A good example for the need of the bicameral legislature we have
is Alaska. Based on population Alaska would not have a lot of control over ITSELF. The rest of the country at large would have total control over those folks and the vast, vast resources they own and control. They would basically be plundered. Similarly our states that produce food in the midwest. The city-folk in the country could totally over-ride their best interests. The House on the otherhand IS constructed to balance that with what is good for the country as a simple single entity with each “state” represented proportionally.

This is part of the system of checks and balances.
where the rest is the separation of legislature, judicial & administration each watching or restricting one another.

Changing this would provide a true democracy — which our founders rightly assessed as leading to chaos. Further it would give to those who knew NOTHING about the trials and tribulations of smaller groups of people (e.g. farmers) total control over how they lived and to run their businesses for them,

Sort of like the govt taking over car companies, banks and healthcare —- NO ?????

Another view: Should a bunch of city dwellers (largely) who have access to good roads and piped in natural gas be able to tell a person living way out the backwoods of Alaska, VT or Utah that he could not own an SUV or 4wd vehicle to travel nor burn wood to heat his home because they deem it bad for his and their environment???? I think not.

I too believe that the 17th should be abolished. It is leading us in the wrong direction,.

However if we can repeal the 17th Amendment, it will tell you that 2/3rds of the nation is ready for a change in what we already have.

But being the higher house and longer terms, they needed more accountiblity and thus why they answered to state legislatures. The 17th Amendment took that power away from the state and it was a bad idea.

The Constitution doesn’t, IIRC, explicitly provide for state governments to appoint Senators, only for each state to appoint their Senator as they wish. At the time the 17th Amendment was passed, states were already moving to popular election of US Senators. I don’t really think this movement would change if you could get the 17th repealed.

If nothing else, there are still rather studious proponents of direct democracy (appropriately, many of them are Democrats, though I feel reasonably certain that there are a large number of them hiding out among the political center and Republican populists) who would probably push for total governance by plebiscite, given the opportunity. You might remember them from all the (admittedly, mostly partisan) howling about the failure of the electoral college in 2000-2004.

Still, while we’re repealing the 17th Amendment, we should expand the size of the House of Representatives.

No more Sen Fienstien for life, no more Sen Schumer for life, no more Sen Kennedy for life. What a world that would be.

The point of having a Senate is that no law can be passed without a majority of the representatives of the states, appointed as representatives of the Governor, having spoken. Having two people’s houses with one more important than the other destroys the Constitutional balance of the original Constitutional structure.

Just look at Ted Stevens. He was convicted of corruption and he wasn’t going to step down. It even look like the Alaskan people would re-elect him. Now there is a Democrat in his place and we have to wait six long years before we can get rid of him. If the Alaskan Legislature was in charged of that US Senate seat, they would have most likely replaced him with another Republican. Instead the 17th Amendment have given us two very bad choices.

Sure the state legislatures would promote from within. I say that is a good thing, because they have already serve with honor for their constituents. Along with an increase in accountiblity, this will make local and state elections more important.

It’s an imperfect solution, I’ll give you that one. There is plenty room for corruption even if we repeal the 17th Amendment. However at least it’s an idea that gives us better accountiblity of our out-of-control federal grovenment.

I’m not sure I see that happening without a cultural sea change. Not impossible, but very unlikely.

And if your party doesn’t hold the majority in the state legislature, forget about it. No balance of power.

I’m not against the idea, I’m just not sold yet.

-Crippy

Get your blog going, add a link to your signature line here and anywhere else you regularly post. You could also write an article and submit it to some of the other blogs that are represented here like Minority Report.

I am trying to start a grass-root effort to repeal the 17th Amendment. Add something that can contribute to that effort or step aside and let us start our work.

I think this is a good idea, and I’ve repeatedly said so in this diary. I’ve also supported the idea when it was offered at other times.

What I am trying to do, with absolutely no success, is find somebody, anybody with any kind of reasonable idea about how to accomplish repeal. There are MAJOR hurdles, which you’ve admitted now on two occasions.

If there is no realistic plan for accomplishing the goal, we are wasting our time with it. As I’ve noted before, “stuff” is about come at us from Capital Hill in a major storm. That’s what we need to be focused on. We have limited resources and limited ability to accomplish anything right now and we have to deal with the highest priority items first. Unless somebody can come up with a reasonable plan for this, it needs to be shelved until some can identify one. Heck, nobody will even talk about how it might be implemented, this whole thread consists of “Yeah! Great idea!”.

I’m not putting the burden on you to produce a workable plan. I’m just looking for somebody to do it.

What is you bloody problem?

Are you done yet?

And, realistically, we are facing an avalanche of Marxist legislation coming down from Capitol Hill in the next six or seven months. Not to mention we have a Party that doesn’t have a clue what it stands for (see John McCain/Lindsey Graham/Barack Obama over the last couple of days).

We don’t have the time, the energy or the political capital to be messing with this. This isn’t a losing battle, it’s a non-starter.

Again, I’m in favor of it. But nobody’s been able to even show me a bad plan that will get this off the starting line.

However you never get anywhere by giving up or not even trying. A wise man once said:

“One may walk over the highest mountain one step at a time.” -John Wanamaker

One must start somewhere, let’s start today.