It's Debatable: Who should elect U.S. senators?

[TexasTowelie]

This week, Arnold Loewy and Don May (aka Mr. Conservative) debate whether U.S. senators should be elected by popular vote or by state legislatures. Don writes an independent blog on lubbockonline.com and Arnold is the George R. Killam Jr. Professor of Law at Texas Tech University School of Law.

Don: The United States Constitution was written with the intent to define and maintain a small federal government with limited powers. Our federal government derives its powers from the American people and from the individual states.

The United States Constitution was written to protect people and the states from the potential tyrannical power of a federal government controlled by career politicians and career bureaucrats.

The states and the people were intended to retain all power not expressly given to the federal government by our Constitution. The 10th Amendment clearly defines this, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

More at http://lubbockonline.com/editorials/2013-09-08/its-debatablewho-should-elect-us-senators#comment-303109 .

[font color=green]The comments to this debate are equally entertaining.[/font]

[PoliticAverse]

1. The seventeenth amendment to the United States Constitution doesn't seem to be in danger...

of being repealed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

[Warpy]

2. Dr May is a typical Dixie demagogue

who longs for a return to the Articles of Confederation so that slave holding will once again be legal and Dixie will return to her full glory as a collection of independent feudal states mimicking the landed gentry of old England for a few rich landholders.

I understand he's getting some pretty fat agricultural welfare checks, so undoubtedly it would be a great deal for him.

Fortunately for the country, I doubt he'll gain much traction, not even in Lubbock.

[wandy]

3. This is a great idea. Think of the money it would save...........

Instead of having to go through the expense of elections and campaigning, multinational corporations could buy their senators directly.
You could even set up something like eBay. Place postings of of the appropriate people and then let corporations bid on them.
Better still, do it by closed auction. Then you wouldn't even have to know who they were.

Just in case

[cheapdate]

4. Horseshit. The US constitution was written to replace the weaker

articles of confederation and to create a strong national government. This debate was resolved 200 years ago. The federalists won.

[MicaelS]

5. A lot of Conservatives and Libertarians are in favor of this.

I see them advocating this all the time on another (private) political sub-forum I occasionally post on.

I am not. I think the 17th Amendment is a very good idea. Along with getting away with the Electoral College.

[struggle4progress]

6. The rightwing has been pushing this idea for years now. One need only look at

the current state legislatures to guess what effect is intended

[CTyankee]

7. I can't imagine a worse idea for the RW to peddle to the public...

people will get enraged by the idea that they could not vote for their U.S. Senators as they had in the past. It's insanity for the RW to even talk about it publicly...

[struggle4progress]

8. There seems to be an organized push for it: George Will has been peddling the idea for some time

... George Will's latest column in Washington Post .. jumps all over Russ Feingold for his proposed change to the 17th Amendment, ending gubernatorial appointments to Senate vacancies, and requiring special elections to fill the seats. Will thinks we'd be better off just getting rid of the 17th Amendment ...
.. George Will Thinks We Should Repeal The 17th Amendment
February 22, 2009 08:00 PM
By Nicole Belle

Just after the 2010 election, Justice Antonin Scalia decided to explain the parts of the Constitution he doesn't like. "The 17th Amendment has changed things enormously," Scalia said. "We changed that in a burst of progressivism in 1913, and you can trace the decline of so-called states' rights throughout the rest of the twentieth century." A sinister "burst of progressivism" is unconstitutional -- and so, Andrew Napolitano of Fox News insists, is the 17th Amendment itself, because it was added "at the height of the progressive era, when the government started telling us how to live" ...
Constitutional Myth #9: The Election of Senators 'Harms' the States
The 17th Amendment removed a firewall of privilege -- which is why the Right doesn't like it
GARRETT EPPSJUL
20 2011, 1:01 AM ET


... Georgia state Rep. Buzz Brockaway ..., a Republican, has introduced a bill in the state legislature to repeal the 17th Amendment ... Texas Gov. Rick Perry supports it; so do GOP Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Jeff Flake of Arizona. (Republican Indiana Sen. candidate Richard Mourdock endorsed the idea during his campaign last year, before, in an ironic twist, losing the popular vote.) ...
Georgia Legislators Propose Ending Direct Election of Senators—Why Not Just Get Rid of the Senate?
Fri Feb. 15, 2013 10:45 AM PST
—By Tim Murphy

PHOENIX — A freshman southern Arizona lawmaker is leading the effort to strip Arizona voters of the right to nominate U.S. senators. The proposal by Rep. David Stevens, R-Sierra Vista, would give that right to the elected legislators from each party. Only after that process is complete would voters get a say, in the general election, who they actually want to send to Washington. Stevens said his measure, if approved by Arizona voters in November, would be a partial return to the way things were before the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted ...
Bill would let legislators nominate U.S. senators
BY HOWARD FISCHER, CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES
February 08, 2010 9:45 PM

... I have had multiple questions about HB 415 ... that would put the nomination of US Senators in the hand of the Legislature like the Framers of the original Constitution ...
Should the Tenn. state legislature select the primary candidate for U.S. Senate?
April 2, 2013

Six Republicans Who Think Voters Should Not Be Able To Choose Their Own Senators
BY IAN MILLHISER ON AUGUST 13, 2012 AT 2:30 PM

[TexasTowelie]

10. The hilarious part is that conservatives like May

blame Woodrow Wilson for all of this when the amendment had already been ratified by state legislatures prior to Wilson taking office.

[Blue_Tires]

9. Are you kidding? They get orgasmic just thinking about it...

Deep down they know this is the best, most permanent way of circumventing a voting populace which even in red states, is getting less white by the day...

[CTyankee]

11. Oh, I know THEY like it. The public will hate it. I hope they DO continue to peddle it.

It will make them even MORE unpopular than they already are! Can you imagine what most people would say if they were told they COULDN'T vote for their Senators directly? I think there would be a RIOT.

[Blue_Tires]

13. I'm guessing the propsal will be gift-wrapped and framed in a much more spinnable,

media-friendly package.....Just like Citizens United, voter registration "reform", U.S. postal service pension "reform", etc. etc...

By the time the GOP puts the refined, polished idea out, there will even be hardcore DUers, liberal activist groups and Congressional Dems arguing in favor of it...Just like they did for Citizens United, voter registration "reform", U.S. postal service pension "reform", etc. etc...

[CTyankee]

14. I strongly disagree. There is NO WAY to gift wrap a proposal to take away the vote of a

citizen who has been regularly voting for his/her U.S. Senator. NO WAY! It is not going to happen!

I don't see how this is "spinnable" at ALL! UGH!

[MicaelS]

17. I can spin it real easy.

Devil's Advocate stuff follows:

You have to remember that Conservatives and Libertarians keep harping on the fact that we live in a "Constitutional Republic", not a Democracy. They really don't believe in the idea of us living in a "Democracy", because that means any of the "mob" who is over 18 can vote. The members of the "mob" doesn't have to be, in their view, educated, or logical or rational or sensible, they just have to be a member of the "mob". Thus Democracy is by the extension of their belief system, governance by the mob. So the fewer members of the "mob" who can vote, the better it is. Only the "educated or logical or rational or sensible" should be permitted to vote. And the more roadblocks put in the way of members of the "mob" voting the better it is.

[CTyankee]

18. Right! Tell voters they don't live in a democracy any more and they are stupid to believe that we

ever did. And then tell them "therefore, you will not be allowed to vote directly for your U.S. Senators, but instead your state lege will be deciding. "

Yep. Tell that to the voters. I'm sure they will acquiesce quietly and not even question it!

Right.

[yurbud]

12. this is another hail mary like voter suppression to keep the GOP on life support long enough to...

steal a little more before they expire.

Demographics are their cancer and there's no cure. It's just a matter of how long they can put off the inevitable.

[CTyankee]

15. My mother used to call this: "stealing the dimes off your dead grandmas eyes!"

She was a good ole gal from East Texas who called 'em liked she saw 'em.

[area51]

16. Typical republinazi.

They want to take power away from the people. They hold nothing but disdain for the public.