# Another reason to repeal the 17th Amendment **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 17, 2003, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-repeal-the-17th-amendment/189107 "2003-07-17T10:13:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-repeal-the-17th-amendment/189107/61 "2003-07-21T23:06:01Z")
So your answer, **Razorsharp** , is that you have no idea whatsoever as to how a legislatively-elected Senate would stop favoring the intersests of whoever were the large voting blocs in the State, seeing as how those same blocs are the ones who elect the State Legislatures. And this 17th Amendment or no 17th Amendment the situation stays the same. Thank you very much ---
**Author:** ![ready29003](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71e660/32.png) [@ready29003](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ready29003)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-repeal-the-17th-amendment/189107/62 "2003-07-21T23:20:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Governor Quinn \* > \*\*Some points to make: > 3) The OP believes that having the state legislature appoint Senators would end the buying of Senate seats. Excuse me for a minute, as I laugh my head off. > \*\* Governor Quinn, I am trying to read this at work. You make it very difficult for me when you write things that make me laugh so hard. My sentiment exactly. Will you be my friend? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-repeal-the-17th-amendment/189107/63 "2003-07-21T23:32:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spectrum \* > **Actually, they are much higher for the poor than they are for the rich, because the rich only pay (what is it?), say 8% on the first $85,000, while the poor pay 8% on everything they make. So a poor person making $20,000 a year pays $1,600 – 8%, while a person making $200,000 a year only pays around $6,800, or 3.4%. That is, by definition, a regressive tax structure, that leans harder on the poor than on the wealthy.** It does not, however, lean any harder on the poor than it does on the middle-class. And a slight correction here: the ~8% figure you’re quoting is for Social Security Tax (6.2%) **plus** Medicare Tax (1.3%). While Social Security caps out at $84,900, Medicare Tax currently has **no upper income cap.** A person who makes $500,000 per year in wages (and/or self-employment income) pays the same 1.3% Medicare tax that a person who makes $10,000 per year does. ---
**Author:** ![ready29003](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71e660/32.png) [@ready29003](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ready29003)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-repeal-the-17th-amendment/189107/64 "2003-07-21T23:49:11Z")
Just to throw a dog a bone. Razorsharp is not making a compelling argument to me about the tax cut. Nor do I think his proposed solution of a senate selected by state legeslatures is in any way a solution. Such a system is just as prone to corruption and control by the population. Yet, he is right about one little thing… Democracy is a system in which the population controls the money. If 50.1% of the poorest people in the country ever figured out how to unite and work together…they could simply vote to take all the money from the richer citizens and give it to themselves. Or the poorest 75% of people could vote to take away all the money from the richest 15%. Or we could all vote to just take Bill Gates money and split it evenly amongst ourselves. What would stop people? The constitution? That can be rewritten if you have enough people as well. I am not saying I don’t like democracy. I am just pointing out that this “vulnerability” is valid…even if its threat is not compelling or near. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-repeal-the-17th-amendment/189107/65 "2003-07-22T07:43:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SenorBeef \* > There absolutely is. They’re two seperate entities. Don’t be deliberately illiterate. The word democracy does not mean in ordinary English usage, “direct participatory democracy” nor does it specify, again in long established English usage, a particular style. Further, Republic in no way precludes democracy, it is a **form of organization**. Niether concept precludes (nor necessitates) the other, pretending otherwise is pure posturing and illiteracy of the worst kind, some kind of nonsensical political axe. Now, just to give you a reference, see the Merriam Webster definitions which strike me as adequate for this purpose: > [@](#): > > de·moc·ra·cy > Etymology: Middle French democratie, from Late Latin democratia, from Greek dEmokratia, from dEmos + -kratia -cracy > Date: 1576 > **1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections** > 2 : a political unit that has a democratic government The remainder of the five definitions given revolve around analogical usages and are not relevant. You can see there is nothing in there about the form of organization. Only that the political authority reside or is vested in the popular will. Now, as to republic. > [@](#): > > Main Entry: re·pub·lic > Etymology: French république, from Middle French republique, from Latin respublica, from res thing, wealth + publica, feminine of publicus public – > (res public, The Public’s Affaire) > Date: 1604 > **1 a (1) : a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government b (1) : a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government c : a usually specified republican government of a political unit \** Again as we can see, while in modern suage there is the implication of democracy in the 1.b definition, it is not necessary. So, let’s put an end to this illiterate semantic quibble. It is without basis nor utility. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-repeal-the-17th-amendment/189107/66 "2003-07-22T12:59:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ready29003 \* > What would stop people? The constitution? That can be rewritten if you have enough people as well. If you can find a list showing the sizes of the various state legislatures, just do some math. Take two-thirds of Congress (67 Senators + 290 Represenatives) plus two-thirds of the 38 state legislatures with the smallest memberships and maybe it adds up to about 2000 people who could formally decide to dissolve the United States. Pleasant dreams. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-repeal-the-17th-amendment/189107/67 "2003-07-22T13:50:57Z")
I have long called for the repeal of the 17th. The Senate should be safe from the day-to-day hurly-bury of politics. It should be more than a more exclusive H of R. I would also call for all votes in the Senate to be anomonous. That is to say, there shoud be no way to find out how Senator X voted. Senators should be selected (by the state legislatures) on the basis of their wisdom. Then we have to trust them to do the right thing without any possible reward from anyone. After all they wouldn’t need campaign bribes (I mean “contributions”) and under my proposal there would be no way for a special interest to be sure their friends in the Sentate really were. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-repeal-the-17th-amendment/189107/68 "2003-07-22T18:20:49Z")
Turning the Senate in a secret chamber is going to be an even harder sell than returning the vote the legislatures. Besides, how would you know if your particular two Senators were doing a good job (i.e. one that met with your approval)? Their votes are secret, after all. There are already two branches of the U.S. government that deliberate mostly in secret (the President need not hold public consultations before making a decision, and the Supreme Court need only write their final decisions without having to document the long arguments leading up to them). Why let secrecy start sneaking into a third? And asking Americans to trust their government? HA! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-repeal-the-17th-amendment/189107.md?page=3)