Posted on 08/30/2016 7:37:02 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
With the prospect of a President Donald Trump or a President Hillary Clinton on the horizon, the growing trend toward the executive acting without the consent of Congress is troubling to all political stripes. Both parties claim to worry about a strong presidency, at least if the other party is in the White House.
That trend has been exacerbated by President Obama, but it certainly didn’t start with him. With the exception of Calvin Coolidge, every president of the 20th and 21st centuries contributed to the problem.
Many proposals to address the imperial presidency have been floated over the decades. Some have even been implemented. None has stemmed the tide.
To rebalance the separation of powers, it is necessary to make Congress stronger. The best way to do that? Abolish the Senate.
The original constitutional purpose of the Senate — to represent the states, not the people who live in them — has long since been abandoned. With the 17th Amendment’s requirement that senators be popularly elected, there is no chance that it will ever be recovered.
Likewise, the original political purpose of the Senate — to act as a “cooling saucer” for the hot passions of the more-democratic House — has fallen victim to the evolving nature of American governance. The Senate has become more like the House, partly because more House members are being elected to the Senate, and also because the Senate’s real institutionalists — such as West Virginia Democrat Robert C. Byrd and Mississippi Republican Trent Lott — are no longer around.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Repealing the 17th is the answer.
L
Um yeah...this will happen. Sheesh.
Or... we could just repeal the 17th.
“We had to burn the village to save it.”
An idiotic proposition that the author tries to justify by pointing to things that are not working as they should, so we should just get rid of the whole thing. No, the founding fathers were fools that just did not consider what might happen in the future, so we should ignore them. Oh, and excorciate them as slave holders.
Yep. Runaway government has it’s origins in the early 20th century with three events; the establishment of the Federal Reserve, and the ratification of the 16th and 17th Amendments.
It is an interesting proposal. Bicknell is probably right that repeal of the 17th amendment could not happen, but is he proposing that the House can impeach the president on a simple majority vote?
Agree.
After the Bill Of Rights, almost every time the constitution has been altered or reinterpreted the unforeseen consequences outweigh any supposed good.
Give control of the Senate back to the States.
Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment.
The original constitutional purpose of the Senate — to represent the states, not the people who live in them...
Dont understand this.
Is it liberal jargon or is there something to it?
19th Amendment too.
Abolishing the Senate would require more than a mere amendment. It would require a new Constitution. Article V (which sets the rules for amendments) states that the state’s cannot be deprived of their equal representation in the Senate. Of course a new constitution could get rid of all kinds of problems like term limits for beloved presidents and that pesky 2nd amendment.
Vote Trump!
The 17th Amendment was a disaster to the Union, but a boon to the so-called “progressives” who from their earliest days wanted a federal government with more general power (and of course “more” is never “enough”).
With the 17th Congress was cut loose from any mechanism to restrain it from honoring the 10th Amendment, and indeed the whole of the Constitution, save for what was politically fashionable at the time.
Once the Court became the Dishonorable Court during the FDR era, a scant two and a half decades after ratification of the 17th (the “progressives” worked fast and they’ve never slowed down since) governance became the playground of the lawless and faithless.
One need only contemplate that an unrepentant Soviet era useful idiot like Bernie Sanders is somehow not considered the socialist extreme Leftwing loon that he is (and indeed is seen by many a better option) to see how inherently dangerous it is to ever depend on political fashion for what government should be doing!
Washington Post is code “dumb as a box of rocks”
“Leave us alone, Mel Brooks!”
Yep. Lets ask the Jedi how this one works out.
The States, Sovereigns in their own right, are the principal Partys involved in the federal government. It exist, of was to exist, only to perform certain specific functions and no others under any circumstances whatsoever (barring an amendment whereby the States presented it some particular new potency).
Not even close.
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