# Time to repeal 17th amendment? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 14, 2005, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-repeal-17th-amendment/299385 "2005-04-14T23:58:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-repeal-17th-amendment/299385/21 "2005-04-15T20:49:12Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > On the other hand, I am humbled by the discovery that the 17th was started in 1913. Still it did not take effect until when? Sorry, I didn’t mean to get snarky there. I actually had to look up the exact year, if it makes you feel better (The only thing I knew was that it was before FDR, because the 19th amendment-women’s suffrage-was added in 1920, which was before his time.) ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-repeal-17th-amendment/299385/22 "2005-04-15T21:12:26Z")
I find it amazing that people can pull facts out of the air and when called on it… Not even bother to say…ooops you caught me. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-repeal-17th-amendment/299385/23 "2005-04-15T21:20:00Z")
Yes, because it will make government closer, not farther from the people. The purpose of the Senate was not just to be the chamber of detached rationality, but to be the states’ check on the power of the federal government; read the federalist papers for background. Senators elected by state legislatures would fight to ensure that more decisions were kept at the state level (hence, more responsive to the people) and to control the growth of the federal government. The consequences (an oversized, distant, debt-riddled bureaucracy) were entirely predictable. The Senate was every bit as important a check-and-balance as the judiciary. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-repeal-17th-amendment/299385/24 "2005-04-15T23:57:38Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > Now Gerrymandering of the House, now there is an issue. > > I recall that once the Missouri legislature could not make districts, so the courts ruled that the state would vote as one big district electing however many Congresscritters. The idea did not catch on, although I like it. Sort of like the Israeli system. And if done right, it would be a form of proportional representation, opening the system to third-party and independent candidates. Another solution, one we’re considering in Florida right now, is to take the decennial redistricting process away from the state legislature and give it to an independent nonpartisan commission. (This would apply to redistricting for state legislative as well as Congressional seats; both are strikingly noncompetitive at present.) The Committee for Fair Elections ([http://www.committeeforfairelections.com/](http://www.committeeforfairelections.com/)) is collecting petitions to get a constitutional amendment to that effect on the November 2006 ballot. If you’re registered to vote in Florida, please sign the petition! (A set of three petitions, actually.) We need 75,000 signatures to get the Supreme Court to review the language and a total of 750,000 to get the measures on the ballot. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2005, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-repeal-17th-amendment/299385/25 "2005-04-16T00:03:13Z")
> [@furt](#): > > The purpose of the Senate was not just to be the chamber of detached rationality, but to be the states’ check on the power of the federal government; read the federalist papers for background. Publius was not right about everything, **furt.** And the states acting as a “check on the power of the federal government” has caused our country no end of trouble and strife. Remember Jim Crow and the “Sovereignty Commissions”? > [@furt](#): > > Senators elected by state legislatures would fight to ensure that more decisions were kept at the state level (hence, more responsive to the people) and to control the growth of the federal government. The consequences (an oversized, distant, debt-riddled bureaucracy) were entirely predictable. The Senate was every bit as important a check-and-balance as the judiciary. What makes you think state governments are any more “responsive to the people” than Congress is? I’m reminded of “Lind’s Law” (formulated by political commentator Michael Lind based on his experience dealing with federal, state and local governments): The farther down you go in the levels-of-government hierarchy, the more stupid, incompetent and corrupt the public officials tend to be. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2005, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-repeal-17th-amendment/299385/26 "2005-04-16T05:35:24Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Publius was not right about everything, **furt.** Please read more carefully; I was not citing them as inerrant, I was citing them as explaining the original purpose of the senate and it’s means of election. > [@](#): > > And the states acting as a “check on the power of the federal government” has caused our country no end of trouble and strife. Hence I would not wish for unchecked state governments, either. Are you going to contend that the federal government is always right? > [@](#): > > What makes you think state governments are any more “responsive to the people” than Congress is? I submit that all things being equal, the fewer voters per legislator, the more vulnerable each legislator is to grassroots opposition, hence more responsive. > [@](#): > > The farther down you go in the levels-of-government hierarchy, the more stupid, incompetent and corrupt the public officials tend to be. And the fewer voters needed to replace them. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-repeal-17th-amendment/299385/27 "2005-04-18T01:22:57Z")
> [@aahala](#): > > Many of the states required both their own houses to approve the choice and both often wouldn’t, leaving the state without one representative in the US Senate for long periods of time. The state legislatures were sometimes dividied by party and even when one party controled both the representation of one of the houses would favor some interest or area and the other was in opposition. The majority of legislatures always conducted Senate elections by joint ballot. In 1866, acting under its power to regulate the time and manner of Senate elections, Congress passed a law _requiring_ joint ballots in all states if a first, separate ballot failed to produce a common winner. Nevertheless, deadlocks _were_ common. Often no candidate could get a majority on the joint ballot because dissident factions within a party would refuse to support the caucus choice. Delaware was unrepresented in the Senate from March 1901 until March 1903. I suspect that this would be less of a problem for today’s more “disciplined” (or, depending on your POV, more “spineless”) party caucuses. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-repeal-17th-amendment/299385/28 "2005-04-19T16:04:28Z")
I don’t think we need to do away with direct election of Senators. I do think that we sure as hell need term limits on them, though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-repeal-17th-amendment/299385.md?page=1)