Repeal The 17th Amendment

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
The Seventeenth Amendment says U.S. senators must be elected by popular vote, instead of by state legislatures. Adopted in 1913 during the height of the Progressive Era, the amendment supersedes the provisions in the Constitution that required senators to be elected by state legislatures.

The idea that state legislatures would elect senators might seem odd nowadays, but creating some distance between the popular vote and the election of senators was crucial to the Founders’ grand design for the republic. The original idea, spelled out in The Federalist Papers, was that the people would be represented in the House of Representatives and the states would be represented in the Senate. Seats in the House were therefore apportioned according to population while every state, no matter how large its populace, got two seats in the Senate.

The larger concept behind this difference was that Congress needed to be both national and federal in order to reflect not just the sovereignty of the people but also the sovereignty of the states against the federal government. In Federalist No. 62, James Madison explained that Congress shouldn’t pass laws “without the concurrence, first, of a majority of the people, and then of a majority of the states.”

Besides tempering the passions of the electorate, empowering state legislatures to elect senators was meant to protect the states from the encroachments of the federal government. The tension was (and still is) between the dual sovereignty of the national government and the states. Writing in Federalist No. 39, Madison explains that while the House of Representatives is national because it “will derive its powers from the people of America,” the Senate “will derive its powers from the States, as political and coequal societies.” We’ve lost much of this today, but the jurisdiction of the federal government, wrote Madison, “extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects.”



To Avoid Debacles Like Roy Moore, Repeal The 17th Amendment
Voters in Alabama might send Roy Moore to the U.S. Senate. Maybe it’s time to consider allowing state legislatures to elect senators again.
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
Aside from the philosophical difference - what would be the point? Is there really that big a difference, now?
 

This_person

Well-Known Member
The Seventeenth Amendment says U.S. senators must be elected by popular vote, instead of by state legislatures. Adopted in 1913 during the height of the Progressive Era, the amendment supersedes the provisions in the Constitution that required senators to be elected by state legislatures.

The idea that state legislatures would elect senators might seem odd nowadays, but creating some distance between the popular vote and the election of senators was crucial to the Founders’ grand design for the republic. The original idea, spelled out in The Federalist Papers, was that the people would be represented in the House of Representatives and the states would be represented in the Senate. Seats in the House were therefore apportioned according to population while every state, no matter how large its populace, got two seats in the Senate.

The larger concept behind this difference was that Congress needed to be both national and federal in order to reflect not just the sovereignty of the people but also the sovereignty of the states against the federal government. In Federalist No. 62, James Madison explained that Congress shouldn’t pass laws “without the concurrence, first, of a majority of the people, and then of a majority of the states.”

Besides tempering the passions of the electorate, empowering state legislatures to elect senators was meant to protect the states from the encroachments of the federal government. The tension was (and still is) between the dual sovereignty of the national government and the states. Writing in Federalist No. 39, Madison explains that while the House of Representatives is national because it “will derive its powers from the people of America,” the Senate “will derive its powers from the States, as political and coequal societies.” We’ve lost much of this today, but the jurisdiction of the federal government, wrote Madison, “extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects.”



To Avoid Debacles Like Roy Moore, Repeal The 17th Amendment
Voters in Alabama might send Roy Moore to the U.S. Senate. Maybe it’s time to consider allowing state legislatures to elect senators again.

:patriot: :clap:
 

This_person

Well-Known Member
Aside from the philosophical difference - what would be the point? Is there really that big a difference, now?
Absolutely! If your constituents are state legislatures, you are not going to vote for unfounded mandates or federal overreach into your state’s authority.
 

transporter

Well-Known Member
Why not just go all the way down the rabbit hole you all think we should go. Let's just make Trump a King and disband Congress, the courts, and all the state legislatures. Trump could rule everything including the military and complete the dictatorship you all seem to think the US ought to be.
 

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
Why not just go all the way down the rabbit hole you all think we should go. Let's just make Trump a King and disband Congress, the courts, and all the state legislatures. Trump could rule everything including the military and complete the dictatorship you all seem to think the US ought to be.

Drug abuse?....traumatic brain injury?....what caused your current condition?
 

This_person

Well-Known Member
Why not just go all the way down the rabbit hole you all think we should go. Let's just make Trump a King and disband Congress, the courts, and all the state legislatures. Trump could rule everything including the military and complete the dictatorship you all seem to think the US ought to be.

Do you understand at all that repealing the 17th amendment would result in, most likely, the federal government becoming LESS powerful, not more?

Your post is diametrically opposed to the suggestion.
 

Merlin99

Visualize whirled peas
PREMO Member
Do you understand at all that repealing the 17th amendment would result in, most likely, the federal government becoming LESS powerful, not more?

Your post is diametrically opposed to the suggestion.
He/she/it isn't really a thinker, more like a Tourette's patient in what comes out if it's head.
 
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