Talk:Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

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: I don't believe that we shouldn't repeal that dumb17th amendment. There's not a reason the STATES were given the power to elect their senators. It's so that the ideas of the states can be represented, and I believe that people involved in state government are usually more in touch with what is happening in politics, especially with the state's matters. While we learn on our news about the big, national events, the state politicians make decisions on their local levels. Senators were originally designed to fight for the state's views, and so were appointed by the states into their positions. With the 17th amendment, you get senators from Arizona who fight for the views of the some of the people of their state, but not the actual STATE. —This unsigned comment was added by 68.2.78.180 (talk • contribs) 06:19, 19 November 2004 (UTC).

There are bright people on both sides of the argument, but I favor the status quo for several reasons. One is that there is little guarantee that the problems of the late 19th century with excessive partisanship and corruption wouldn't recur today. It's not mentioned in the article (at least, not yet), but Tennessee suffered such a deadlock as far back as the early 1840's, where the Democrats in the state legislature decided that it would be better to have no representation at all than to have Whig senators in Washington, and for about two years the Tennessee Senate seats were vacant. There are both Democrats and Republicans today who are so partisan that they would probably do likewise, given the opportunity to do so. Look at the U.S. Senate today itself, and see how often that the Republicans have blocked Democratic judicial nominees from even ever coming to a vote, and likewise now the Democrats do this to the Republicans. I could see states again going without Senate representation for years on end. Also, if there was lots of outside big business money and corruption in the late 19th century, are we to assume that somehow there would be less of that today? A third reason would be expressed by Southern Republicans, who know that they tend to do far better in the South at the nationwide and statewide level than they generally do at the local level. Republicans began being competitive for the Senate seats in the South as far back as the 1960s. It is unlikely that there would be any, or more than a handful, of Republican senators from the South even now if not for the 17th Amendment; I'm not saying this to say that Republicans are always right and Democrats always wrong, far from it, but that choice is better than no choice and a two-party system than a one-party system, which is what the South had for 100 years after the Civil War. Another reason could even be added. Back in the 19th century it was commonplace for Senators to resign, with the assumption that once they wanted back in, their old friends in the legislature could easily arrange it for them. (Andrew Jackson is a good/bad example of this.) All of this turnover engendered chaos and a lack of continuity of representation, which can arguably be a good thing at the macro level (term limits) but is generally not at the micro level. It is good for the composition of a legislative body to be stable through an entire "sitting" to the maximuwhat ever!!!!!!!!!

♥♥♥33♥♥m extent practicable due to committee assignments, staffing, and similar considerations. There's no guarantee that this idea of popping in and out of the Senate as it was convenient to do so would appear again, but there is also no guarantee that it wouldn't. Rlquall 15:23, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I believe that the 17th amendment was I much needed addition to the Constitution. Whoever wrote that 1st paragraph was hoping this is a perfect world. Sorry to burst your bubble, but its not. There are way too many people who could take advantage of state governments electing our senators and it would use it to steal power. In my opinion, our founding fathers worked too hard to allow deception to have a vote in this country. Also, the author of paragraph 1 accused the people of the state would vote for senators that would protect the views of some people of their state but not the whole state. Question, if the senators only help some of the people, why would the majority of the state vote for them? Seems to me that this amendment has some checks and balances of it’s own. —This unsigned comment was added by 69.39.98.252 (talk • contribs) 20:00, 14 October 2005 (UTC).

First off, I believe that the rigorous application of "one man, one vote" for state legislative elections (not to mention legislative term limits in many states) in the past half-century sufficiently shakes up the dynamic enough that looking back at the time before the ratification of the amendment may not be helpful. As much as money may influence state elections today, the political machines of the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries simply do not exist, if for no other reason than the Progressive Movement that gave us the amendment to begin with.

Beyond that, I realize I'm probably elitist for saying this, but consider that the state legislators don't exist in a vacuum; somebody voted for them, and it seems to me that if a people are going to elect a petty, bickering state legislature, then it's reasonable to believe that they would also elect petty, bickering federal senators (like the ones you alluded to when you brought up the modern political climate). While Tennessee may or may not have suffered from not having its share of senators in Washington, considering who the people of Tennessee did elect (i. e. the state legislators responsible for the mess), perhaps it was better for the rest of the union that they were unable to send two of their own to Washington. I like milk and cookies...how about you?

In other words, maybe those two empty seats were literally the best possible representation of the state. Guppy313 07:33, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

On a more pragmatic note, let's look at this sentence: "Constitution.org's own copy of the U.S. Constitution has a note that the Seventeenth Amendment is possibly unconstitutional on the grounds of violating Article V, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution." It's hard to figure out which section this is exactly, since the sections of Article V are not marked. I believe that it's the phrase that states something like no state can lose its senators without its consent. (The idea presumably being that the states that did not ratify the amendment did not consent to the loss of power that the amendment created. There is probably something about the unamendable parts of the constitution here, too, but I don't know what they are.) Someone who knows what they are talking about should fix this, as I am clearly underqualified. 68.6.85.167 03:38, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Someone went and explained it. 68.39.174.238 07:40, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I added Ron Paul to the list of libertarians who want to throw out the 17th Amendment: he talked about this at the Free State Forum in February 2007.

[edit] Weasel words?

What are people's thoughts on the last paragraph under "Criticism"? "Some argue..."; "Some even claim..."; "Some people feel..." all sound like weasel words to me. -- Robert (talk) 18:26, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. The article would probably be much better off if the criticism section was removed... unless someone can improve it in some way. It seems like it was merely injected into the article for someone to stump their personal opinion. -Jack Colorado 75.39.171.37 (talk) 01:11, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Well there are sources out there that support the claim that "some" argue, and "claim". [1], [2], [3] (just a few). I don't know if the section should be deleted, but know it should be sourced. I'm a bit busy right now, or I'd do it myself. - Jeeny ^(talk) 01:21, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't remember anything from civics about the 17th Amendment imploring the Senate to "sit on a toilet"... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.252.78.81 (talk) 02:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Calls for repeal

I added a section entitled "Calls for repeal." It contains a quote from someone who has called for repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment and contains links to articles about repeal, and criticism, of the Amendment. --SMP0328. (talk) 00:00, 16 January 2008 (UTC)