Tea Party pushes 17th Amendment to the forefront

[ccharles000]

We bet you didn’t know that the 17th Amendment was such a hot-button issue this year.

The issue has already made its way into the races of at least two of the GOP's top 10 House recruits, and one of them has already stumbled over it.

The 17th Amendment provides for direct election of U.S. senators, and it turns out it isn’t too popular in the Tea Party movement. It’s a strange issue to be taking a position on, but when the base calls for something, it’s hard to say no.

And nobody knows that better than Steve Stivers.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/house-races/95705-tea-party-pushes-17th-amendment-to-the-forefront

[bluestateguy]

1. Those "populists" who want to take away ordinary citizens' votes for Senators

and give that power to other politicians in state capitals.

Got it.

[Ter]

2. Why did the Founders oppose direct election of Senators anyway?

Off the top of my head without looking it up, I believe it was changed around 1910-1913.

[GodlessBiker]

4. The framers only wanted 1/2 of 1/3 of the government to be directly elected by the People.

That's about 17%. Only the members of the House were so elected. Everyone else, from the President, Supreme Court, and Senate, were to get their jobs by the votes of others already in power.

They didn't trust the People very much.

[NYC Liberal]

5. The reason was to give the states a direct input into the federal government.

The House was the people's direct input into the government, the Senate was the state's direct input.

[CTLawGuy]

9. the Senate was supposed to be the body that represented the

states in their corporate capacity, whereas the House was the body of the people. So it was logical that each state got to pick its senators via the legislators.

[boppers]

10. Think about the state of affairs in the 17-1800's...

No radio. No television. No internet. Newspapers were sheets in the town square, or (in many cases) so slanted as to be mere propaganda.

Would you trust that group of people to be informed enough to consistently make good political decisions?

[Dr Morbius]

12. The idea was an emulation of the British system.

In Britain, it's the House of Commons versus the House of Lords. In America, by design, the House of Representatives was to represent the people and the Senate would likely represent the aristocracy, or the wealthy class (in effect they're the same thing). As Senators were selected by the state legislatures, one would assume these states would select "leading citizens".

Frankly, it wasn't a bad system.

[Ter]

28. With the way the Senate's been acting

Maybe it wasn't a bad idea after all.

[Hippo_Tron]

29. Yea it was such a good idea that the UK has subsequently made the House of Lords powerless

I don't see how having a body that is supposed to represent the interests of the elites is a good idea at all.

[bergie321]

3. It's Cheaper

For our corporate masters to bribe 1 Governor than 2 Senators.

[dsc]

6. among other things these people evidently don't know which party is controlling those legislatures

right now. We control both houses in 28 states (56 Senators) and split in 8 others. That means we would have 64 Senators.

[704wipes]

8. That figures

nt

[Retrograde]

7. Are you sure they're not confusing the 17th amendment with the 16th?

The TP people don't strike me as ones who'd read past the 2nd Amendment anyway.

[Arkana]

11. They want to take away direct election of Senators?

Whyever would the "populists" of the Tea Party want to do that? Could it be so they could throw out all the Democrats in red states?

No, no, it couldn't be that. :sarcasm:

[Jennicut]

13. There were vacancies during the later 1800's for two years at times because state legislatures could

not agree on a Senator to be elected. There were also instances of bribery in state legislatures to get certain people in office. It was essentially a mess and needed to change. Why do the teabaggers want to go back to another century?

[Oldtimeralso]

14. ???Jennicut???

"Why do the teabaggers want to go back to another century?"
Would that put them in the 17th or 16th?

[Jennicut]

16. Oh, sometime in the Middle Ages I would guess. The 12th Century or something like that.

Their thinking is so incredibly backward.

[davidpdx]

15. OMG, this is so ****ing stupid

Screw you Teaparty! It will never happen. Over my dead body.

Did you know this is why Lincoln never made it to the Senate? He could never garner the majority of the Illinois House to vote for him (twice if I recall). Now granted, in that case it worked out to our advantage because he was a great president.

This is just bull**** though.

[harry_pothead]

17. Right-wingers at the law school I went to were all over this too.

[Junkie Brewster]

18. Talk about the ultimte in big governement

Sweet, merciful Zeus, all the hand-wringing over big government involvment is such a load of horseshit.

[KingFlorez]

19. Anything to make their chances easier

They can't win votes, so they have to change the rules.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

20. Tea-Party rallying cry: "Take away my vote!!!"

[Blue_Tires]

21. lol..but I thought those pseudo-scholars LUURRRVED their constitutional freedoms!

So by my count, these are the amendments our freedom-loving patriots want to cross out:

Fourth (unless they are the ones subject to unreasonable search), Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-fourth....

[jonasmkl]

22. One gets the notion that teabaggers are to the constitution

what fundies are to religious scripture.
They take out random parts supporting their prejudices and proclaim them as self evident truth (violently if they deem it necessary), while basically rejecting anything else.
They don't care the least bit about the context, history or general spirit of their holy scripture and will go to enormous lengths to ignore those pesky things.
And they will never, ever admit the existence of internal inconsistencies of their favourite documents or the need for interpretation to make sense of this stuff.
:banghead:
But then again, why should the framers get a better deal then Joshia, Luke or Mohammed.

[Blue_Tires]

23. welcome to the site!

[jonasmkl]

24. Thanks for the welcome,

but actually I've been a long time lurker since the 2004 election.
This is a great place to hang out on the web and get a feel for US politics, :fistbump:

at least as long as no major flame wars are going down. :hide:

[Monk06]

25. What they want is for senators to be directly appointed by Governors most of whom are Repugs

That would mean a permanent GOP super majority in the Senate
and any senator that got all mavericky could be recalled by
the Governor who appointed him/her. Congress would be effectively
unable get legislation past the Senate that the GOP Governors didn't
like.

[olegramps]

26. This is not surprising when you view the states that did not ratifiy the amendment.

These are the states that failed to ratify:
The following state rejected the amendment:

Utah (February 26, 1913)
The following states have not ratified the amendment:

Alabama
Kentucky
Mississippi
Virginia
South Carolina
Georgia
Maryland
Delaware
Rhode Island
Florida

[backscatter712]

27. Repeal the 17th amendment? That's the most retarded thing I've ever heard from the teabaggers.

Speaking as a poli-sci major, who was playing around with Constitution 2.0 style hypothetical remakes, my idea would be to make the Senate represent the country at large rather than representing states, and have them elected by party with proportional representation, not by single-member district/winner-takes-all elections.

The House would still be elected by state, but proportional representation per state.

You've no-doubt guessed by now that I'd like to see a multi-party system...

[jberryhill]

30. That's interesting

The thing I don't like about parliamentary systems is that, once in a while, a decision needs to be made. Israel's been a 50-50 split for years on central issues, and we now have a deadlock situation in the UK.

The thing I do like is proportional representation that more closely represents the distribution of opinions.

I really like your idea there, since it doesn't make the entire structure dependent on a "ruling majority", and fits in better with our separate executive/legislative scheme.

[baldguy]

31. Next they'll be wanting a King.

Or at least a Dictator.