Repealing the 17th Amendment Is A Hard Sell

Over at The Missouri Record, David Linton argues in favor of repealing the 17th Amendment which allows the direct election of Senators.

I agree, but I think this is going to be a hard sell to the American public which has come to believe that the key to an open government is more and more transparency and direct accountability of officials, where more and more citizen votes means better and better government.  Of course, this more accountable system allows incumbents to go to Washington, vote for government expansion for five years, and return home just before the election to claim they're independent and fiscally conservative.  Thusly, the ruling class can fool the inattentive, and the whole More Accountability benefit falls by the wayside.  Granted, this failure rests more on the heads of the inattentive citizens than the charlatans they elect, but it circumvents the system our foresighted forefathers put into place.

The state legislators, on the other hand, are professionals (or are at least paying attention) since that is some part of their job, and they know whether the Senators serve the interests of the state or the interests of the Senators or their political party instead.  That was part of the balance the Constitution prepared for us.

But in the 21st Century, the trend is not to balance individual voter whims and trends with the power of the sovereign states.  See also the National Popular Vote movement to end-around the Electoral College.  The current popular will values the popular will, and those who seek to unravel our system of government hold out the entitlement of an uninformed vote to the masses. 

Don't expect the masses to give it up any time soon.

(Cross-posted at Musings from Brian J. Noggle.)

Comments

[alwaysfiredup]

I think it's a bad idea, particularly for a heterogenous state like Missouri. The state senate, like the federal Senate, is heavily stacked in favor of rural districts despite the higher population density of the cities. Those of us who live in the cities (particularly KC, which has almost zero power at the state level) would not like our votes to be ignored even more than they are now.

[Brian J.]

You're pretty much arguing as I said you would, aren't you?

The popular will must triumph, even in situations where the forefathers purposefully added a means to check that often feverish and faddish popular will.

[Jim]

Great post Brian.

[Brian J.]

Dude, you're the boss. You don't have to send an e-mail to make the point that you're checking in even when on vacation.

[Van]

"The current popular will values the popular will, and those who seek to unravel our system of government hold out the entitlement of an uninformed vote to the masses.
Don't expect the masses to give it up any time soon."

There's the problem with the usual strategies... and the slight nausea I get when the argument conservatives make for our elected representatives having voted for ObamaoCare as being "Against the will of the people!"

Sorry, no, but the popular will of the people was to elect those idiots - if they're surprised they voted like idiots... We The People have no need to look further for someone to blame than our bathroom mirrors.

The shallow and expensive popularity contests the 17th Amendment made unavoidable, are the antithesis of what a representative republic requires. But we're not going to get it repealed on the basis of giving more power back to the people - that's the very problem which needs to be understood as being the problem.

Repealing the 17th Amendment needs to be a major goal of ours, probably THE most important and necessary political measure for us to see accomplished in our time - but it won't be accomplished by playing up how legislators don't listen to the popular will of the people. It also won't be the result of a single campaign, it'll take a huge number of We The People learning, probably for the first time, what our Republic requires in order to function as designed.

No friggin' way that's going to be sold on the basis of giving us more responsive Senators, but Senators who will be more inclined to uphold the government we still need to strive to deserve.

While you can sell bad law by appealing to power & vanity, the opposite isn't true, people will need to understand why it's needed. There's no shortcut to salvation that doesn't pass through real Education.

Just ain't gonna happen.

[vulcan mom]

Your article ignores the original balance of power set in the constitution for the Senate. The Senate was meant to represent the interests of the states. Individuals already had representation in the House. Senators should answer to their state legislatures because those are the people who will have to follow through on and/or fund the legislation the federal government passes. Without this balance we have the current situation where our state is writing laws to protect itself from the legislation our senators voted For.

[Brian J.]

My post agrees with the post I linked to, which talks about the balance you speak of.

My post says that the American people will not easily give up the chance to cast often uninformed votes for Senators.