[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.

[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:

---

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.

[billbears]

Actually DiLorenzo has it right. There would be problems but not at the level we currently have.

It has everything to do with th number of voters. One massive change would be that the US Senate would not see fit to stick its nose into the affairs of the separate and sovereign states as they would not be pandering for votes from the illiterate and ignorant who base their entire decision on what government should do purely on emotion.

They would instead return to the business of this nation of states as a whole. Would there still be issues of theft or grifting? Of course, but just because Senators would still see some kickbacks that doesn't mean they should also see the immediate gratification of getting calls from sheep voters promising to send them to Congress again.

As the Senate is currently filled with 101 political hacks, an immediate plus is that our airwaves, radio and television, wouldn't be filled every four to six years (depending on the cycle in your state) with empty promises from mediocre politicians who couldn't survive in private industry

The next step to return to a Constitutional Republic would be to drop popular election of the President

DiLorenzo bump

[CyberAnt]

This might work if after being appointed for 6 years - you had to go home - and you could not be reappointed again.

This would eliminate Kennedy cabals - and a lifetime of campaigning.

I would really like to see this. People get one (1) 6-year term - PERIOD!!

This would make the person do their job and not put it off for the next 20 years.

And .. who would appoint them .. the Governor of each state ..?? That would give the Governorships much more control over what the state's representation.

It might have some kinks in it - but I like the idea of appointed senators who I would only have to look at for 6 years.

[dufekin]

I propose this:

"The Senate shall receive appropriation bills passed by the House, to which it may not add to new or existing appropriations; however, the Senate may reject or reduce any specific appropriation made in the House bill. After the Senate passes the bill (after deleting or reducing objectionable appropriations), it shall go before the President, who may sign it, veto it, or veto certain enumerated appropriations and sign the remainder.

In any case that he may think proper, the President may choose not to spend any appropriations signed into law, but to retain the money in the federal Treasury and to inform Congress of his actions within nine months after signing the appropriation bill. By a two-thirds vote of both Houses, the Congress may demand that the President spend the money so returned in the manner originally appropriated.

[Tench_Coxe]

"The US had many of the same problems with Senators before the 17th that it had after the 17th."

The state legislatures were able to recall the Senators. Now, one has to wait 6 years. That's one of the benefits of repeal.

Secondly, it makes it somewhat harder for New York or California to foist their crap on other states who want no part of said crap.

[Cowman]

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

I have thought along the same lines but I would base the punishment on taxation and regulation. If they vote to increase either of the above they would be brought out once a month and their constituents would be able to beat them with iron rods (the size of the rods to be based on the amount of intrusion voted for.)