Tea Party supporters are widely calling for the repeal of the 17th Amendment to the US Constitution which provides for the direct election of US Senators by the residents of each state. Prior to the adoption of the 17th Amendment, state legislatures appointed their state's US Senators. Repealing the 17th Amendment would revert the US to the state legislature appointment process in place at the founding.
The Tea Party's primary rationale for repeal is that the old system of appointing Senators gave more power to the states and limited federal encroachment into states' rights. A secondary reason given by the Tea Party is that an appointment process would limit corruption by eliminating expensive Senate political campaigns and putting the choice in the hands of people who have already been elected.
I can agree that there are several problems with the current US election process- money certainly plays too great of a role, for example- but I fail to see how repealing the 17th Amendment improves matters in any material respect.
Neither of the two primary reasons Tea Party advocates give for repealing the 17th Amendment, namely protecting states rights and lessening election corruption, hold up under scrutiny.
With respect to the first, it requires that one accept a state legislature will more jealously protect a state's interests than the residents of a state. Such a proposition certainly isn't intuitive. A state's residents, after all, elect the state legislature. Are the residents voting for state legislators who care about states' rights, but also voting for US Senators who do not? If states' rights is of particular concern to a state's residents, presumably they will vote consistently for candidates who support states' rights, be they federal or state candidates for office. Furthermore, Americans on average tend to be far more familiar with their US Senator than they are with their state legislator (quick- can you think of the name of your state representative or state senator?). To the extent Americans vote for a non-states' rights Senator but a pro-states' rights state legislator, what evidence is there to suggest the state legislator vote is the better expression of the voter's intent on states' rights? If Americans typically don't know the name of their state legislator, it seems unlikely they know the views of their state legislator.
The second argument- that repeal would lessen campaign corruption- also fails. While money clearly plays a significant role in politics today, there is simply no reason whatsoever to believe that money's influence would be dampened if state legislatures were to elect US Senators. In fact, it could easily be amplified. Rather than spending millions to persuade a state's residents on the best candidate to support, millions would be spent to persuade a much smaller group of individuals- as little as a few hundred- on whom to support. In fact, corruption was one of the primary reasons the 17th Amendment was enacted in the first place.
While neither of the Tea Party's reasons for repeal have merit, even assuming they did, repeal would create several new problems.
First, the US Senate would likely be far less representative of voter beliefs than it is right now. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Democrats control both chambers in 27 state legislatures to 8 for the Republicans, with 14 states split (Nebraska is unicameral and non-partisan). Assuming party composition aligns perfectly with control of the state legislature, we would expect 68 Democrats and 32 Republicans (assuming Nebraska appoints 2 Republicans) in the Senate. That represents a gain for Democrats of 9 seats over today. Ironic, then, that the Tea Party favors repeal and the Democratic Party does not.
Second, putting Senatorial appointment in the hands of legislatures can easily lead to gridlock, and gridlock means no Senate representation for a state. This was also a significant problem which helped the push for direct election of Senators. Between 1891 and 1905, there were 45 deadlocks in state legislatures for the appointment of a US Senator. Each of those deadlocks led to a delay in appointing and seating a US Senator to represent that state's interests. In Delaware, for example, deadlock in 1899 was so severe that Delaware failed to appoint any US Senator for a 4-year period. While ties in voting are obviously far more frequent in low population samples, like a state legislature, than they are in high population samples, like a statewide election, "deadlock" shouldn't even be understood to mean just a "tie." Split chambers, which occur in 14 states today, effectively "tie" the vote at 1-1 with a state House and state Senate in disagreement. Furthermore, as Americans who follow the US Senate are keenly aware, even a minority party can tie up business through procedural tactics for a long period of time, if not an indefinite period of time.
While the Tea Party appears highly motivated to repeal the 17th Amendment to "return power to the states," it's highly ironic that one of the Tea Party's other big issues is an individual's right to bear arms under the 2nd Amendment. Until last month, the Supreme Court had never ruled that the 2nd Amendment applied to the states. It was originally drafted to apply to the federal government and not states, something which would have been even clearer if the Bill of Rights had been inserted in Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution (which lists acts Congress is prohibited from taking) as Madison originally proposed instead of at the end of the Constitution. A true "states' rights" interpretation of the 2nd Amendment would give states the power to restrict gun ownership at will. The Tea Party, however, trumpeted the Supreme Court's ruling that states were bound by the 2nd Amendment- a limitation on states' rights. If states' rights is the Tea Party's primary focus, shouldn't they have demanded the Senate only confirm judges who would be protective of states' rights (which would have resulted in a different Supreme Court ruling on the 2nd Amendment)?
The founders experimented with Senatorial election via state legislatures, but it has been improved upon since. While the current system isn't perfect, there is no reason to go back to a system with even more flaws.
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