election to the Senate, and it doesn't really matter if there are 100 voters or 10,000,000!

The solution is to change the nature of the job.

I've proposed that we set aside certain elective jobs under the condition that you get elected one time only, but you get to steal or graft all that you can get away with, and at the end of your term you are taken out and publicly executed on the steps of Congress.

Being a US Senator would seem to be a suitible candidate for this process. Still, I think we'd still end up with the same guys in the Senate that we have now.

[BCrago66]

Why no link?

[Remember_Salamis]

You totally miss the point. The 17th Amendment ABOLISHED the UNITED STATES SENATE! We now have two Houses of Representatives, both directly elected and subject to the pupulism of the masses.

The Senate was intended to represent the rights and interests of states at the national level. Nothing more, nothing less. That is now gone.

The states, and their respective legislatures, no longer have direct representation at the federal level. The only power legislatures now have is to gerrymander congressional districts.

To put it in historical perspestive, the seventeenth amendment is akin to Cesar emasculating the Roman Senate.

Here's an article by Bruce Bartlett in NRO from a year ago:

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Repeal the 17th Amendment
It’s where big government begins.
May 12th, 2004



There is only one time when a U.S. senator is really free to speak the truth — when he’s announced his retirement. Since he no longer has to worry about raising money, pandering to voters, or retaliation from his colleagues, he can say what he really thinks about issues no other member of the Senate will discuss. For this reason, it is worth listening to Sen. Zell Miller, Democrat of Georgia, who recently spoke a truth that no senator except a retiring one would dare say.


On April 28, Sen. Miller, the last genuinely conservative Democrat we will likely ever see in the Senate, laid the blame for what ails that august body at the door of the 17th amendment to the Constitution. This is the provision that provides for the popular election of senators.

Few people today know that the Founding Fathers never intended for senators to be popularly elected. The Constitution originally provided that senators would be chosen by state legislatures. The purpose was to provide the states — as states — an institutional role in the federal government. In effect, senators were to function as ambassadors from the states, which were expected to retain a large degree of sovereignty even after ratification of the Constitution, thereby ensuring that their rights would be protected in a federal system.

The role of senators as representatives of the states was assured by a procedure, now forgotten, whereby states would “instruct” their senators how to vote on particular issues. Such instructions were not conveyed to members of the House of Representatives because they have always been popularly elected and are not expected to speak for their states, but only for their constituents.

When senators represented states as states, rather than being super House members as they are now, they zealously protected states’ rights. This term became discredited during the civil-rights struggle of the 1960s as a code word for racism — allowing Southern states to resist national pressure to integrate. But clearly this is an aberration. States obviously have interests that may conflict with federal priorities on a wide variety of issues that defy easy ideological classification. Many states, for example, would probably enact more liberal laws relating to the environment, health, and business regulation if allowed by Washington.

Two factors led to enactment of the 17th amendment. First was the problem that many state legislatures deadlocked on their selections for the Senate. The upper house and the lower house could not agree on a choice, or it was prohibitively difficult for one candidate to get an absolute majority in each house (as opposed to a plurality), which was required by federal law. Some states went without representation in the Senate for years as a consequence.

The second problem involved a perception that the election of senators by state legislatures made them more susceptible to corruption by special interests. The Hearst newspapers were a major force arguing this point in the early 1900s.

The pressure of public opinion eventually forced the Senate to approve a constitutional amendment changing the election of senators to our current system of the popular vote. The fact that many states (such as Oregon) had already adopted a system whereby legislatures were required to choose senators selected by popular vote was ignored.

The 17th amendment was ratified in 1913. It is no coincidence that the sharp rise in the size and power of the federal government starts in this year (the 16th amendment, establishing a federal income tax, ratified the same year, was also important). As George Mason University law professor Todd Zywicki has noted, prior to the 17th amendment, senators resisted delegating power to Washington in order to keep it at the state and local level. “As a result, the long term size of the federal government remained fairly stable during the pre-Seventeenth Amendment era,” he wrote.

Prof. Zywicki also finds little evidence of corruption in the Senate that can be traced to the pre-1913 electoral system. By contrast, there is much evidence that the post-1913 system has been deeply corruptive. As Sen. Miller put it, “Direct elections of Senators … allowed Washington’s special interests to call the shots, whether it is filling judicial vacancies, passing laws, or issuing regulations.”

Sen. Miller also lays much of the blame for the current impasse on confirming federal judges at the door of the 17th amendment. Consequently, on April 28 he introduced S.J.Res. 35 in order to repeal that provision of the Constitution.

Over the years, a number of legal scholars have called for the repeal of the 17th amendment. An excellent summary of their arguments appears in Ralph Rossum's book, Federalism, the Supreme Court and the Seventeenth Amendment. They should at least get a hearing before Zell Miller departs the Senate at the end of this year.

— Bruce Bartlett is senior fellow for the National Center for Policy Analysis. Write to him here.

[savedbygrace]

I've proposed that we set aside certain elective jobs under the condition that you get elected one time only, but you get to steal or graft all that you can get away with, and at the end of your term you are taken out and publicly executed on the steps of Congress.

Oh that is so very wrong, and you should be ashamed of yourself for suggesting it.

The bloodstains would take months and months to come out of the steps. Do it on the grass instead.

[mmercier]

Being from Massachusetts, that is one terrifying thought.

The "citizens" here gave the nation Kerry and Kennedy, I shudder to think of who the inbred elite nitwits in our legislature would deliver.

[Remember_Salamis]

You shudder to think what the system envisioned by the Founding Fathers would deliver?

One point you're missing is that the State Legislatures are far less important than they were pre-17th. If it was repealed, the makeup of the legislatures would be different. Remember, there was a time in American history when being a state senator was more important than being a congressman.

[muawiyah]

The manner of representation is different in the House and the Senate.

If you fail to notice that, you fail to notice the fundamental difference between the two bodies, of course.

If you have a legislature vote for a Senator, the only difference between that and having everybody in the state vote for a Senator is the number of voters!

We have the same issue when it comes to appointing or electing judges. Pretty much the same sort of people end up being judges, but the number of folks voting is different.

Personally, I prefer as broad a base as possible in the electorate for every office.

BTW, I think you are raising this meaningless objection simply because I pointed to the problem ~ the poor quality and character of Senators ~ and the solution ~ one term and then execution.

Playing around with the number of voters isn't going to address quality and character and you know it.

[IronChefSakai]

So what is it that we the Sheeple can do to help abolish the 17th Amendment? Our senators surely wouldnt stand for it. They would lose all of their money and actually have to represent an institution.

[muawiyah]

Well, the grass, or maybe down on the blacktop near a drain. That's where the big dogs park you know.

[catroina54]

how could it get any worsr ?
""we"" ?? elected hillary and schumer.

[Remember_Salamis]

Focus all efforts on it? IF the 17th was repealed, all other reform efforst would fall into place: judges, taxes, abortion, etc.

[Prodigal Son]

I'm with you. I would prefer to see the 17th abolished. I think it would change the nature of Congress fundamentally.

[Remember_Salamis]

Actually, the Legislatures were able to recall senators who disobeyed the state legislatures. If the same system were still in place, Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham would have been recalled last week for his little filibuster fiasco.

[hlmencken3]

I have long believed that returning some veto power to state governments via the US Senate would be the best counter-balance to the increasingly totalitarian central government.

It is an idea whose time has returned.

[Remember_Salamis]

If senators don't tow the line of the legislature, they are recalled.

[Capt. Tom]

The "citizens" here gave the nation Kerry and Kennedy, I shudder to think of who the inbred elite nitwits in our legislature would deliver

If we were under the old system, Kevin White and Billy Bulger would be senators for life. - tom

[muawiyah]

No, Senators who didn't tow the line of the legislature were not "re-elected. They got a 6 year term, PERIOD!

If you want "recall" you are going to have to add that to the Constitution!

[lodwick]

Constitutional bump.

[CONSERVE]

Plus the people in flyover parts of the states had a larger voice you didn't like the people in the senate your local vote for state rep counted.