Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The 17th Amendment?

Poignant topic with what I think is an interesting perspective worth reading about.

https://www.uncoverdc.com/2023/08/07/repeal-the-17th-amendment-direct-election-of-senators/

The only thing harder than passing an amendment is repealing one. With both US houses fairly evenly divided, there's no possible way to get a 2/3 vote from either, let alone from both.

Yes, the way Senators were chosen was very purposeful on the part of the Founders, and intended as a check, by state legislatures, on the powers of the Federal Government. US Representatives were meant to directly represent the people. US Senators were meant to represent the interests of state governments. Transforming them into super US Representatives threw a monkey wrench into the whole works of checks and balances. States, as states, no longer had a role in checking Federal power.

It would have been a very good time to add term limits.

The founding fathers original intent was for the state legislatures to appoint senators. Woodrow Wilson changed that with h his horrible amendment.

17th, 18th and 19th amendments, that was a crappy run of them.

Throw in the 16th, for sure, as well. It destroyed the privacy of the citizen vis a vis the Federal Government. Suddenly, all of your economic activity was the business of some Federal bureaucrat, when before it was only your business, and that of any business associates whom you voluntarily involved in it.

For sure.

Should be repealed. Senate represents the states on equal footing and should be appointed by state legislatures as originally intended. I live in TX and CA and NY should have no input who my senators are and should not be able to influence an election that should not even happen

It will never happen. The screaming of, "killing democracy", will be constant and deafening. Right up to the end of the republic.

Can't kill that which has never existed. America is not, has never been and never will be a democracy. Article 4 of the U.S. Constitution states the only form of govt allowed in this nation is a republic. Every time one of the LIB idiots screams about "democracy" this needs to be pointed out.

Which is why I cringe whenever Tucker calls the US a democracy.

I've always hated the term 'Democracy". It's bogus and our nation was never founded to be a pure democracy. Woodrow Wilson was an avowed Socialist. He like FDR, TR and many others was educated in Europe and infected over there. our Nation is suffering from a death of a thousand cuts. We must take it back and renew its vigor.

FWIW:

The "old" system had lots of issues with cronyism too.

The Senator, once in office, was beholden to state legislators to send home pork.

California had term limits. It did not work as intended.

Politicians used their current position as leverage to get the next position.

They did not care about what happened because the effect of the law long term would happen on someone else's watch.

A better solution to to reverse the portion of Reynolds v. Simms that made all states "majority rule" states. It used to be that state senates elected one senator for each county (generally). This mirrored the US Constitution. The Warren court simply rejected this approach without any historical or constitutional support.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_v._Sims

BMT

Balanced by another body (The House of Representatives) that was answerable to the people directly and, as a body, the full equal to the Senate. It's all about balancing interests. No one said that states have no interests hostile to the people, nor that the people had no interests hostile to the states. We are an imperfect lot, we human beings, so the Founders created government that was divided, interest against interest, and tried to keep its powers strictly limited.

Every amendment with a "teenth" in the title sucks.