Repeal the 17th

Over at 'The Hyacinth Girl,' I off-handedly expressed the opinion that "it would probably be a good thing to repeal the 17th amendment (popular election of senators)."

Cathy wanted to know my reasons for saying that; this was my response to her:

Much, perhaps most, of what's wrong in DC is because federalism has been broken -- the States are no longer actually states of the United States, they've become provinces ruled/administered by Uncle Sam. The Civil War damaged federalism, and then, when the Progressives of a century ago convinced the nation to change the whole dynamic and rationale of the Senate, and thereby change the relationship between the States and the Federal government, federalism bit the dust.

Whether or not the Progressives -- the political ancestors of today's "liberals" -- intended to reduce the States to provinces, that has been the result. And it follows from popular election of the Senate.


[Cathy asked:] "Wouldn’t [repeal of the 17th amendment] just insulate them (the senators) from the will/wishes of the constituents?"

As compared to what? Now? It seems to me that their only real constituents are themselves ... so long as they can finance their continual reelection bids, they rarely have any real worries about the voters.

The senators were intended to represent the States, that is, to represent the views and interests of the specific governments which make up the United States. The senators were *not* intended to represent The People -- that is what the House of Representatives is for (and even that is by State).

When the thirteen colonies declared their independence from Great Britain, they asserted that they were each sovereign states; that is, that they were each the political and moral equals of Great Britain and all the other sovereign states in Europe. The Senate is intended to reflect this assertion; in the Senate, all the States are equal, regardless of their comparative wealth or territorial extent or population or any other factor.

The Senate was created in the first place because the smaller States would not have joined the Union without this fundamental equality. The Founders seem to have thought that the Representatives for the various States would tend to vote as blocks, and thus the smaller States would have had little to no say in the running of the Federal government -- notice that last part; it all goes back to federalism and the sovereignty of the individual States which make up the Union.

Now, as things have worked out, the Representatives tend not to vote as blocks-by-state, but rather each individual Representative tends to be a "political entrepreneur."

And, since the 17th amendment, the Senators have also acted as "political entrepreneurs," rather than as the representatives of their State governments -- so long as he can continue to convince hundreds of thousands (or millions) of voters, that is, people who who do not know him and have no contact with him, that he's "doing a good job," rather than the relative handful of other politicians in his State, who do [know] him and his capabilities, because they've worked with him for years, then he's pretty much set for life.


Do you really think there'd so many senators "serving" for forty and fifty years if they had to win the approval of other politicians, who actually know them?

It's about federalism, which is about liberty.