Free Republic

The Democratic Party is finding itself in a very strange position. They’re approaching a potential situation where neither of their candidates have enough elected delegates to secure the nomination, and the race will turn to the superdelegates to decide. Primary results can then be trumped by the say-so of the “party elites�. Thus, the party who complained that Al Gore “really won� the 2000 election due to the popular vote may nominate Hillary Clinton, who now looks unlikely to win the national Democrat popular vote or the elected delegate count. The schadenfreude of watching the Democratic Party put into a...

In last week's column I highlighted comments made to the Financial Times of London by U.S. Comptroller General David Walker in which he compared the current political, social, and economic situation in the United States to that of the Roman Empire shortly before its collapse. I heard from a number of readers in response to the column… Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians. While a couple of folks used the opportunity to plug a particular presidential candidate or legislative issue, almost all were in agreement that things in our nation must change drastically and quickly. Despite a booming economy, low unemployment, and...

There are very, very few things about the Constitution that I would just outright change. There are lots of very important areas where reasonable people can differ, with enormous consequence, and I would certainly like to see those clarified, but that's not what I mean here. Here I'm talking about things in the current Constitution, as amended, that are just plain wrong. The first and foremost among these is the 17th Amendment. If I could change one thing about the Constitution, it would be to clarify the meaning of "general welfare". If I could change two, though, the second would...

Regular Guy Paul linked to an Ann Coulter column suggesting that if we took the vote away from women, we'd never have another Democratic president.  I'm almost tempted to sidetrack this post because I caught a hilarious comment in the comments section that rebutted the notion that fascism is a leftist ideology - it most definitely is - but that's for another day. I'm not even interested in Coulter's comments per se, considering they were mostly tongue-in-cheek, but something that Paul said caught my attention. Generally speaking, I would support repealing all the Constitutional amendments of the 20th century. So...

Napoleon resident John F. “Jack” Green is 78 years old and runs about three miles every morning. He also is running for Congress in the 5th District special election as a write-in candidate. “I’m running because I can’t lose. I can only win,” Green said. “How can you lose something you never had?” While Green’s name will not be on the ballot, the names of State Rep. Bob Latta, R-Bowling Green, and Democrat Robin Weirauch of Napoleon will be. Green said he ran for the same congressional seat six or eight years ago, when no Democrat candidate was running. Green,...

In Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority,1 the Supreme Court held that state interests are more properly protected from federal encroachment by the procedural safeguards found in the federal political process rather than by judicially defined limitations.2 Justice Powell, in a strong dissent, asserted that the majority's decision reduced the tenth amendment to "meaningless rhetoric."3 In explaining its decision, the majority observed that State governments, through equal representation in the Senate, retain sufficient influence over the federal political process to insure their autonomy and sovereign interests.4 The Court, however, recognized that the seventeenth amendment, which provides for the popular...

In an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times on October 10, 2007, University of Virginia Professor Larry Sabato argues for scrapping our Constitution and replacing it with a new one. He couldn’t be more wrong. In support of his call to redo the Constitution, Sabato trots out a quote from Thomas Jefferson positing that a constitution is only good for nineteen years. The quote comes from a letter Jefferson sent to James Madison on September 6, 1789. In his response, Madison raised several fundamental flaws to Jefferson’s (and Sabato’s) reasoning. The one most applicable to our times is this...

Many people with whom I talk about politics with are stunned by my constant assertions that America is not supposed to be a democracy. I credit public education for this. The fact is that most people are almost totally ignorant of history and completely brain-dead about the Constitution. Our Founding Fathers did not give us a democracy, nor did they intend to. They were very well-educated men (especially by today's standards), and they knew, historically, democracies had never worked, even on the small scales when they had been attempted. They knew if democracy wouldn't work on the small scale of...

It's a hardy perennial in the more philosophically-oriented conservative circles, despite its manifest political infeasibility: the argument that the Seventeenth Amendment should be repealed or should never have been passed. While this argument does have its virtues, I disagree. Regardless of whether it was a good idea at the time, repealing the 17th Amendment today would only weaken the mechanisms that are essential to conservative policies and conservative philosophy. Specifically, restoring to state legislatures the power over the election of Senators would make the Senate less directly accountable to the people and insulate the federal courts even further from public...

In the heat of the electoral controversy — the worst possible time to make constitutional decisions — many people, such as Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton, are calling for an end to the Electoral College. Big mistake. Someone once said, Don’t knock down a wall merely because you cannot immediately see what it’s good for. The same can be said for the Electoral College. We should keep in mind that the Founding Fathers were of somewhat better caliber than the politician you are likely to see on television, including those with presidential ambitions. The Electoral College was not an idea floating...

If you really want to use Enron and Global Crossing to shape the political environment forever, then push the following elegant campaign finance reform solution: Repeal the 17th amendment to the Constitution. Passed in 1913, the 17th Amendment made the Senate directly electable by the people. Prior to this, the Senate was appointed by each State Legislature. The Founding Fathers wanted the Senate to be the States' representation in Congress -- the House was the people's representation. The Founding Fathers made the Congress a two-chamber house for a reason. They wanted new legislatation to be passed by both a majority ...

Abstract: "The Irony of Populism: The Republican Shift and the Inevitability of American Aristocracy" analyzes the shift in the role of the Supreme Court following the movement towards a democratic Senate which culminated in the Seventeenth Amendment. The Supreme Court's shift is presented as the inevitable result of the system of mixed government that underlies the constitutional order, which orders American Government into democratic, aristocratic, and monarchical parts. While in the original conception of the constitution the Senate was the aristocratic part, the Senate would become part of the democratic part with the Seventeenth Amendment and prior procedural changes. Into...

Title: The Road to Mass Democracy: Original Intent and the Seventeenth Amendment Author: C. H. Hoebeke Published: New Brunswick, N. J.: Transaction Publishers, 1995. Price: $39.95 (hardcover) Pages: 211 Reviewer: Todd J. Zywicki Affiliation: Mississippi College School of Law The Constitution of 1787 provided for the appointment of United States senators by state legislatures. In 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified, installing the current regime of direct election of U.S. senators. The bloated and special-interest-driven nature of the federal government during this century has led scholars in recent years to reexamine the original framework of the Senate and to...

With respect to states' rights, it should be readily apparent to all that state governments cannot exert any meaningful influence or control over the federal government, judiciary, or any other federal institution. Let us state the problem precisely. At the present time, there are no checks and balances available to the states over federal power or over Congress itself in any area. However, in the history of our country, it was not always this way. In the original design by the Framers of the U.S. Constitution, there was an effective check on Congress through the state legislatures' power to appoint...

From The Center for Constitutional Studies Democratizing the Constitution: The Failure of the Seventeenth AmendmentC. H. Hoebeke*[From HUMANITAS, Volume IX, No. 2, 1996 © National Humanities Institute, Washington, DC USA] It was with no small sense of vindication that Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan signed the proclamation of 31 May 1913, declaring the Seventeenth Amendment duly ratified and incorporated into the fundamental laws of the United States. More than twenty years earlier as a Nebraska congressman, "The Great Commoner" had joined the struggle to free the Senate from the control of corrupt state legislatures, and despite three failed campaigns for...

This weblog calls for the repeal of the 17th Amendment and addresses the abusive hegemony committed by the U. S. Senate. If Americans want to remove some corruption from government, the first significant step is to repeal the 17th Amendment. Americans should fear the steady growth by the oligarchy in the Senate. We should fear the oligarchs more because our Constitution cannot be spoiled by bombs, the courts, or the President; only through legislation.

The Tip Of The Iceberg By Sterling H. Saunders A week ago Jim posted information from our web page pertinent to our plan to Repeal the 17th Amendment. In it we had stated our reasons to be centered on a government run amuck. The following examples are just the tip of the iceberg. For every one you see here there are hundreds more in the same category. In some instances, thousands. Therefore, we believe we have a sound basis for doing what we're doing. Some of the examples are simply stupid or ridiculous. At the other end of the spectrum...

We believe the federal government has grown too big, too expensive, too intrusive, too nosy, too abusive and.. . .well, just about everything it was not supposed to be. What are we talking about when we say that? It's not Congress. Nor is it the Presidents, but between the two, they have created and fostered an Imperial Bureaucracy, a virtually independent, ever growing government that is answerable to no one, staffed by unelected bureaucrats who write rules and regulations that have the force of law and lord it over us as if they were our Imperial Masters. How big is...

Ideology and partisanship aren't soulmates There is much hand-wringing going on in Washington these days about the inability of Republicans and Democrats to compromise even on seemingly unimportant issues. I think it is the inevitable result of long-term trends 100 years in the making. The movement started in 1913 when the 17th Amendment was added to the Constitution. This is the one that requires senators to be elected by popular vote. Previously, as established by the Founding Fathers, senators had been elected by state legislatures. Before the 17th Amendment, senators represented states as states. This made the states much more...

Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment by Thomas J. DiLorenzo May 17, 2005 Every once in a blue moon someone in Congress (usually Congressman Ron Paul of Texas) proposes a law or resolution that would actually improve the prospects for human liberty and prosperity. It’s rare, but not nonexistent. One such case is Senate Joint Resolution 35, introduced into the U.S. Senate on April 28, 2004, which was recently brought to my attention by Laurence Vance. S.J. Res. 35 reads: "Resolved . . . . The seventeenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed." That’s Section...

The deal on confirmation of judicial nominees seems to have been struck by seven Democrats essentially supported by their party's base and seven Republicans at odds with theirs. It contains one crucial phrase -- Democrats will filibuster only in "extraordinary circumstances" -- and it is undefined. Unless it is defined by the Democrats' recent behavior. But can anyone contrive to tickle coherence from that behavior? Democrats have agreed to stop filibustering the confirmation of three judges they have hitherto identified as extraordinarily dangerous to fundamental American liberties. One of the three, Priscilla Owen, is an impeccable representative of mainstream conservative...

What would we the US Senate make up be if the 17th Amendment were to be repealed?

I. The Internal CrisisIn the next two decades, the U.S. Supreme Court will face three constitutional crises: one will be an internal crisis, another will be national, and the third will be global. Each of these has the potential to significantly erode the Constitutional structure established by our American Founding Fathers.The internal crisis is how the entire Judicial Branch—including the Court, lower courts, attorneys, judges, law professors and students, and all legal professionals—sees itself.  The two leading current views are: strict constructionism and judicial activism.Strict constructionists believe that the Court should judge solely on the basis of the words...

The 17th Amendment was never properly ratified. I have seen the proof with my own eyes at the National Archives and from the documents obtained by Bill Benson from all 48 state legislatures in his work, "Proof the 17th Amendment Was Not Ratified." I also collected court certified documents on this from the bowels of the California State Archives. They are incontrovertible and prove without question that Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, on May 31, 1913, knowingly and willfully issued a memo declaring the 17th Amendment ratified even though he knew the required number of states did not ratify...

The Supreme Court’s recent decisions protecting abortion rights, upholding the legalization of assisted suicide and striking down anti-sodomy laws represent a “dangerous” trend, Justice Antonin Scalia told a Harvard audience last night. Scalia held the rapt attention of the jam-packed John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum last night, although some students and faculty said they were put off by his conservative judicial philosophy. In a freewheeling question-and-answer session following the justice’s prepared remarks, an African-American graduate student challenged Scalia to defend the constitutionality of racial profiling. The Kennedy School student, Larry Harris Jr., said that his Fourth and 14th Amendment rights...

CHICAGO - Alan Keyes (news - web sites) said Friday he would like to end the system under which the people elect U.S. senators and return to pre-1913 practice in which senators were chosen by state legislatures. The Republican Senate candidate in Illinois, asked about past comments on the election process, said the constitutional amendment that provided for popular election of senators upset the balance between the people and the states. "The balance is utterly destroyed when the senators are directly elected because the state government as such no longer plays any role in the deliberations at the federal level,"...

SPRINGFIELD - If Illinois voters elect Alan Keyes to the U.S. Senate, he'd prefer they not get another chance. Keyes, a Maryland Republican who just moved to Calumet City for the campaign, supports returning to a system abolished nearly a century ago of letting state legislators pick U.S. senators rather than voters. In fact, he's dubbed the constitutional amendment that switched to public election of senators one of the country's greatest mistakes, vowing in past campaigns to re-examine it if voters ever sent him to Washington, D.C. "He does still support repeal of the 17th Amendment," Keyes campaign adviser Dan...

Repeal the 17th Amendment It’s where big government begins. By Bruce Bartlett 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...

Floor Statement on Repealing the 17th Amendment Remarks as Prepared for Delivery on the Senate floor U.S. Senator Zell Miller April 28, 2004 We live in perilous times. The Leader of the Free World's power has become so neutered he cannot, even with the support of a majority of the Senate, appoint highly qualified individuals endorsed by the American Bar to a federal court. He cannot conduct a war without being torn to shreds by partisans with their eyes set not on the defeat of our enemy but on the defeat of our President. The U.S. Senate has become just...

There is only one time when a U.S. senator is really free to speak the truth. That is when he has announced his retirement. Since he no longer has to worry about raising money, pandering to voters or risking retaliation from his colleagues, he can say what he really thinks about issues no other member of the Senate will talk about. For this reason, it is worth listening to Sen. Zell Miller, Democrat of Georgia, who recently spoke a truth that no senator except one who is retiring would dare say. On April 28, Miller, the last genuinely conservative Democrat...

WASHINGTON — Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) introduced legislation Wednesday that would repeal the 17th Amendment and return to the era when U.S. senators were chosen by state legislatures rather than by direct vote. Miller, famous for his unconventional views, acknowledged in a characteristically colorful speech on the Senate floor that the measure "doesn't stand a chance of getting even a single co-sponsor, much less a single vote beyond my own." But the man who wrote "A National Party No More" to take his fellow Democrats to task was intent on doing the same to the chamber he will depart when...

WASHINGTON - Zell Miller, Georgia's maverick Democratic senator, says the nation ought to return to having senators appointed by legislatures rather than elected by voters. Miller, who is retiring in January, was first appointed to his post in 2000 after the death of Paul Coverdell. He said Wednesday that rescinding the 17th Amendment, which declared that senators should be elected, would increase the power of state governments and reduce the influence of Washington special interests. "The individuals are not so much at fault as the rotten and decaying foundation of what is no longer a republic," Miller said on the...

A To-Do List By Robert Wolf There is much consternation to the effect that politics has become a full body contact sport. Many are dismayed because all that is important is winning. Pubs and Dems will say anything and do anything to win, but the end of world is not at hand, not if we are up to the challenge. Libertarians think Republicans are Clinton Lite. Conservatives are depressed because congressional spending continues unabated. Conservatives and Libertarians are, both, ready ‘to give up the ghost’, ‘shed that mortal coil’ and ‘head for the hills’, perhaps for good reason; watching the...

Originally published June 15,2001 THE GREAT GOLD HEISTThe Desert Wilderness Protection Act by Karen Lee Bixman Published in: Media ByPass Magazine (1-800-4-bypass) Senator Diane Feinstein: "The Modern Jesse James" Congress should be convening a criminal investigation. On October 8, 1994, the biggest gold heist in history occurred, but this theft lacked the melodrama of a Jesse James' holdup or the excitement of a Brink's truck robbery. Nary a word was reported by the media even though this thievery was committed in the light of day. The citizens that were being robbed tried to cry out for help but the lawmen...

REPEAL THE 17TH AMENDMENT ByJohn MacMullinAfter the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the federal government announced that it would preempt all state jurisdiction over airport security.  The federal government preempted state powers without regard to balancing federal and state responsibilities so that these responsibilities, and related costs, could be distributed across federal, state, and local governments.  To carry out this preemption, the federal government recently reported that it will employ more than 47,000 federal recruits in the fight against terrorism as newly trained security screeners.  They are to begin working at 424 airports nationwide. These developments, and numerous others in the...

repeal17 · A New Senate for America Repeal 17 is an online group dedicated to legally repealing the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which began the direct election of the Senate. Here, we will discuss the benefits of a Senate that is once again appointed by the state legislatures or by some other means that will take the money and corruption out of that august and once-revered body and return balance to the nation's political system. The purpose of the Repeal 17 Yahoo! group is to seek constructive feedback from those interested in repealing the 17th Amendment by Constitutional...

A new non-profit organization, Friends For America, is organizing to educate the public on the need to return power to States by returning to the election of US Senators by State legislatures. Friends For America is looking for volunteers in each State to help with organizing state and local chapters. These chapters will then work to educate citizens on 17th Amendment issues. For more information, go to friendsforamerica.org or friendsforamerica.com and volunteer to participate in this new movement. Friends For America's message is simple and powerful. The Founding Fathers placed the power to select US Senators in the hands of...

The Senate, the President, and Judges The Seventeenth Amendment in giving Senators the power to by- pass state interests and pander to citizen constituency interests only heightens and hastens the march to socialism. Our nation has different interests as has been explained previously and to remain a republic we must have separate powers looking after those interests. Essentially our type of rule is three governments in one consisting of three branches, Executive, Legislative, and Judicial, each with different responsibilities. To suppose equality between them, each having the same equal powers is no truer than the so-called equality of people working...

HISTORICAL FACTS from Team Law The following 15 points are based upon factual historical evidence: 1st: In 1863, Lincoln instituted martial law. He ordered that the states (people) either conscribe troops and provide money in support of the North or be recognized as an enemy of the nation. This martial law Act of Congress is still in effect today - what it means is that the President has dictatorial authority to do anything that can be done by the government in accord with the Constitution of the United States of America. This is the foundation of Presidential Executive Orders. 2nd:...