The seventeenth amendment is the one that allowed citizens to vote directly for senators. Our founding fathers must have figured this was not a good idea or it would have been in the original constitution. What did they know that early twentieth century Americans didn't? More after the flip.
As I ponder the disappointment today of our senators, I have to wonder whether the idea that the general public could elect senators with gravitas was a pipedream. For the first 100 years or so, the legislatures of each state picked the senators from their states. Of course, this was not very democratic. In theory, the seventeenth amendment should have been an improvement.
But think about who legislatures would have chosen versus who we get to vote for today. They undoubtedly picked someone who rose through the ranks of the state legislature and who for the most part would have been statesmen and hopefully good legislators. They would have known something about the character of the men they were voting for. And I suspect, these senators would not have been nearly as behoden to political lobbyists and the wealthy for their selection. They might have been beholden to their legislators, but not to the lobbyists.
Today when it takes a senator 10 million dollars to run a successful campaign and the huge donations this requires, and political favors one is expected to return, I have my doubts as to whether the people we get to elect are nearly as competent and have anywhere near the integrity of those of the past.
When I see a day like today, and the cave in on principle by so many of our elected officials, forgive me if I pine for the days when our legislature picked our senators.