Tell me you didn't just think that! Until the past year or so, there has never been a time when I questioned the idea of voting for candidates for the US Senate. What's weird about that? We vote for our state Senates and for our US House, why not vote for US Senators, too? So the question goes unanswered.
Until today (or these days). In anno domini 2010, The Constitution, in it's specifics and its intentions, has been revisited like never before across the fruited plain, o'er the mountains, through the prairies, and to the oceans white with foam. The cat was let out of the bag that was designed to restrain it a hundred years ago, but the people and the states are fixin' to renew the bulwarks that kept the cat there in the first place.
In order to do this, we must constantly be asking each other and ourselves a lot of different questions. The renewal movement of which I write is calling into question even some amendments to the Constitution. So, without further ado, today I'd like to start by asking you, good reader, this:
Should we repeal the Seventeenth Amendment?
This is the text of Amendment XVII ...
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.
When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such 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 people fill the vacancies by election as
the legislature may direct.
This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any
Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.
Before Amendment XVII, a US Senator was elected by his state legislature, as per Article I, Section 3: "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."
Compare this with Article I, Section 2: "The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature." For the purposes of this discussion, this passage indicates that the representatives for the House are to be chosen by the People of each state.
As we can see, it was the intent that the Senate be the legislative body that represents the States while the House represents the People. This important distinction was made to help prevent the United States from degenerating into such hellish democracies as the framers were witnessing across the pond in Robespierrean France--where, to put it briefly, the majority wolves let the minority sheep have a say in what went on the menu.
In 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified by 36 states, placing the election of Senators in the hands of the people (a 37th state subsequently ratified it) with Utah rejecting the amendment. Although a Reign of Terror has not necessarily occurred as a result, thanks in large part to other measures of republican security still in place in the Constitution, what we have now is a bicameral federal legislature that is elected wholly by the people of the union. Former Senator Zell Miller (GA), perhaps my favorite Democrat of the 20th-21st Centuries, said this upon retirement: "Direct elections of Senators … allowed Washington’s special interests to call the shots, whether it is filling judicial vacancies, passing laws, or issuing regulations."
What do you think? We know we are far from the representative republic the framers had intended; is the Seventeenth Amendment a significant obstacle to a renewal of that republic? Is the general government or the states better for placing the direct elections of US Senators in the hands of the general electorate? Or would it be better to repeal A. XVII?
That's a very perceptive question for such a time as this. It makes me want to go back and study why the amendment was created in the first place. Why did the people feel that they(I'm not that old) needed to elect senators rather than leave it alone and would that still be a problem today? Was a deficit of character in the people that made them take more control over this process, or was it a lack of character and accountability in the senators that were being chosen?
ReplyDeleteGoodness knows, we have a challenge before us now. The question is would an effort to change that back affect our current situation for the better or for worse?
Well, yes, that is a better statement of the question.
ReplyDeleteBefore I continue researching myself, I would guess that amendmends and laws foisted upon us in and around 1913 would have the stench of Progressivism upon them.
...Come to think of it, wouldn't that be one rather profound solution to the term limits debate, at least as far as the Senate is concerned?
ReplyDelete