However if we can repeal the 17th Amendment, it will tell you that 2/3rds of the nation is ready for a change in what we already have.

But being the higher house and longer terms, they needed more accountiblity and thus why they answered to state legislatures. The 17th Amendment took that power away from the state and it was a bad idea.

The Constitution doesn’t, IIRC, explicitly provide for state governments to appoint Senators, only for each state to appoint their Senator as they wish. At the time the 17th Amendment was passed, states were already moving to popular election of US Senators. I don’t really think this movement would change if you could get the 17th repealed.

If nothing else, there are still rather studious proponents of direct democracy (appropriately, many of them are Democrats, though I feel reasonably certain that there are a large number of them hiding out among the political center and Republican populists) who would probably push for total governance by plebiscite, given the opportunity. You might remember them from all the (admittedly, mostly partisan) howling about the failure of the electoral college in 2000-2004.

Still, while we’re repealing the 17th Amendment, we should expand the size of the House of Representatives.

No more Sen Fienstien for life, no more Sen Schumer for life, no more Sen Kennedy for life. What a world that would be.

The point of having a Senate is that no law can be passed without a majority of the representatives of the states, appointed as representatives of the Governor, having spoken. Having two people’s houses with one more important than the other destroys the Constitutional balance of the original Constitutional structure.

Just look at Ted Stevens. He was convicted of corruption and he wasn’t going to step down. It even look like the Alaskan people would re-elect him. Now there is a Democrat in his place and we have to wait six long years before we can get rid of him. If the Alaskan Legislature was in charged of that US Senate seat, they would have most likely replaced him with another Republican. Instead the 17th Amendment have given us two very bad choices.

Sure the state legislatures would promote from within. I say that is a good thing, because they have already serve with honor for their constituents. Along with an increase in accountiblity, this will make local and state elections more important.

It’s an imperfect solution, I’ll give you that one. There is plenty room for corruption even if we repeal the 17th Amendment. However at least it’s an idea that gives us better accountiblity of our out-of-control federal grovenment.

I’m not sure I see that happening without a cultural sea change. Not impossible, but very unlikely.

And if your party doesn’t hold the majority in the state legislature, forget about it. No balance of power.

I’m not against the idea, I’m just not sold yet.

-Crippy

Get your blog going, add a link to your signature line here and anywhere else you regularly post. You could also write an article and submit it to some of the other blogs that are represented here like Minority Report.

I am trying to start a grass-root effort to repeal the 17th Amendment. Add something that can contribute to that effort or step aside and let us start our work.

I think this is a good idea, and I’ve repeatedly said so in this diary. I’ve also supported the idea when it was offered at other times.

What I am trying to do, with absolutely no success, is find somebody, anybody with any kind of reasonable idea about how to accomplish repeal. There are MAJOR hurdles, which you’ve admitted now on two occasions.

If there is no realistic plan for accomplishing the goal, we are wasting our time with it. As I’ve noted before, “stuff” is about come at us from Capital Hill in a major storm. That’s what we need to be focused on. We have limited resources and limited ability to accomplish anything right now and we have to deal with the highest priority items first. Unless somebody can come up with a reasonable plan for this, it needs to be shelved until some can identify one. Heck, nobody will even talk about how it might be implemented, this whole thread consists of “Yeah! Great idea!”.

I’m not putting the burden on you to produce a workable plan. I’m just looking for somebody to do it.

What is you bloody problem?

Are you done yet?

And, realistically, we are facing an avalanche of Marxist legislation coming down from Capitol Hill in the next six or seven months. Not to mention we have a Party that doesn’t have a clue what it stands for (see John McCain/Lindsey Graham/Barack Obama over the last couple of days).

We don’t have the time, the energy or the political capital to be messing with this. This isn’t a losing battle, it’s a non-starter.

Again, I’m in favor of it. But nobody’s been able to even show me a bad plan that will get this off the starting line.

However you never get anywhere by giving up or not even trying. A wise man once said:

“One may walk over the highest mountain one step at a time.” -John Wanamaker

One must start somewhere, let’s start today.

There’s just a teeny problem that needs to be addressed. In order to amend the Constitution we either have a Constitutional Convention, which would open Pandora’s box and nobody will make a case for that (except on kos), or 2/3 of the Senate and House and 3/4 of the State legislatures need to approve the amendment.

Somebody commented that the 17th looks like it’s “unconstitutional” for some reason or another but that’s a DOA argument. The 17th Amendment is black letter law. Heck, SCOTUS has problems overturning crap that previous courts made up (Roe), they wouldn’t get with a million miles of that argument. You can lump that one in the same can with the arguments about the 16th Amendment being “unconstitutional” for one reason or another.

Now, back to the real world. You’ve gotta find 67 US Senators who would vote for this, not to mention 2/3 of the House. You can probably sell 3/4 of the State Legislatures on the deal.

Members of the House and Senate are, even above being members of a political party, members of the Ruling Elite. First and foremost, they belong to the Party of Permanent Government. I need go no further than our most recent Presidential nominee and his closest friends like Lindsey Graham to press that point.

Nobody has, so far, even tried to convince me that they can be pressured to vote for repeal of the 17th. When I broached this upthread, even BG5 responded

Win Over Key Lawmakers. Ok, you are not going to win over the Senate itself. However you target The House and the States, maybe even the President. We can even shoot to put this on Republican Party platform.

I didn’t respond upthread, but I will here.

• 1: “…you aren’t going to win over the Senate itself.” That’s my point folks. And guess what? You have to!

• 2: “…target the House and the States.” See my comments on Permanent Government, above, relative to the House. And, I’ve seen no strategy to target House Members. As far as targeting the States, that might have some merit, but you still have to get House and Senate Members on board. In the history of amending the Constitution, getting a House and Senate vote can happen relatively quickly. Getting the 50 State Legislatures to act takes years.

• 3: Target the President. Yeah right. Let’s see. Who votes to approve all individuals nominated to the Courts and to high level political appointments? Oh yeah, it’s the US Senate! There’s not a politician still breathing who’s stupid enough to sign onto that agenda.

• 4: Put it in the Republican Platform. We’d do better to hire inner city gang members and have them tag walls with “Repeal 17″. The Platform is a cast off exercise and has been since day one. There is nothing about the Platform that provides either strategic or tactical methods to get something done.

One final hurdle. Selling the idea to the American People. Look, while I would love to see this happen, we’ve got to admit that the case for repeal is not quick or easy to explain and in many ways the arguments for repeal are pretty arcane. Their right, but their complex and arcane. Folks, the electorate isn’t going to spend 30 seconds on trying to figure this out. Especially when every Senator and Representative is against it. And then there’s the media. This will get played as a “naked power grab” by far right trying to control “The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body”.

Bottom line guys, this is a great idea. The 17th Amendment is a terrible idea that has wreaked havoc on the country. But there is no way on God’s green earth that it’s ever going to get repealed.

Now then, I’ve provided some specific reasons why it won’t happen. While you line up and tell me I’m a nattering nabob of doom and I have no faith in the electorate, please provide something stronger than the arguments above. We have limited capital in the political realm these days. Lets not waste it on nice sounding stuff that will never happen.