I just learned that the Constitution Party has endorsed the repeal of the 17th Amendment as part of its party platform.
Ok, its not much, and I don't know much else about the Constitution Party, but at least there are few other people on my very small bandwagon.
Update:
Since I had blogged on this before, I didn't mention my longstanding interest in this this issue, but I noted from the Comments that we have some new readers (which I should have anticipated, of course). I've laid out my views on this in two law review articles here and here.
For those looking for a shorter journalistic read on the issue, two very accessible and useful op-ed surveys of the issue (and my discussion of it) have been provided over the years by Bruce Bartlett and John Dean.
Also, just to make clear--I know very little about the Constitution Party so I can't say much other than that based on a glance at their overall platform they don't seem like my particular cup of tea (other than their position on the 17th Amendment).
The Constitution Party is in no danger of becoming a second party. Au contraire!
It seems the Constitution, which is based on “We the People,” makes different claims of authority from Biblical Law, which is based on Divine Revelation.
I do not remember the delegates at the Constitutional Convention advancing that proposition. Is there something that the Constitutional Party knows that those delegates did not know?
The purpose of the Sentate was not to avoid popular heat so much as it was to provide a voice and representation for the states qua sovereign entities (as opposed to states qua clusters of voters). Since senators were appointed by state governments, they had to heed their electorate's preferences, which in turn gave state governments a powerful voice in federal affairs. That fact helps make things like the Treaty Clause, the Impeachment Clause, Advice and Consent, and even the Tenth Amendment more sensible - is it any wonder that the Missouri treaty case postdated the 17th Amendment's ratification? It is arguable that the New Deal become politically possible only because of the 17th Amendment - senators representing state governments may taken a substantially dimmer view of federal expansion and the explosion of the Commerce Clause than did their elected descendants. Moreover, one may even argue that the advent of elected senators contributed to wider swings in politics as one party or another rode tidal waves to power in DC.
Having said this, I am also fully aware that a substantial proportion of states had already begun electing their senators prior to the 17th Amendment's ratification, so muting the amendment's effect. However, one may counter that (a) the non-elected senators would have contributed to a non-party-based bloc promoting federalism, and (b) the absence of the amendment left open the door for state governments to alter their method of electing senators in the future, making it possible (but not likely) that the tide could have turned against elected senators later in the century.
Perhaps the most damning effect of the 17th Amendment has been to transform state governments from autonomous sovereign entities into slavish rent seekers willing to surrender the last of their independence for small dollops of federal largess.
Keeping good company, I see.
Likewise, Madison privately opposed the Bill of Rights (though he drafted most of it) and was only persuaded to publicly advocate for it by Thomas Jefferson and promises made to state conventions to secure ratification of the constitution.
Oh- and good luck with convincing people that they shouldn't have the right to vote for the Senate. Why not unrepeal prohibition while you're at it.
According to Richard Labunskiin in James Madison and the Struggle for the Bill of Rights, Patrick Henry attempted to redistrict Madison out of a job by placing him into an anti-Federalist district, forcing Madison to campaign for creating a Bill of Rights though he oppossed it.
There is an argument that states the Bill of Rights alters the meaning of the Constitution, transforming it into a document where only explicit powers exist to a document where implicit powers exist. It follows the change in Hamilton's thought where, in the Federalist papers he stated that the Federal Government would possess only the powers enumerated to the debate over the National Bank, where he stated the Constitution possesses implicit powers. I do not know if the Bill of Rights caused the change in Hamilton's thinking though.
I really enjoyed hearing you lecture on this subject once. It gave me a lot to think about, and I tend to agree that a lot of problems we have right now can be traced back to the 17th Amendment. Especially in the judiciary.
AppSocRes: Gerrymandering has something to do with the security of US House seats (and by "something", I mean "a lot").
James Madison wanted representation in the federal legislature based on population, not based on state. He thought (correctly) that the small states demands for equal representation were underhanded, especially since the interests of small and large states did not really diverge. The real division of interest was based on region and economy, not on the size of the state.
The Senate is nothing more than a dirty compromise to satisfy the likes of Rhode Island and company. It is not based on some "principle," although, after it is all said and done, people make it sound like this crass compromise was a product of principle.
Niether the Continental Congress nor the Legislature under the Articles of Confederation was bicameral, by the way.
> So does this mean they'll now have to call themselves the "Constitution (except the 17th Amendment) Party?"
I find it odd that you should have a mental problem with this. Considering only this one issue, they want to re-amend the constitution back to something closer to its original form.
I'd expect to hear pragmatic arguments as to why the constitution works better with the amendment than without it, but there is no rational basis whatsoever for implying that it's somehow invalid for the constitution to be re-amended. Indeed, any re-amendment would have at least the same amount of legitimacy as the original amendment.
------------------------
On another note: Ragerz, the LAST thing we need is a more efficient lawmaking process. Thank you.
Keep up the comments!
On the contrary, the Constitutional Convention started out with the Virginia delegates proposing the Virginia Plan, which called for a bicameral legislature, but with both houses featuring proportional representation of the states. So bicameralism *was* a matter of principle. The northerners countered with the New Jersey Plan, which called for a single house with equal representation of the states. The compromise was in accepting bicameralism, but having equal representation of the states in the upper house. "Inefficient" is a feature, not a bug.
There's also been some argument that the Seventeenth Amendment empowered the Supreme Court, here.
And yet none of us will accept any limits on our options.
No one will ever convince people that they shouldn't have a choice of senators, and certainly not by arguing that they'd be governed better that way. If it's between better result and choice, Americans will choose choice.
And since I always say that I want to "give my children more choices than I had" growing up, I'm not exempting myself from this rule.
But at least I have the pleasure that most (none?) of my fellow VCers have: I get to cast my vote for Dick Lugar every six years. (No irony implied: I am proud to be represented by one of the truly good men in DC) So democracy's not all bad.
Look, I believe state structure can influence politics. No doubt, strong courts plus the not-actually-representative-of-the-poplulation structure of the Senate has kept U.S. politics more conservative than they might otherwise have been. But the New Deal rules and laws, and yes, even many of the Great Society rules and laws were brought in by mass movements and are now massively popular and won't be changed. They are pretty much inevitable in any advanced industrial democracy (see, e.g., pretty much every other advanced industrial democracy). Not that debating the 17th Amendment isn't interesting -- it is. But for folks suggesting practical differences in laws, I would respectfully suggest a broader view of politics.
I think you're right. I'm a non-libertarian conservative, and I'm not likely to support a change when the practice has been around since my great-grandparents' generation.
So I can't speak for the libertarians on VC. But there does not appear to be any great groundswell of public support for repealing the 17th Amnd., or the New Deal institutions like Social Security, federal mediation of labor disputes, agricultural price supports, and so on.
We want smaller government, unless the program to be cut benefits us. In that case, it's a "right."
(a) its Governor, or the nominee (replaceable at will) thereof; and
(b) one Senator elected (and replaceable at will) by the Legislature thereof (in joint sitting, by simple majority),
... so you'd end up with something more like the German Bundesrat.
Giving Senators fixed terms (a whole six years) makes sense when they're elected by the People themselves, but not if they're meant to be, in effect, ambassadors sent from the State Capitol to the Federal. Ambassadors are recallable. Having said that, it also makes no sense if two Senators can (being recallable at will) both be elected by a single body, the Legislature, on the same day: better to have one each for the Leg and the Exec (or maybe one per House... not sure what Nebraska would do).
[PS: Before Eugene or someone else calls me on the Electoral College... I realise that 90% of the dissatisfaction with the EC comes from the "it allows malapportionment/ runner-up victory" factor, rather than from the "it interposes an intermediate person between the voter and the elected candidate. In the sense that, even if the EC had 538 members chosen by winner-take-all nationwide block vote - with each party putting up a mega-slate of 538 candidates and the slate with the most votes across the US having all 538 elected - there would still be the 10% of dissatisfaction with the occasional "rogue elector", although these would be much less likely to affect the result if the plurality party wins 100% of the EC rather than 50.1-80% as usually happens with 51 state-based districts. Conversely, if the 51 state-based districts remained but the "intermediate persons" were removed - the "automatic plan" or unit rule, supported by James Michener (Presidential Lottery) and others - the EC would be "direct" but still "malapportioned".)
"provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate."
(See also here.)
The same can be said of most bicameral systems where both chambers represent the same constituency, even more so on the state level where court mandates forbid even the remnant of the equal-representation-by-state-or-appropriate-subdivision as in the US Senate. Aside from the compromise at original ratification (a deal is a deal) what purpose is served when citizens in admitted states like Wyoming and California have such widely different representation in the US Senate? (Wouldn't it have behooved Congress to admit as states units of equal population?)
[a] differing numbers of members
[b] rotating terms for the upper house (half or one-third every general election)
[c] multi-member versus single-member electoral districts (with or without a proportional voting system).
Here in New South Wales, Australia, the State lower house consists of 90 or so single-member districts (within a 10% range) elected for four-year terms, while the upper house consists of 42 members, 21 elected every four years for an eight-year term, by statewide Single Transferable Vote. There is no departure from "one person, one vote, one value" in either House, but their partisan composition is quite different (the upper house is about one-third government party, one-third opposition party, and one-third minor-party and independents).