Posted on 12/13/2014 11:05:04 AM PST by SleeperCatcher
The 17th amendment has created a “winner take all” mentality in the nation’s capital, and the resulting bitterness that grips partisan Washington today is one direct result of its passage. “Interest groups understand that to impose one’s will on 300,000,000 Americans, one must influence one president, the selection of 5 supreme court justices, 51 (or 60) senators, and 218 representatives, a total of 275 individuals who live primarily in physical isolation, far away from those they govern,” says the Campaign to Restore Federalism.
(Excerpt) Read more at absoluterights.com ...
It’s remarkable how prevalent that “switched sides” garbage is (on both sides).
I heard it as a kid from some *itch at the Chicago Historical Society (Lincoln would be a rat and Douglas a Republican she said.)
I believed it myself not all that long ago, after all I kept hearing it around here, Lincoln was tyrant blah blah blah. I figured it happened in 1896, by magic. The people that think the rats were awesome before the 1960’s are insane, or trolls. Those conservative Southern democrats were known as Southern Whigs before the civil war.
In reality you can trace the democrats ideological ancestry back to Jefferson’s ‘Republicans’, despite his modern popularity with conservatives and libertarians. I don’t mean to bash him because he and Andrew Jackson would pump todays rats full of lead, but that’s a fact.
Whereas the Federalists were the progenitors to the Whigs and Modern Republicans (named to evoke Jefferson’s Republicans in a clever electoral ploy). We’ve basically always had the same 2 parties, the names just changed. Federalists/National Republicans/Whigs/GOP has always been the party that supported commerce and the Jeffersonian Republicans/Jacksonians/Rats have always been pseudo-populist rabble rousers.
With the rats turning to socialism in the late 19th Century the differences became more clear, that’s all.
Yeah, the one position in which the parties have switched sides is on free trade, for the simple reason that, in the 19th century and early 20th century, commercial interests were protectionists (and thus Republicans were in favor of tariffs) while labor and certain agricultural interests favored free trade (and thus so did Bourbon Democrats), while in modern times commercial interests favor free trade (and thus so do Republicans) and labor interests are are protectionist (and thus so are labor Democrats).
Yes, precisely.
Unfortunately Republicans held on to that position for too long, Smoot-Hawley was a disaster.
I’m not sure simply “reasserting the 10th Amendment” by states is even possible, given the number of federal and Supreme Court decisions tying states to federal policies/laws. And there is the fact that states are literally addicted to federal money that provides funding for a number of programs - Medicaid/SNAP/Welfare/Education programs, just to name a few (throw in law enforcement as well).
It’s a process, granted, and it isn’t one that will be reversed overnight in any event.
The Progressives managed to break this stranglehold during the TR and Wilson administrations via law and changing the Constitution. But when money moves around, it's hard to prevent people from grifting on that money. It's like trying to keep ants out of the pantry. You plug one hole, and they'll find another way to get in. But K Street has become so powerful that there might be an advantage to forcing a breakup of K Street and pushing that graft and corruption back into the states. Might.
I'm an old cynic when it comes to human behavior, so I suspect we'll reopen an old can of worms if we repeal the 17th Amendment. But I can see one way to make it work.
Under the Articles of Confederation, congresscritters were appointed by the state legislatures, and those legislatures could recall them. We don't have that under the Constitution. Even before the 17th Amendment, the state legislatures appointed senators for a six year term. Maybe a repeal of the 17th should have senators be appointed by the state legislatures on an "at will" basis with a caveat concerning term limits. The senator has that job until he dies, quits, is term limited, or the legislature terminates his employment.
I get a kick out of the Neo-Confederates, of which there are ‘x’ of on this site.
The Confederates were RATS then and they’re RATS now.
Funny, last time I checked, the GOP was founded on "social issues" and its very first platform denounced slavery as a moral evil and called for the preservation of traditional marriage. Of course, to hear the "no social issues" crowd tell it, they must have formed the GOP to promote tax cuts or something.
A valid case could be made that historically, the Dems had a "conservative" FACTION of their party, and the GOP had a liberal FACTION of their party (I would argue we still do!), but not that the GOP was ever uniformly considered the left-wing party in the USA, nor the Dems ever uniformly considered the right-wing party in the USA.
On the issue of free trade, yes, that's one issue where a good case could be made that the two parties "switched sides". Interesting enough, the late 19th century era Republicans and Democrats didn't have many ideological differences at all nationally, so the one issue they'd argue about endlessly was tariffs.
Basically its not so much that the GOP "changed", but that the Dems ended up on the "wrong side of history" on every major issue over the last century, so they changed their views after losing those battles on issues like civil rights and suffrage for women, etc. That's what makes it so ironic when they piously lecture us now that we better cave to their POV or we'll end up on the "wrong side of history".
Furthermore, they were even "on the wrong side of history" in all the battles where their viewpoint WON and became the law of the land... for example, the income tax amendment (Democrats swore up and down at the time that the average American would never pay a cent and it would only affect filthy rich fat cats who would happily fill out income tax forms), the 1965 Immigration "reform" act (Democrats swore up and down at the time that it wouldn't affect the demographics of this country in any way, nor encourage people from third world countries to immigrant en masse in the USA), and now the latest thing to bite them in the butt with being on the "wrong side of history" is Obamacare.
Maybe in 2040 or so, they'll be arguing "Yes, Democrats passed Obamacare and destroyed health care a generation ago, but Democrats back then were the conservative party. They're not like TODAY'S Democrats".
I wouldn't put it past them.
“there is the fact that states are literally addicted to federal money”
THis is the major factor. It won’t be easy, that for sure, but I think it’s easier to assert Constitutional powers you already have rather than attempt to repeal an existing amendment.
It’s one of the “big lies” perpetrated by Democrats to try to disassociate the party’s historical record (despite the fact that they still practice the same methods with different players). Even Andrew Jackson was the “Yes We Can” candidate of the 1820s/30s, the “proclaimed” King of the Rabble. If FR had been around those days, we’d have considered him a thug and a loose cannon (not to mention a killer). His conduct in office was enough that here in Tennessee, which had been a one-party Jeffersonian state from its creation clear up until Jackson (not a single solitary Federalist-aligned or even Adams candidate elected to federal office), split in two and led to us being a strong Whig state for a time (more supportive of Henry Clay in KY than Jackson).
As for Sen. Stephen Douglas, given that he died quite early during the Civil War, he was already moving towards the Republicans (the group known as Douglas Democrats, some of its adherents did become Republicans), and might very well have switched parties before long.
It’s disingenuous for anyone to make the claim “Lincoln would’ve been a Democrat today.” I think had any 18th or 19th century political figure (of either party) saw 21st century America, would’ve been horrified with its out-of-control size, spending and moral/anti-Christian degeneracy. I can even picture Benjamin Franklin raging like Charlton Heston at the end of “Planet of the Apes” when he saw Lady Liberty’s ruins on the beach.
Indeed, that's even true with early 20th century politicians. I remember reading an interview with John Coolidge in the 1990s (who was himself in his 90s at the time) and they asked him what his father (President Calvin Coolidge) would have thought of today's politicians. Coolidge replied that his father would be very depressed if he could see what American politicians were like today, and that his father would be unelectable in the current political climate because BOTH parties were considerably left of where they had been in the 1920s, as well as far more morally degenerate.
I'm also reminded of a story I read recently about the "century time box" in Detroit that was a time capsule opened after a century (buried 1990, unearthed 2000). The capsule contained letters from Detroit's government c. 1900 talking about their issues and priorities to their successors, and making predictions about the future. The Mayor of Detroit in 1900, William C. Maybury, wrote a predication that "In AD 2000, I think it not improbable that Detroit will enjoy a population of fully four million". and the Detroit police commissioner of 1900 wrote "crime is not very prevalent at the present time, and we now have occasional days when we are not called upon to make an arrest. We prophesy that arrests will be less frequent than now in comparison with the population.” Had they been able to come forward in a time machine to actually SEE Detroit in 2000, I can certainly imagine they'd react like Heston at the statue of the liberty.
>> As for Sen. Stephen Douglas, given that he died quite early during the Civil War, he was already moving towards the Republicans (the group known as Douglas Democrats, some of its adherents did become Republicans), and might very well have switched parties before long. <<
Douglas seemed to be a pretty firmly in the "lifelong Democrat and will remain so until I die" mindset, though I could imagine a scenario after the war where he would have to switch to the GOP anyway if he wanted to survive politically (the pro-war Democrats all basically got absorbed into the GOP after 1865), and its funny that people look at Lincoln and Douglas today as ideal examples of their party's ideologies in the 1850s, since both were considered squishy moderates in their respective parties and had more in common with each other than they did with the most extreme members of their own parties. They deliberately exaggerated their differences with each other during the Senate debates. It's bit like Rick Perry being presented as the anti-Romney Tea Party savior in 2012, when Perry had far more in common with Romney than he did with the Tea Party.
After he died, he was far more likely to vote Democratic than Republican.
I definitely agree!
Another idea is to overturn Reynolds v. Sims, so that one house of each legislature could represent people on a geographical basis (ideally, counties). That’s one house in each legislature that would not be subject to gerrymandering.
(Whoever wrote the majority opinion in Reynolds v. Sims should have been impeached, convicted and removed, but that would be a rare bird indeed.)
Sometimes, I wonder if such vote-buying scandals were the result of an 1866 law that required that a Senator be chosen by a actual majority of state legislators, rather than by a method each legislature deemed fit. It seems logical that getting that majority requires more wheeling and dealing than getting, say, a simple plurality.
You really would have to overturn that ruling for a repeal of the 17th to work, since otherwise, you’d end up with a bunch of Senators basically representing corrupt big cities.
You would probably have to repeal the 16th and the Federal Reserve as well, for repealing the 17th to work, so that the Federal government wouldn’t have as much money with which to bribe state legislators.
I'd like to see a proposed amendment to correct Reynolds, although I'm not sure that would fit the authorizing language.
The abolition of the Fed could be done by Congress tomorrow. That doesn't involve changing the Constitution.
Excellent point. That would do far more to bring state legislators back in line with what the "founders" envisioned, than simply repealing the 17th amendment and expecting modern day state governments to magically behave like their 1789 counterparts.
I've been saying for years that state legislatures should resemble the way the federal congress is organized, with one house representing population interests and another house representing geographic interests. The anti-17thers simply ignore the fact that the population vs. geographic differences is a far bigger distinction between the two bodies than elected vs. appointed (Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee will never be a Senator Shelia Jackson Lee because her ideology is nothing like Texas as a whole!). Its interesting the anti-17thers ignore this and claim we might as well abolish the U.S. Senate if its not appointed, but none of them are demanding we abolish state senates that DO represent the exact SAME interests of the state houses.
Bottom line, if say, the Illinois State Senate was set up the way the U.S. Senate was, Cook County would only have 1 seat out of 102. Under the current gerrymandered map, they currently control over half the seats (same as they do in the Illinois House). Imagine the huge changes this would make is the political interests of state legislatures in New York, California, Michigan, New Jersey, Florida, etc., if the upper house was changed to represent geographic interests.
I've heard going back to that system might take a constitutional amendment as well. Fine with me. We'd be far better off with a 29th amendment that repealed "1 man 1 vote" federal laws, than a 29th amendment giving modern state legislatures the power to appoint whoever they want to the U.S. Senate.
About 2/3rds of the existing 59 senators would be forced into runoffs with other incumbents who represent parts of the same county (several of them represent multiple countries, so I went with the theory that they'd relocate to the county where they have the best chance of keeping their seat). Of course, this would include nearby every Chicago area state senator. Cook County, largest in population, would end up with a 34 incumbents being widdled down to 1, DuPage County would go from 9 to 1, Kane County would go from 4 to 1, and so on. The downstate senators would largely keep their jobs, though their districts would be shrunk down to about 1/5th of the area that they used to represent, since now they would only serve their home county and none of the surrounding areas.
After the smoke was cleared, there would be about 20 incumbents left that keep their jobs, and about 80 "vacant" seats for countries that have no existing state senator and would have to hold new elections. In theory, I suppose some of the vanquished run-off Senators could carpetbag some county that's a 2 hour drive from them, and run for office there. Madigan would probably even be able to make it competitive by trying to fund credible Democrats in 50-60 downstate countries, but they'd have to run a lot of Lipinski or Poshard type Dems to have a shot at winning control of the IL Senate in a geographic-based system. By default, about 75% of the countries in Illinois vote Republican. If the IL GOP weren't incompetent and/or in bed with the Dems, it would certainly be possible in theory for the GOP to get a veto-proof majority in the IL Senate (winning 61 out of 102 country-senate seats), to balance out the Dems veto-proof majority in the Illinois house.
I'd have to change the names to update my map, though. I had Emil Jones as the lone Senator left from Cook, and Kirk Dillard as the lone Senator left from DuPage.
The reason why “one senator from county” would never fly even without a one-person-one-vote constitutional requirement is because IL (or practically any other state’s) voters never would approve such a drastic change in state-senate composition, unless a bunch of new counties were created from large counties and small counties were consolidated with each other until you ended up with fairly equally populated counties. Unlike states, which are sovereign and have had equal representation in the Senate since 1789, counties are creatures of the state legislature and have erose boundaries that easily could be changed.
So what would happen if the IL legislature got to redraw the state’s counties prior to a change to the state senate so that each county has a single senator? Well, the new counties probably would look a lot like state senate districts. And 20 years from now, you’d find that the suburban and exurban Republican counties would have a lot more people (not to mention voters) than would all of those counties that encompass Chicago, and IL Democrats would be even more entrenched.
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