{"id":41250,"date":"2014-03-01T09:39:43","date_gmt":"2014-03-01T16:39:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/01\/on-the-direct-election-of-senators.html"},"modified":"2014-03-03T09:58:49","modified_gmt":"2014-03-03T16:58:49","slug":"on-the-direct-election-of-senators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/01\/on-the-direct-election-of-senators.html","title":{"rendered":"On the Direct Election of Senators"},"content":{"rendered":"
Repeal of the 17th Amendment, one of the great successes of the Progressive Era a century ago, has become a Big Thing in some parts of the Republicans. But not only would it not give state interests a greater voice in national politics (the ostensible reason), as this article notes it would be more likely to suppress local interests in favor of electing state legislators who will vote for the "correct" US Senator, not for who can best legislate locally.<\/p>\n

More notably, state legislatures are easier to influence by big lobbying interests (as was clear back when this reform was first put in), and tying US Senators to votes by state legislators suddenly makes gerrymandering a much more powerful political tactic.<\/p>\n

Nope. Not a good idea.<\/p>\n

Reshared post from +Kee Hinckley<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Repeal the 17th amendment and State issues will take a backseat to national ones in State elections.<\/p>\n

\u275d How do we know repealing the 17th Amendment would turn state legislative elections into proxies for national debates? Because we\u2019ve seen it before. Consider the most famous Senate race in history, when Abraham Lincoln squared off against Stephen Douglas on the question of the expansion of slavery in 1858. We tend to forget, all these years later, that neither man was actually on the ballot. Instead, Illinois voters were choosing Republican or Democratic state legislators, who would, in turn, pick either Lincoln or Douglas. Because the state Legislature had the power to choose the next senator, and because slavery was the burning national question, there was precious little attention for, say, road building or local tax policy or whatever else the Illinois state Legislature had been up to. The only thing that mattered was a national question and the candidates debating it. In effect, in that election, Illinois chose its state lawmakers without paying much attention to the performance of state officials.<\/i> \u275e \ufeff<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n \n <\/div>\n

Why the Conservative Plan to Get Rid of the 17th Amendment Makes No Sense<\/a>
\n Over the past year, an increasingly central plank of conservative and Tea Party rhetoric is that constitutional change is needed and that the 17th Amendment in particular, which gives state residents the power to elect senators directly, should be repealed. (Previously, senators were selected by the state legislatures). Hard-right figures…\n <\/p>\n

View this post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Repeal of the 17th Amendment, one of the great successes of the Progressive Era a century ago, has become a Big Thing in some parts of the Republicans. But not only would it not give state interests a greater voice in national politics (the ostensible reason), as this article notes it would be more likely … Continue reading “On the Direct Election of Senators”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,374,9,347],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-money-politics","category-politics-law","category-voting-rights"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":135590,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/10\/post-1791-constitutional-amendments-just-ruining-country.html","url_meta":{"origin":41250,"position":0},"title":"All those post-1791 constitutional amendments are just ruining this country","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 10-Dec-17 11:17pm","format":false,"excerpt":"And in another fun bit of Roy Moore trivia, in a 2011 appearance on a whackadoodle conservative radio show, he opined that getting rid of all those amendments to the Constitution beyond the first Ten would \"eliminate many problems.\" His spokesfolk have come out and declared that, no, he really\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/roy-moore-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":23382,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/02\/money-finds-a-way-but-why-make-it-easy.html","url_meta":{"origin":41250,"position":1},"title":"Money finds a way, but why make it easy?","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 2-Nov-11 9:31am","format":false,"excerpt":"The cynic in me knows that money always finds a way in the electoral process. Decades of campaign finance reform made that clear. But with the SCOTUS decisions that (a) money = free speech and (b) corporations are people who should have unlimited spending (\"free speech\"), affairs have gotten completely\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/images0-focus-opensocial.googleusercontent.com\/gadgets\/proxy?container=focus&gadget=a&resize_h=100&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthinkprogress.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F11%2Fcorporations1-300x245.png","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5816,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/07\/14\/fma_yeanay.html","url_meta":{"origin":41250,"position":2},"title":"FMA Yea\/Nay","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 14-Jul-04 1:27pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Though we didn't get a Federal Marriage Amendment vote on the amendment itself, we do have the official roll call of those who voted yea-or-nay on cloture -- i.e., who...","rel":"","context":"In "LGBTQ &c"","block_context":{"text":"LGBTQ &c","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gay-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130499,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/27\/us-senators-love-funding-nasa-work-in-their-own-states.html","url_meta":{"origin":41250,"position":3},"title":"US Senators love funding NASA [work in their own states]","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 27-Apr-16 2:05pm","format":false,"excerpt":"In the defense industry, where a project is being built is a critical component of what sort of DoD money goes to it, under the protective eyes of Congresscritters with an electoral stake in bringing home the defense system bacon. Whether such systems work, or are the best to choose\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":50092,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/15\/teddy-roosevelt-is-spinning-in-his-grave.html","url_meta":{"origin":41250,"position":4},"title":"Teddy Roosevelt is spinning in his grave","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 15-Apr-15 6:52pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Senate GOP, with just a few hold-outs (and grudging kudos to Corey Gardner, R-CO, for being one of them), voted a budget amendment to support the sell-off of federal lands -- including National Forests -- to states. Only National Parks, Wildernesses and Monuments would be excluded (for now).Because, y'know,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17391,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/05\/17\/unblogged-bits-mon-17-may-10-0201.html","url_meta":{"origin":41250,"position":5},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Mon. 17-May-10 0201)","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 17-May-10 12:01am","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... ANALYSIS: The GOP\u2019s Use Of Frivolous Sex And Porn Amendments To Kill Substantive Bills - What a bunch of 3rd-grade sniggering jerks. Gingrich: No Hearings Needed, Just Withdraw Kagan\u2019s Nomination; She\u2019s Anti-Military - Gingrich\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41288,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41250\/revisions\/41288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}