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Many in the Tea Party have called for the repeal of the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, wherein U.S. Senators are elected by the voters of each State, in favor of the old system, in effect from 1788 to 1913, where each State’s legislature chose the U.S. Senators for that State.
What is your opinion? Should the 17th Amendmebt be repealed, or should the current system where we elect our U.S. Senators by plurality vote, be maintained?
I would be in favor of that. I’d like to see more power with the states, which that would accomplish.
I don’t see how this would be good for the people.
I am in favor of it. We see the damage caused when the masses suddenly have an idea and decide to get an Amendment written.
I’d rather have corrupt local politicians than corrupt national politicians.
We could use more voting these days, when it is so much easier to take votes. We should be voting on more policies and not be leaving them up to a certain group.
I don’t get your reasoning, PBA. Please explain.
Joseph/Haleivi: The idea is that, state legislatures will not like when the federal government tries to take power from the states. So if the state legislature is choosing the senate, senators will be careful not to make them mad.
I don’t know why anyone would be opposed to this, since if you want certain policies in your state, you can just legislate it there, and not care what the rest of the country is doing.
(for example socialized healthcare would have zero constitutional challenges if implemented on a state level. It wasn’t- because nobody really wants it. )
it slows down the legislative process so that laws are not rushed through
Not a bad idea, but I’d rather see either the elimination or modification to the electoral college.
Not a bad idea, but I’d rather see either the elimination or modification to the electoral college.
Explain. That would have the opposite effect, of taking away power from the states.
I would like to see the electoral college modified that the electoral college votes are awarded based on the candidates margin of victory. A candidate can win California by 1% yet he/she receives all of the state’s 55 electoral votes which is 20% of the 270 needed to win.
How is that substantially different that doing a straight popular vote?
The idea of our democracy is that the will of the people prevail since the ones in office want to be voted in. The problem is that it is a very slow process. Usually you have very few choices and you pick your battles. Although there is a right and left amongst politicians, there is a common ground, as well — they are all politicians. Their interests are not necessarily ours.
A senator won’t care much about the will of the people in his state if he doesn’t have to answer to them. He doesn’t have to worry much about the worries of the state legislators since they (the legislators) won’t be voted in or out based on who they appointed as senator.
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