Free Republic

Mark is working on another book. Every night it seems, he wants to bust out and talk about it, but his publishers have put the ixnay on too much disclosure. Still, he shows a little leg now and then. That happened in the second hour of his show last Thursday, April 11, 2013. With the help of sixteen rinos, Dingy Harry got 68 votes to proceed with a gun control bill that few, if any Senators had read. After wailing on the lack of process and regular order, Mark focused on the nature of the Senate and how it differed...

It is likely that conservatives will fail to understand why health care "reform" became law, and they are likely to fail if they start any post-mortem by accepting the conventional wisdom's realist premise:  1) Two election cycles produced a critical mass of radicals in the legislative and executive branches of government.  2) The personalities of those in the elected majority were more dynamic and compelling than those in the minority, and 3) the tactics employed by the majority prevailed over those with less adequate tools at their disposal.  Without challenging the premises, conservative analysis so far has asserted the only...

Clause 1. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures. Clause 2. When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of each State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the...

The U.S Constitution "originally" laid out the separation of powers between the federal government and the State governments in the first paragraph of article 1 section 3. How this paragraph accomplished that goal will become clear later in this article. This paragraph states: "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, chosen by the LEGISLATURE thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote." Then in Article I, section 4 we also find this: "The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each...

The 17th Amendment [provides] for popular election of U.S. senators, and its repeal is just the sort of interesting proposal we like to mull over in a contrarian spirit. But in the end we favor popular election of senators, and we do so in a contrarian spirit.In the original constitutional scheme, the House of Representatives was the only popularly elected part of government. State legislatures chose U.S. senators, and in many states also picked presidential electors. The idea was that the House would represent popular passions while the Senate would act, in a metaphor attributed to George Washington, as a...

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...

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

"There is a time for all things, a time to preach and a time to pray, but those times have passed away. There is a time to fight, and that time has now come." Peter Muhlenberg It's time to restore the United States Senate James Madison explained the importance of the legislature being divided into two chambers in Federalist No. 10: "Before taking effect, legislation would have to be ratified by two independent power sources: the people's representatives in the House and the state legislatures' agents in the Senate." Amendment XXVIII The United States Senate Restoration Act An Act...

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 Seventeenth Amendment and the Death of Federalism Ralph A. Rossum Salvatori Professor of American Constitutionalism Claremont McKenna College Claremont, California Prepared for Delivery at the Panel on "Republicanism, Federalism, and the Constitution" of the 2003 Fall Regional Meeting of the Philadelphia Society Williamsburg Woodlands Williamsburg, Virginia October 3-4, 2003 My comments today are based largely on a book I recently completed for Lexington Books that explores the Seventeenth Amendment and the death of federalism.[i] Entitled Federalism, the Supreme Court and the Seventeenth Amendment: The Irony of Constitutional Democracy, it is also a critical commentary on the spate of controversial...

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...

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:...