Repeal the 17th Amendment!

SNAP!!!! Thank you for falling into this. How do you know that the 17th is not serving the people today, the descendants of We the People who passed it, and how do you know the state legislatures will return the right type of senators if the 17th is repealed? "Do you have a magic crystal ball or something."

Muaddib, you never made a sensible case that (1) the 17th should never have been ratified, and (2) that it should be abolished now. You just keep stating that you simply know.

Simple! Where is the budget bill? The budget is the most basic function of the legislature. Read Article I of the Constitution.

To balance the budget, Congress is going to have to cut some entitlements that should never have been enacted in the first place. If they cut them, Senators running for reelection are not going to be popular with the voters. Senators appointed by the states wouldn't have to worry about that. It's in the interests of the states for the Feds to get their fiscal houses in order.

Your argument falls on popularity and elections at the state level, which are far more easily rigged.

A massive internet and social media campaign to get a budget bill out of our senators, in lieu of their being elected, would be far more likely.
 
SNAP!!!! Thank you for falling into this. How do you know that the 17th is not serving the people today, the descendants of We the People who passed it, and how do you know the state legislatures will return the right type of senators if the 17th is repealed? "Do you have a magic crystal ball or something."

Muaddib, you never made a sensible case that (1) the 17th should never have been ratified, and (2) that it should be abolished now. You just keep stating that you simply know.

Simple! Where is the budget bill? The budget is the most basic function of the legislature. Read Article I of the Constitution.

To balance the budget, Congress is going to have to cut some entitlements that should never have been enacted in the first place. If they cut them, Senators running for reelection are not going to be popular with the voters. Senators appointed by the states wouldn't have to worry about that. It's in the interests of the states for the Feds to get their fiscal houses in order.

Your argument falls on popularity and elections at the state level, which are far more easily rigged.

A massive internet and social media campaign to get a budget bill out of our senators, in lieu of their being elected, would be far more likely.

It doesn't fall at all. Senators pre-1910 were statesmen. Why? They were well known to the people and to the legislators that appointed them.

A media campaign is underway and has not proven effective. You can't swing a dead cat without hearing or reading on an almost daily basis how the Senate has not passed a budget in over a thousand days. The Senate is paralyzed by the politics introduced into the process by the 17th Amendment. That's why the Founders set it up the way they did.
 
No, they were not statesmen. You have not invalidated the reasons We the People chose to amend the Constitution. MuadDib the People has one vote, no more.
 
No, they were not statesmen. You have not invalidated the reasons We the People chose to amend the Constitution. MuadDib the People has one vote, no more.

They amended the Constitution because they were bamboozled by statist demagogues.
 
No, they were not statesmen. You have not invalidated the reasons We the People chose to amend the Constitution. MuadDib the People has one vote, no more.

I've more than made my case. You'd have to be Progressive pond scum to think the 17th has been good for our government.

Here is a comment on its impact:

Judge Bybee has argued that the amendment led to the gradual "slide into ignominy" of state legislatures, with the lack of a state-based check on Congress allowing the federal government to supersede states.[2] This was partially fueled by the Senators; he wrote in the Northwestern University Law Review:

Politics, like nature, abhorred a vacuum, so senators felt the pressure to do something, namely enact laws. Once senators were no longer accountable to and constrained by state legislatures, the maximizing function for senators was unrestrained; senators almost always found in their own interest to procure federal legislation, even to the detriment of state control of traditional state functions.[21]

Rossum, concurring, gives the New Deal legislation as an early example of the expansion of federal regulation.[44] Ure agrees, saying that not only is each Senator now free to ignore his state's needs, Senators "have incentive to use their advice-and-consent powers to install Supreme Court justices who are inclined to increase federal power at the expense of state sovereignty."[45] Donald J. Kochan, for an article in the Albany Law Review, analyzed the effect of the Seventeenth Amendment on Supreme Court decisions over the constitutionality of state legislation. He found a "statistically significant difference" in the number of cases holding state legislation unconstitutional before and after the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment, with the number of holdings of unconstitutionality increasing sixfold.[46]

As well as a decline in the influence of the states, Ure also argues that the Seventeenth Amendment led to the rise of special interest groups to fill the void; with citizens replacing state legislators as the Senate's electorate, with citizens being less able to monitor the actions of their Senators, the Senate became more susceptible to pressure from interest groups, who in turn were more influential due to the centralization of power in the federal government; an interest group no longer needed to lobby many state legislatures, and could instead focus its efforts on the federal government.[47] Zywicki agrees with this, but attributes the rise in the strength of interest groups partially to the development of the U.S. economy. The 20th century shifted economic growth to an interstate level, and with the rise of the financial power of a national rather than state-based market, the gains available to those who could tap into the market through the political process increased.[48]

A comparison of the likely electoral results for the Senate if the Seventeenth Amendment had not been adopted showed that it had "an immediate and dramatic impact on the political composition of the U.S. Senate". Bybee believes that if the Seventeenth Amendment had not been adopted, the 1916 Senate elections, which saw the Democrats retain control of the Senate, would have actually seen the Republicans gain political control with 53 seats.[49] Similarly, he believes the Republican Revolution of 1994 would not have happened; instead, the Democrats would have controlled 70 seats in the Senate to the Republicans' 30.
 
No, they were not statesmen. You have not invalidated the reasons We the People chose to amend the Constitution. MuadDib the People has one vote, no more.

I've more than made my case. You'd have to be Progressive pond scum to think the 17th has been good for our government.


...
[/QUOTE]

the US Constitution is written for The People, not any particular government.


:redface:

how embarraskink!!!!
 
No, they were not statesmen. You have not invalidated the reasons We the People chose to amend the Constitution. MuadDib the People has one vote, no more.

I've more than made my case. You'd have to be Progressive pond scum to think the 17th has been good for our government.


...

the US Constitution is written for The People, not any particular government.


:redface:

how embarraskink!!!![/QUOTE]

It was written to create the framework of the Federal government and define its relationship to the people.

If we'd get back to it, you'd have a lot less to bitch and whine about.
 
I've more than made my case. You'd have to be Progressive pond scum to think the 17th has been good for our government.


...
the US Constitution is written for The People, not any particular government.


:redface:

how embarraskink!!!!

It was written to create the framework of the Federal government and define its relationship to the people.

If we'd get back to it, you'd have a lot less to bitch and whine about.

the only one bitching and whining is you, asshat.

we're mocking and laughing

try to keep up, mud dauber
 
It was written to create the framework of the Federal government and define its relationship to the people.

If we'd get back to it, you'd have a lot less to bitch and whine about.

the only one bitching and whining is you, asshat.

we're mocking and laughing

try to keep up, mud dauber

If anyone is showing how little they know about the functioning of republican givernment, it's you, dul.
 
What makes you think that the current configuration of Congress is working better than the original form?
 

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