Navigation
Install the app
How to install the app on iOS
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
More options
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
CDZ Repeal The 17th
- Thread starter DarkFury
- Start date
paperview
Life is Good
Hey newsflash: Authors get paid."S" pays their bloggers. So all you are getting is what you find here except they pay members to write their way.Figures."S" is another PAID blog site. I pass.Read this ----> Conservatives 17th Amendment repeal effort Why their plan will backfire.Why do you want to take a persons rights and their states right?Lot easier (and a lot cheaper!) to buy off' a handful of state legislators than buying off thousands of swing voters in a direct election - which is where the meat of many elections lie/ (That's why Koch, Inc cons LOVE this idea!)
What you want to do is take away the power of the people in their direct vote for senator, and give it to a politician.
Good luck with convincing Americans a politician is going to make a better choice than them.
And then turn it over to a central government?
Now.
No reason to educate yourself on it, I suppose.
The author is a Law professor.
I think you're afraid to read it because it demolishes this bizarro right wing Koch fantasy to take away the senate vote from people and put it in the hands of a small subsection of legislators.
DarkFury
Platinum Member
- Thread starter
- Banned
- #23
Not an issue of afraid. It's a PAID social blog site. What the author does is moot. He WAS paid to do it.Hey newsflash: Authors get paid."S" pays their bloggers. So all you are getting is what you find here except they pay members to write their way.Figures."S" is another PAID blog site. I pass.Read this ----> Conservatives 17th Amendment repeal effort Why their plan will backfire.Why do you want to take a persons rights and their states right?
And then turn it over to a central government?
Now.
No reason to educate yourself on it, I suppose.
The author is a Law professor.
I think you're afraid to read it because it demolishes this bizarro right wing Koch fantasy to take away the senate vote from people and put it in the hands of a small subsection of legislators.
paperview
Life is Good
What a weird response. This is your argument? A writer is paid?
??
I guess you don't read much media then -- as most all you read in mainstreaam and otherwise was brought to you by people who ...
get paid to write.
??
I guess you don't read much media then -- as most all you read in mainstreaam and otherwise was brought to you by people who ...
get paid to write.
paperview
Life is Good
For those interested: Conservatives 17th Amendment repeal effort Why their plan will backfire.
<snip>
"But the real paradox, if you study the amendment’s history and effect, is that conservatives—all conservatives, moderate or Tea Party—should love the 17th Amendment. Why? Because without it, state legislative elections would turn entirely on the identity of U.S. Senate candidates. State legislatures, in effect, would become mini-electoral colleges for choosing senators, except with the residual power to make state law. To love states and federalism, as conservatives claim to, you need to believe that democracy works at the state level, that voters punish badly performing legislators and reward good ones. Repealing the 17th Amendment would ruin state democracy.
The main repeal argument—laid out in its best form by my colleague Todd Zywicki and now-Judge Jay Bybee—is that the power of senatorial selection once gave state governments crucial influence over Washington. Once that power was removed by the 17th Amendment, the argument goes, state governments lost their pull in Washington, leading to a bigger, greedier, and more powerful federal government at the expense of states’ rights and interests.
But this simply ignores how state elections work. How do we know repealing the 17th Amendment would turn state legislative elections into proxies for national debates? Because we’ve seen it before. Consider the most famous Senate race in history, when Abraham Lincoln squared off against Stephen Douglas on the question of the expansion of slavery in 1858. We tend to forget, all these years later, that neither man was actually on the ballot. Instead, Illinois voters were choosing Republican or Democratic state legislators, who would, in turn, pick either Lincoln or Douglas. Because the state Legislature had the power to choose the next senator, and because slavery was the burning national question, there was precious little attention for, say, road building or local tax policy or whatever else the Illinois state Legislature had been up to. The only thing that mattered was a national question and the candidates debating it. In effect, in that election, Illinois chose its state lawmakers without paying much attention to the performance of state officials.
This was not an isolated incident. Prior to the enactment of the 17th Amendment, state legislative campaigns were regularly taken over by the question of senatorial appointment. The press even criticized state officials for daring to mention the things they planned to do in state office. They understood what the real stakes were. This, for instance, is from an editorial in the Chicago Tribune in 1894:
Do these Democratic State Senators think the voters can be called off from the national issues involved in the … indirect election of a Senator to consider only local questions. That they will drop the Wilson bill and devote their attention to the establishment of a Police Board in Chicago? …The people are not such fools.
Before the 17th amendment was enacted, for voters to make a decision on a national issue—say to punish a senator for supporting or opposing a war or for federal tax policy—they had to also vote for the senator’s co-partisans in the state legislature. The actual performance of state legislators was beside the point.
This was not lost on the period’s state officials. Prior to the passage of the amendment state legislatures came up with all sorts of ways to create what would have been all but direct elections, in the hopes of getting back to their actual job of running the states, as they were tasked with doing. The most famous of these, the “Oregon Plan,” featured “advisory” elections for senator that, for all intents and purposes, served as general elections that state legislators followed regardless of party. State legislatures also passed resolutions calling for a constitutional amendment, and even for a constitutional convention, in order to move to a system of direct elections. And one of the key arguments was that direct elections for senator would free up voters to focus on the performance of state officials in state elections.
As then-Sen. Joseph Mitchell (for you lawyer-dorks, a key figure in Pennoyer v. Neff!) argued when the 17th Amendment was debated in the US Senate:
Another vital objection to the choosing of Senators by the legislatures ... is found in the fact that in the selection of candidates for the legislatures whose business it is to choose a Senator, every consideration is lost sight of except as to how the candidates, if elected, will vote on the question of senatorship. This becomes the vital issue in all such campaigns, while the question as to the candidate’s qualifications or fitness for the business of general legislation, or as to the views he entertains upon the great subjects of material interest to the State … is wholly ignored.
It is pretty clear that “second-order” elections, the political science term for the phenomenon wherein you elect officials at one level based on your preferences at another, are bad for the values conservatives think they are vindicating in supporting repeal of the 17th Amendment. There are a number of reasons that conservatives (or anyone for that matter) might think it is a good idea for states to have power: Allowing states rather the federal government to make decisions may promote localized and more representative decisions, may allow for different values to be expressed in a big country without conflict, can create choices which people and businesses can “sort” among by moving, and can create laboratories in which policy innovation and testing can happen. But these arguments only work if state democracy is working. If state voters pay no attention to state issues when voting in state elections, we will accrue few of the benefits of federalism.
If conservatives want to improve “our federalism,” repealing the 17th Amendment is an absolutely awful way to do it. Instead committed federalists should be looking to erect more—not fewer—boundaries between national and state politics. They should be fighting to banish discussions of federal interests from state elections altogether. So, for example, rather than calling for repeal of the 17th Amendment, pro-federalist groups should seek to segment state elections, using tools like ballot notations that make clear the differences between state and federal parties. Even despite the 17th Amendment, national issues—including things state legislatures have no control over, from the Iraq war to monetary policy—now play a huge role in state elections, meaning that state officials are less accountable on state issues than they should be. The problem with the 17th Amendment is not that it removed too much power from states; it’s that it didn’t do enough to free state elections from the overweening influence of national politics on state contests. For those who care about federalism, and really, for anyone who cares about the quality of our democracy, the real challenge is making state elections work. Repealing the 17th Amendment will do just the opposite.
David Schleicher is an associate professor at the George Mason University School of Law and is currently serving as a visiting professor at Yale Law School.
<snip>
"But the real paradox, if you study the amendment’s history and effect, is that conservatives—all conservatives, moderate or Tea Party—should love the 17th Amendment. Why? Because without it, state legislative elections would turn entirely on the identity of U.S. Senate candidates. State legislatures, in effect, would become mini-electoral colleges for choosing senators, except with the residual power to make state law. To love states and federalism, as conservatives claim to, you need to believe that democracy works at the state level, that voters punish badly performing legislators and reward good ones. Repealing the 17th Amendment would ruin state democracy.
The main repeal argument—laid out in its best form by my colleague Todd Zywicki and now-Judge Jay Bybee—is that the power of senatorial selection once gave state governments crucial influence over Washington. Once that power was removed by the 17th Amendment, the argument goes, state governments lost their pull in Washington, leading to a bigger, greedier, and more powerful federal government at the expense of states’ rights and interests.
But this simply ignores how state elections work. How do we know repealing the 17th Amendment would turn state legislative elections into proxies for national debates? Because we’ve seen it before. Consider the most famous Senate race in history, when Abraham Lincoln squared off against Stephen Douglas on the question of the expansion of slavery in 1858. We tend to forget, all these years later, that neither man was actually on the ballot. Instead, Illinois voters were choosing Republican or Democratic state legislators, who would, in turn, pick either Lincoln or Douglas. Because the state Legislature had the power to choose the next senator, and because slavery was the burning national question, there was precious little attention for, say, road building or local tax policy or whatever else the Illinois state Legislature had been up to. The only thing that mattered was a national question and the candidates debating it. In effect, in that election, Illinois chose its state lawmakers without paying much attention to the performance of state officials.
This was not an isolated incident. Prior to the enactment of the 17th Amendment, state legislative campaigns were regularly taken over by the question of senatorial appointment. The press even criticized state officials for daring to mention the things they planned to do in state office. They understood what the real stakes were. This, for instance, is from an editorial in the Chicago Tribune in 1894:
Do these Democratic State Senators think the voters can be called off from the national issues involved in the … indirect election of a Senator to consider only local questions. That they will drop the Wilson bill and devote their attention to the establishment of a Police Board in Chicago? …The people are not such fools.
Before the 17th amendment was enacted, for voters to make a decision on a national issue—say to punish a senator for supporting or opposing a war or for federal tax policy—they had to also vote for the senator’s co-partisans in the state legislature. The actual performance of state legislators was beside the point.
This was not lost on the period’s state officials. Prior to the passage of the amendment state legislatures came up with all sorts of ways to create what would have been all but direct elections, in the hopes of getting back to their actual job of running the states, as they were tasked with doing. The most famous of these, the “Oregon Plan,” featured “advisory” elections for senator that, for all intents and purposes, served as general elections that state legislators followed regardless of party. State legislatures also passed resolutions calling for a constitutional amendment, and even for a constitutional convention, in order to move to a system of direct elections. And one of the key arguments was that direct elections for senator would free up voters to focus on the performance of state officials in state elections.
As then-Sen. Joseph Mitchell (for you lawyer-dorks, a key figure in Pennoyer v. Neff!) argued when the 17th Amendment was debated in the US Senate:
Another vital objection to the choosing of Senators by the legislatures ... is found in the fact that in the selection of candidates for the legislatures whose business it is to choose a Senator, every consideration is lost sight of except as to how the candidates, if elected, will vote on the question of senatorship. This becomes the vital issue in all such campaigns, while the question as to the candidate’s qualifications or fitness for the business of general legislation, or as to the views he entertains upon the great subjects of material interest to the State … is wholly ignored.
It is pretty clear that “second-order” elections, the political science term for the phenomenon wherein you elect officials at one level based on your preferences at another, are bad for the values conservatives think they are vindicating in supporting repeal of the 17th Amendment. There are a number of reasons that conservatives (or anyone for that matter) might think it is a good idea for states to have power: Allowing states rather the federal government to make decisions may promote localized and more representative decisions, may allow for different values to be expressed in a big country without conflict, can create choices which people and businesses can “sort” among by moving, and can create laboratories in which policy innovation and testing can happen. But these arguments only work if state democracy is working. If state voters pay no attention to state issues when voting in state elections, we will accrue few of the benefits of federalism.
If conservatives want to improve “our federalism,” repealing the 17th Amendment is an absolutely awful way to do it. Instead committed federalists should be looking to erect more—not fewer—boundaries between national and state politics. They should be fighting to banish discussions of federal interests from state elections altogether. So, for example, rather than calling for repeal of the 17th Amendment, pro-federalist groups should seek to segment state elections, using tools like ballot notations that make clear the differences between state and federal parties. Even despite the 17th Amendment, national issues—including things state legislatures have no control over, from the Iraq war to monetary policy—now play a huge role in state elections, meaning that state officials are less accountable on state issues than they should be. The problem with the 17th Amendment is not that it removed too much power from states; it’s that it didn’t do enough to free state elections from the overweening influence of national politics on state contests. For those who care about federalism, and really, for anyone who cares about the quality of our democracy, the real challenge is making state elections work. Repealing the 17th Amendment will do just the opposite.
David Schleicher is an associate professor at the George Mason University School of Law and is currently serving as a visiting professor at Yale Law School.
Corruption flows from the top down.Return the Senate to the control of the state legislatures, and the ever increasing corruption of the parties and business will be phenomenal.
REFORM flows from the bottom up.
Let's say for sake of argument that that is true. Isn't a popular election of senators more bottom up than election by legislators?
DarkFury
Platinum Member
- Thread starter
- Banned
- #27
No because citizens greatest control is their states house. Once a Senator is elected now he/she goes on sale international.Corruption flows from the top down.Return the Senate to the control of the state legislatures, and the ever increasing corruption of the parties and business will be phenomenal.
REFORM flows from the bottom up.
Let's say for sake of argument that that is true. Isn't a popular election of senators more bottom up than election by legislators?
- Aug 10, 2009
- 168,037
- 16,519
- 2,165
- Banned
- #28
That makes little sense.
If the people of the state elect their senator, he reflects the will of the people.
That is bottom up.
If the people of the state elect their senator, he reflects the will of the people.
That is bottom up.
Sun Devil 92
Diamond Member
- Apr 2, 2015
- 32,078
- 11,094
- 1,410
- Banned
- #29
Read this ----> Conservatives 17th Amendment repeal effort Why their plan will backfire.Why do you want to take a persons rights and their states right?Lot easier (and a lot cheaper!) to buy off' a handful of state legislators than buying off thousands of swing voters in a direct election - which is where the meat of many elections lie/ (That's why Koch, Inc cons LOVE this idea!)
What you want to do is take away the power of the people in their direct vote for senator, and give it to a politician.
Good luck with convincing Americans a politician is going to make a better choice than them.
And then turn it over to a central government?
Now.
This argument is meaningless.
It's all predictions that are no better than what the right is doing in their efforts to repeal it.
Selecting a senator is not why you would vote for a state legislator.
hortysir
In Memorial of 47
And why not?"Something was stolen some time back by "progressive" democrats"
Another ridiculous lie from the right, inconsistent with 'clean debate.'
And whatever the merits of repealing the 17th Amendment in the context of a republican form of government and original intent, such a proposal is made by the partisan right in bad faith.
Republicans know that they'll likely continue to control the majority of state houses for the foreseeable future, and with such control of a majority of state legislatures, so too will they retain control of the Senate.
Florida has a republican legislature and a republican governor.
Does it make sense to have a republican AND democratic senator?
Sun Devil 92
Diamond Member
- Apr 2, 2015
- 32,078
- 11,094
- 1,410
- Banned
- #31
No because citizens greatest control is their states house. Once a Senator is elected now he/she goes on sale international.Corruption flows from the top down.Return the Senate to the control of the state legislatures, and the ever increasing corruption of the parties and business will be phenomenal.
REFORM flows from the bottom up.
Let's say for sake of argument that that is true. Isn't a popular election of senators more bottom up than election by legislators?
The senate was put in place as part of the system that was keep the concept of states powers consistent with what was promised by those selling the new constitution.
Essentially, the senate was put there to keep an eye on the house...to ensure the house was not passing legislation (like Obamacare the right would claim) that was not consistent with maximum autonomy at the state level.
Whether or not it would work that way, I still don't see how people can argue the need for a homogeneous U.S.A.
States have different demographics, geographies and economies. Why do they all have to be governed the same ?
Will repeal of the 17th do that ? I really don't know.
Do I believe that the power of our current senators is to much....I do.
paperview
Life is Good
That makes little sense.
If the people of the state elect their senator, he reflects the will of the people.
That is bottom up.
They can't even articulate it well why it is better to have the politicians in the state do the picking, rather than THE PEOPLE.
"'They represent the state" argument is nebulous. To a human, to you, me, what THE STATE represents is HUMANS. YOU ---> Koch, Inc Cons want to take away the Vote from Americans.
Those HUMANS -- the people - decided over a century ago the system wasn't working, and the Founders -- who's oligarchy, you may recall did not give two *****s about anyone besides propertied white men -- set up a system to be Amended -- a very difficult system whereby we see in all of over 200 years not even 20 have passed muster with the super majority since original ratification.
Guess what? Taking away the right of citizens to vote for their Senator is never going to happen, because people know what a pile of shit it is the Koch cons are pushing.
hortysir
In Memorial of 47
The people already voted to have their state legislature speak for them, as the COTUS was originally designedThat makes little sense.
If the people of the state elect their senator, he reflects the will of the people.
That is bottom up.
- Aug 10, 2009
- 168,037
- 16,519
- 2,165
- Banned
- #34
Sure. It's the will of the people.And why not?"Something was stolen some time back by "progressive" democrats"
Another ridiculous lie from the right, inconsistent with 'clean debate.'
And whatever the merits of repealing the 17th Amendment in the context of a republican form of government and original intent, such a proposal is made by the partisan right in bad faith.
Republicans know that they'll likely continue to control the majority of state houses for the foreseeable future, and with such control of a majority of state legislatures, so too will they retain control of the Senate.
Florida has a republican legislature and a republican governor.
Does it make sense to have a republican AND democratic senator?
Sun Devil 92
Diamond Member
- Apr 2, 2015
- 32,078
- 11,094
- 1,410
- Banned
- #35
And why not?"Something was stolen some time back by "progressive" democrats"
Another ridiculous lie from the right, inconsistent with 'clean debate.'
And whatever the merits of repealing the 17th Amendment in the context of a republican form of government and original intent, such a proposal is made by the partisan right in bad faith.
Republicans know that they'll likely continue to control the majority of state houses for the foreseeable future, and with such control of a majority of state legislatures, so too will they retain control of the Senate.
Florida has a republican legislature and a republican governor.
Does it make sense to have a republican AND democratic senator?
There are not just two choices. There is a whole continuum in between. How can the same people vote for a democrat and republican ? Don't know.
If, in the eyes of conservatives, the senate were doing it's job...it would matter a whole lot less.
DarkFury
Platinum Member
- Thread starter
- Banned
- #36
Read the act BEFORE it was repealed/stolen.That makes little sense.
If the people of the state elect their senator, he reflects the will of the people.
That is bottom up.
1, You had personal rights which YOU were expected to defend.
2, You had state rights which were to defend YOU.
- Aug 10, 2009
- 168,037
- 16,519
- 2,165
- Banned
- #37
Until the people said, "huh, that's fucked up, we will elect them".The people already voted to have their state legislature speak for them, as the COTUS was originally designedThat makes little sense.
If the people of the state elect their senator, he reflects the will of the people.
That is bottom up.
Sun Devil 92
Diamond Member
- Apr 2, 2015
- 32,078
- 11,094
- 1,410
- Banned
- #38
Sure. It's the will of the people.And why not?"Something was stolen some time back by "progressive" democrats"
Another ridiculous lie from the right, inconsistent with 'clean debate.'
And whatever the merits of repealing the 17th Amendment in the context of a republican form of government and original intent, such a proposal is made by the partisan right in bad faith.
Republicans know that they'll likely continue to control the majority of state houses for the foreseeable future, and with such control of a majority of state legislatures, so too will they retain control of the Senate.
Florida has a republican legislature and a republican governor.
Does it make sense to have a republican AND democratic senator?
How can someone complain about special interests (or do you think they don't get involved in senatorial elections ?) and then say this.
Which is it ? You can't have it both ways.
- Aug 10, 2009
- 168,037
- 16,519
- 2,165
- Banned
- #39
Deflection does not change that you are wrong: the 17th is popular and from the bottom up. It reflects the people.Read the act BEFORE it was repealed/stolen.That makes little sense.
If the people of the state elect their senator, he reflects the will of the people.
That is bottom up.
1, You had personal rights which YOU were expected to defend.
2, You had state rights which were to defend YOU.
hortysir
In Memorial of 47
No. It's the will of Miami/Dade and Hillsborough/Pinellas residentsSure. It's the will of the people.And why not?"Something was stolen some time back by "progressive" democrats"
Another ridiculous lie from the right, inconsistent with 'clean debate.'
And whatever the merits of repealing the 17th Amendment in the context of a republican form of government and original intent, such a proposal is made by the partisan right in bad faith.
Republicans know that they'll likely continue to control the majority of state houses for the foreseeable future, and with such control of a majority of state legislatures, so too will they retain control of the Senate.
Florida has a republican legislature and a republican governor.
Does it make sense to have a republican AND democratic senator?
Similar threads
- Replies
- 2
- Views
- 107
- Replies
- 15
- Views
- 279
- Replies
- 4
- Views
- 118
- Replies
- 0
- Views
- 75
Latest Discussions
- Replies
- 13
- Views
- 34
- Replies
- 6
- Views
- 23
- Replies
- 25
- Views
- 82
Forum List
-
-
-
-
-
Political Satire 8083
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
ObamaCare 781
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Member Usernotes 471
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-