Overshadowed by HJR 3 concerning marriage equality, I had not noticed SJR 3 filed by Sen. James Smith which would rescind Indiana’s ratification of the 17th Amendment. The Seventeenth Amendment is the one that provides for direct election of United States Senators by the citizens. It used to be that state legislatures decided who would be Senator. The text of the Seventeenth is as follows:
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.
When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.
I’m pretty sure ratification is a “no take backs” situation. Rather, the way to repeal an amendment to the United States Constitution is by means of another amendment to the United States Constitution. Article Five of the U.S. Constitution sets forth that process, and this isn’t it. The Seventeenth Amendment was adopted because of a widespread perception that most state legislatures were corrupt in the way they appointed senators. I don’t think we should return to those days.
1) The mere existence of this resolution confirms your final thought.
2) It also confirms that the IN Statehouse is infested with a bunch of third-string intellectuals that must have been grandfathered through their civics class in high school. >_<
Interesting. I wonder if Senator Smith supports HJR-3. I really hope he does, because that would make his position “we should let the people decide (except when we shouldn’t!)” Then we could all point and laugh. And then cry, because this guy is a state senator.
Um, Doug, it wasn’t perception, it was very real and practiced:
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2012/06/a-little-story-about-an-ancient-montana-plutocrat
Which is why I am baffled how SCOTUS ruled the way it did regarding Citzens United. We have an actual, historical example of how money corrupts the political process.
And to go even further SCOTUS struck down Montana’s limits on money in politics law(s) and I’m rather sure that this example was cited. At least I hope it was.
Are those attorneys that the legislature hires present as some kind of ornament and presented for display when the legislature wants to look good? Proposing a bill like this should be the source of humiliation to anyone who had any sense of shame. Surely there are people among those who voted for this person who are horrified. I’ll bet he needs a driver to find his way back home.
The staff attorneys can tell legislators that something is ineffective or unconstitutional. The legislators don’t have to listen.
This is strange. Is this attempt seen in other states as well? I guess my question is, what is his expressed explanation, and then secondly, what is his real motivation?
Back when I was the sort of person who was all for this sort of thing (this was before my preferred approach to dealing with the world shifted to actually thinking about things), my motivation was “By god, those wealthy white male slave-owning aristocrats were infallible, and if only we could start doing things exactly like they wanted all our problems would be solved!”
I’ve seen the debate over whether a state could rescind a ratification vote before it finally passes. I’ve never seen one after it passes. I think “yes” to the former and definitely “no” to the latter.
I know I’m a little late on this blog to comment about this but since I have taken up this issue as part of my presidential campaign, and because I live in Indiana I thought my comments might help. First, the snide comments about why anyone would want to rescind this amendment just shows that it is those people, not Senator Smith that don’t know history.
The 17th amend was ratified by…well, Senators. Why would they want to change the way our Founders’ set up our government? What was happening is that since Senators were elected by State legislatures, those same legislatures also had the power to recall a Senator if the legislature believed the Senator wasn’t voting in the State’s best interests. These recalls were not only annoying to Senators “power”, but sometimes a state would go for a time without a Senator while the legislature voted on who to send next. So, as Senator Smith correctly outlines, the 17th amend broke our government.
Originally, the government was set up much like the U.K. parliament, but with a president instead of a prime minister; a president that did not require a coalition to govern. The vice president didn’t even need to be of the same party/ticket. See Lincoln/Johnson. The Senate and Congress would act much like the House of “Lords” and the House of “Commons”. That is, the Senate was designed to represent the interests of the States — not the people of the state, but the government of each state. Whereas the Congress is to represent the people directly. Again, the 17th amend broke this balance. You now have two houses that are basically redundant. Why do we need a Senate and a Congress? What are they balancing? They often simply balance the parties and act as a party vs party mechanism. Our government wasn’t even designed to be party driven.
Further, there is no longer any state government representation. Senators often promise the people this or that and then once elected, the politicians do their own thing. Before, at least the state government could recall them. Now the federal government can and does impose things upon a state and the state has little to no recourse, no representation.
The 17th amend has nothing to do with fixing “corruption” or wealthy white slave-owning aristocrats (that guy is watching too much Annie or Shirley Temple movies). The 17th amend was passed by Senators so they could be free of threat of recall. It was a coup. It really has broken our governmental system. I guess the Senators feel it is easier to dupe the people to elect and reelect and reelect them over and over instead of having to deal with their state possibly recalling them for being an idiot. — check out rodericke.com
Shouldn’t the state governments also be representing the people of their state? If the interests of the state government and the people of the state diverge, that seems to be the actual problem, not the method of election of the senators.
As to what the Senate balances, I’d argue that it provides two important balances:
1. By having state-wide constituency, senators counteract gerrymandering to some degree. (Imagine a hypothetical scenario where the majority of voters in a state favor the policies of Party A, but due to Congressional district boundaries and geography, Party B holds 8 of 10 seats in the House).
2. By having 6-year terms instead of 2, senators provide a degree of dampening to the swings of political opinion. Since membership turns over less quickly than in the House, the legislature has some stability even if the House whipsaws back and forth between two parties every election cycle.
Of course, the above is all a retcon anyway. The point of the Senate was to get the less populous states to sign on to the Constitution.