The Utah Senate on Wednesday called on Congress to repeal the 17th Amendment

[HARDCORE]

Thought you might like to read this. Mrs. Hardcore
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FEB 25, 2016
http://www.sltrib.com/news/3576711-1...to-repeal-17th
Utah Senate votes to repeal 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (with video)
The Salt Lake Tribune
First Published Feb 24 2016 11:36AM • Last Updated Feb 24 2016 04:20 pm
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The Utah Senate on Wednesday called on Congress to repeal the 17th Amendment — so that state senators could again select U.S. senators.
It voted 20-6 to pass SJR2, and sent it to the House. It calls for Congress to repeal the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was ratified in 1913 to allow people to directly elect U.S. senators.
Its sponsor, Sen. Al Jackson, R-Highland, says electing senators by the state Senate is needed because no branch of the federal government now represents the needs of state governments. A change would force senators to do that.
17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Direct Election of U.S. Senators (1913)
The Constitution, as it was adopted in 1788, made the Senate an assembly where the states would have equal representation. Each state legislature would elect two senators to 6-year terms. Late in the 19th century, some state legislatures deadlocked over the election of a senator when different parties controlled different houses, and Senate vacancies could last months or years. In other cases, special interests or political machines gained control over the state legislature. Progressive reformers dismissed individuals elected by such legislatures as puppets and the Senate as a "millionaire’s club" serving powerful private interests.
One Progressive response to these concerns was the "Oregon system," which utilized a state primary election to identify the voters’ choice for Senator while pledging all candidates for the state legislature to honor the primary’s result. Over half of the states adopted the "Oregon system," but the 1912 Senate investigation of bribery and corruption in the election of Illinois Senator William Lorimer indicated that only a constitutional amendment mandating the direct election of Senators by a state’s citizenry would allay public demands for reform.
When the House passed proposed amendments for the direct election of Senators in 1910 and 1911, they included a "race rider" meant to bar Federal intervention in cases of racial discrimination among voters. This would be done by vesting complete control of Senate elections in state governments. A substitute amendment by Senator Joseph L. Bristow of Kansas provided for the direct election of Senators without the "race rider." It was adopted by the Senate on a close vote before the proposed constitutional amendment itself passed the Senate. Over a year later, the House accepted the change, and on April 8, 1913, the resolution became the 17th amendment.
For more information, visit the National Archives' Treasures of Congress online exhibit.
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Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
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The Seventeenth Amendment in the National Archives

The Seventeenth Amendment (Amendment XVII) to the United States Constitution established the popular election of United States Senators by the people of the states. The amendment supersedes Article I, §3, Clauses 1 and 2 of the Constitution, under which senators were elected by state legislatures. It also alters the procedure for filling vacancies in the Senate, allowing for state legislatures to permit their governors to make temporary appointments until a special election can be held.
The amendment was proposed in the 62nd Congress in 1912 and became law in 1913 after being ratified by the required 36 state legislatures. It was implemented in special elections in Maryland (November 1913) and Alabama (May 1914) and then nationwide in the November 1914 election.

Text
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.
When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.[1]
Background
Original composition
Originally, under Article I, § 3, Clauses 1 and 2 of the Constitution, each state legislature elected its state's senators for a six-year term.[2] Each state, regardless of size, is entitled to two senators as part of the Connecticut Compromise between the small and large states.[3] This contrasted with the House of Representatives, a body elected by popular vote, and was described as an uncontroversial decision; at the time, James Wilson was the sole advocate of popularly electing the Senate and his proposal was defeated 10–1.[4] There were many advantages to the original method of electing senators. Prior to the Constitution, a federal body was one where states effectively formed nothing more than permanent treaties, with citizens retaining their loyalty to their original state. However, under the Constitution, the states were subordinated to a central government; the election of senators by the states reassured Anti-federalists that there would be some protection against the swallowing up of states and their powers by the federal government,[5] providing a check on the power of the federal government.[6]
Additionally, the longer terms and avoidance of popular election turned the Senate into a body that could "temper" the populism of the House. While the Representatives operated in a two-year direct election cycle, making them frequently accountable to their constituents, the senators could afford to "take a more detached view of issues coming before Congress".[7] State legislatures retained the theoretical right to "instruct" their senators to vote for or against proposals, thus giving the states both direct and indirect representation in the federal government.[8] The Senate was part of a formal bicameralism, with the members of the Senate and House responsible to completely distinct constituencies; this helped defeat the problem of the federal government being subject to "special interests".[9] Members of the Constitutional Convention considered the Senate to be equivalent to the British House of Lords as an 'upper house', containing the "better men" of society; it was hoped that they would provide more coolness and stability than the House of Representatives due to the senators' status.[10]
Issues
According to Judge Jay Bybee of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, those in favor of popular elections for senators believed that two primary problems were caused by the original provisions: legislative corruption and electoral deadlocks.[11] There was a sense that senatorial elections were "bought and sold", changing hands for favors and sums of money rather than because of the competence of the candidate. Between 1857 and 1900, the Senate investigated three elections over corruption. In 1900, for example, William A. Clark had his election voided after the Senate concluded that he had bought votes in the Montana legislature. But, analysts Bybee and Todd Zywicki believe this concern was largely unfounded; there was a "dearth of hard information" on the subject.[12] In more than a century of legislative elections of US senators, only 10 cases were contested for allegations of impropriety.[13]
Electoral deadlocks were another issue. Because state legislatures were charged with deciding whom to appoint as senators, the system relied on them being able to agree. Some states could not, and thus delayed sending representatives to Congress; in a few cases, the system broke down to the point where states completely lacked representation in the Senate.[14] Deadlocks started to become an issue in the 1850s, with a dead-locked Indiana legislature allowing a Senate seat to sit vacant for two years.[15] Between 1891 and 1905, 46 elections were deadlocked, in 20 different states;[13] in one extreme example, a Senate seat for Delaware went unfilled from 1899 until 1903.[16] The business of holding elections also caused great disruption in the state legislatures, with a full third of the Oregon House of Representatives choosing not to swear the oath of office in 1897 due to a dispute over an open Senate seat. The result was that the legislature was unable to pass legislation that year.[16]
Zywicki again argues that this was not a serious issue. Deadlocks were a problem, but they were the exception rather than the norm; many legislatures did not deadlock over elections at all. Most of those that did in the 19th century were the newly admitted western states, which suffered from "inexperienced legislatures and weak party discipline...as western legislatures gained experience, deadlocks became less frequent." While Utah suffered from deadlocks in 1897 and 1899, they became "a good teaching experience," and Utah never again failed to elect senators.[17] Another concern was that when deadlocks occurred, state legislatures were unable to conduct their other normal business; James Christian Ure, writing in the South Texas Law Review, notes that this did not in fact occur. In a deadlock situation, state legislatures would deal with the matter by holding "one vote at the beginning of the day—then the legislators would continue with their normal affairs".[18]
State legislative elections were perceived to have become dominated by the business of picking senators.[19] Senator John H. Mitchell noted that the Senate became the "vital issue" in all legislative campaigns, with the policy stances and qualifications of state legislative candidates ignored by voters who were more interested in the indirect Senate election.[20] To remedy this, some state legislatures created "advisory elections" that served as de facto general elections, allowing legislative campaigns to focus on local issues.[20]
Calls for reform
Calls for a constitutional amendment regarding Senate elections started in the early 19th century, with Henry R. Storrs in 1826 proposing an amendment to provide for popular election.[21] Similar amendments were introduced in 1829 and 1855, with the "most prominent" proponent being Andrew Johnson, who raised the issue in 1868 and considered the idea's merits "so palpable" that no additional explanation was necessary.[22] In the 1860s, there was a major Congressional dispute over the issue, with the House and Senate voting to veto the appointment of John P. Stockton to the Senate due to his approval by a plurality rather than a majority vote for the office. In reaction, the Congress passed a bill in July 1866 that required state legislatures to elect senators by an absolute majority.[22]
By the 1890s, support for the introduction of direct election for the Senate had substantially increased, and reformers worked on two fronts. On the first front, the Populist Party incorporated the direct election of senators into its Omaha Platform, adopted in 1892.[23] In 1908, Oregon passed the first law that based the selection of U.S. senators on a popular vote. Oregon was soon followed by Nebraska.[24] Proponents for popular election noted that ten states already had non-binding primaries for Senate candidates,[25] in which the candidates would be voted on by the public, effectively serving as advisory referenda instructing state legislatures how to vote;[25] reformers campaigned for more states to introduce a similar method.
William Randolph Hearst opened a nationwide popular readership for direct election of U.S. Senators in a 1906 series of articles using flamboyant language attacking “The Treason of the Senate” in his Cosmopolitan Magazine. David Graham Philips, one of the "yellow journalists" whom President Teddy Roosevelt called “muckrakers”, described Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island as the principal “traitor” among the “scurvy lot” in control of the Senate by theft, perjury, and bribes corrupting the state legislatures to gain election to the Senate. A few state legislatures began to petition the Congress for direct election of senators. By 1893, the House had the two-thirds vote for just such an amendment. However, when the joint resolution reached the Senate, it failed from neglect, as it did again in 1900, 1904 and 1908; each time the House approved the appropriate resolution, and each time it died in the Senate.[26]
On the second national legislative front, reformers worked toward a constitutional amendment, which was strongly supported in the House of Representatives but initially opposed by the Senate. Bybee notes that the state legislatures, which would lose power if the reforms went through, were supportive of the campaign. By 1910, 31 state legislatures had passed resolutions calling for a constitutional amendment allowing direct election, and in the same year ten Republican senators who were opposed to reform were forced out of their seats, acting as a "wake-up call to the Senate".[25]
Reformers included William Jennings Bryan, while opponents counted respected figures such as Elihu Root and George Frisbie Hoar among their number; Root cared so strongly about the issue that after the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment, he refused to stand for re election to the Senate.[11] Bryan and the reformers argued for popular election through highlighting perceived flaws with the existing system, specifically corruption and electoral deadlocks, and through arousing populist sentiment. Most important was the populist argument; that there was a need to "Awaken, in the senators...a more acute sense of responsibility to the people", which it was felt they lacked; election through state legislatures was seen as an anachronism that was out of step with the wishes of the American people, and one that had led to the Senate becoming "a sort of aristocratic body – too far removed from the people, beyond their reach, and with no special interest in their welfare".[27] The settlement of the West and continuing absorption of hundreds of thousands of immigrants expanded the sense of "the people."
Hoar replied that 'the people' were both a less permanent and a less trusted body than state legislatures, and that moving the responsibility for the election of senators to them would see it passing into the hands of a body that "[lasted] but a day" before changing. Other counterarguments were that renowned senators could not have been elected directly, and that since a large number of senators had experience in the House, which was already directly elected, a constitutional amendment would be pointless.[28] The reform was considered by opponents to threaten the rights and independence of the states, who were "sovereign, entitled...to have a separate branch of Congress...to which they could send their ambassadors". This was countered by the argument that a change in the mode in which senators were elected would not change their responsibilities.[29]
The Senate freshman class of 1910 brought new hope to the reformers. Fourteen of the thirty newly elected senators had been elected through party primaries, which amounted to popular choice in their states. More than half of the states had some form of primary selection for the Senate. The Senate finally joined the House to submit the Seventeenth Amendment to the states for ratification, nearly ninety years after it first was presented to the Senate in 1826.[30]
By 1912, 239 political parties at both the state and national level had pledged some form of direct election, and 33 states had introduced the use of direct primaries.[31] Twenty-seven states had called for a constitutional convention on the subject, with 31 states needed to reach the threshold; Arizona and New Mexico each achieved statehood that year (bringing the total number of states to 48), and were expected to support the motion. Alabama and Wyoming, already states, had passed resolutions in favor of a convention without formally calling for one.[32]
Proposal and ratification
Proposed by the Congress
In 1911, the House of Representatives passed House Joint Resolution 39 proposing a constitutional amendment for direct election of senators. It included a “race rider” meant to bar federal intervention in cases of racial discrimination against voters. Since the turn of the century, most blacks in the South, and many poor whites, had been disenfranchised by state legislatures passing constitutions with provisions that were discriminatory in practice. This meant that their millions of population had no political representation. Most of the South had one-party states. When the resolution came before the Senate, a substitute resolution, one without the rider, as proposed by Joseph L. Bristow of Kansas. It was adopted by a vote of 64 to 24, with 4 not voting.[33] Nearly a year later, the House accepted the change. The conference report that would become the Seventeenth Amendment was approved by the Senate 42 to 36 on April 12, 1912, and by the House 238 to 39, with 110 not voting on May 13, 1912.
Ratification by the states
Having been passed by Congress, the amendment was sent to the states for ratification and was ratified by:[34]
1. Massachusetts — May 22, 1912
2. Arizona — June 3, 1912
3. Minnesota — June 10, 1912
4. New York — January 15, 1913
5. Kansas — January 17, 1913
6. Oregon — January 23, 1913
7. North Carolina — January 25, 1913
8. California — January 28, 1913
9. Michigan — January 28, 1913
10. Iowa — January 30, 1913
11. Montana — January 30, 1913
12. Idaho — January 31, 1913
13. West Virginia — February 4, 1913
14. Colorado — February 5, 1913
15. Nevada — February 6, 1913
16. Texas — February 7, 1913
17. Washington — February 7, 1913
18. Wyoming — February 8, 1913
19. Arkansas — February 11, 1913
20. Maine — February 11, 1913
21. Illinois — February 13, 1913
22. North Dakota — February 14, 1913
23. Wisconsin — February 18, 1913
24. Indiana — February 19, 1913
25. New Hampshire — February 19, 1913
26. Vermont — February 19, 1913
27. South Dakota — February 19, 1913
28. Oklahoma — February 24, 1913
29. Ohio — February 25, 1913
30. Missouri — March 7, 1913
31. New Mexico — March 13, 1913
32. Nebraska — March 14, 1913
33. New Jersey — March 17, 1913
34. Tennessee — April 1, 1913
35. Pennsylvania — April 2, 1913
36. Connecticut — April 8, 1913
With 36 states having ratified the Seventeenth Amendment, it was certified by Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan on May 31, 1913, as part of the Constitution.[34] The amendment has subsequently been ratified by:
37. Louisiana — June 11, 1914
38. Alabama — April 11, 2002[35]
39. Delaware — July 1, 2010[36][37] (After rejecting the amendment on March 18, 1913)
40. Maryland — April 1, 2012[38][39][40]
41. Rhode Island – June 20, 2014
The Utah legislature rejected the amendment on February 26, 1913. No action on the amendment has been completed by: Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, or Virginia.
Effect

The Seventeenth Amendment altered the process for electing United States Senators and changed the way vacancies would be filled. Under the original constitutional provision, state legislatures filled vacancies when a Senator left office before the end of the term; the Seventeenth Amendment provides that state legislatures can grant governors the right to make temporary appointments, which last until a special election is provided to fill the seat. The power to call such an election can also be granted to the governor.[41] It also had an immediate and dramatic impact on the political composition of the U.S. Senate.[42]
Before the Supreme Court required "one man, one vote" in Reynolds v. Sims (1964), rural counties and cities could be given equal weight in the state legislatures, enabling one rural vote to equal 200 city votes. The malapportioned state legislatures would have given the Republicans control of the Senate in the 1916 Senate elections. With direct election, each vote represented equally, the Democrats retained control of the Senate.[43]
The reputation of corrupt and arbitrary state legislatures continued to decline as the Senate joined the House of Representatives implementing popular reforms. Judge Bybee has argued that the amendment led to complete "ignominy" for state legislatures without the props of a state-based check on Congress. Progressive measures were enacted to enable the federal government to supersede the discredited states repeatedly over decades.[44] However, Schleiches argues that the separation of state legislatures and the Senate has had a beneficial effect on the states, as it has allowed state legislative campaigns to focus on local rather than national issues.[20]
New Deal legislation is another example of expanding federal regulation overruling the state legislatures promoting their local state interests in coal, oil, corn and cotton.[45] Ure agrees, saying that not only is each Senator now free to ignore his state's interests, Senators "have incentive to use their advice-and-consent powers to install Supreme Court justices who are inclined to increase federal power at the expense of state sovereignty".[46] Over the first half of the 20th century, with a popularly elected Senate confirming nominations, both Republican and Democratic, the Supreme Court began to apply the Bill of Rights to the states, overturning state laws whenever they harmed individual state citizens.[47]
First direct elections to the Senate
Oklahoma, admitted to statehood in 1907, chose a Senator by legislative election three times: twice in 1907, when admitted, and once in 1908. In 1912, Oklahoma reelected Robert Owen by advisory popular vote.[48]
New Mexico, admitted to statehood in 1912, chose only its first two Senators legislatively. Arizona, admitted to statehood in 1912, chose its first two Senators by advisory popular vote. Alaska, and Hawaii, admitted to statehood in 1959, have never chosen a U.S. Senator legislatively.[48]
The first direct elections to the Senate following the Seventeenth Amendment being adopted were:[48]
• In Maryland on November 4, 1913: a class 1 special election due to a vacancy, for a term ending in 1917.
• In Alabama on May 11, 1914: a class 3 special election due to a vacancy, for a term ending in 1915.
• Nationwide in 1914: All 32 class 3 senators, term 1915–1921
• Nationwide in 1916: All 32 class 1 senators, term 1917–1923
• Nationwide in 1918: All 32 class 2 senators, term 1919–1925
Interpretation and advocacy for reform
In Trinsey v. Pennsylvania (1991),[49] the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit was faced with a situation where, following the death of Senator H. John Heinz III of Pennsylvania, Governor Robert P. Casey had provided for a replacement and for a special election that did not include a primary.[50] A voter and prospective candidate, John S. Trinsey, Jr., argued that the lack of a primary violated the Seventeenth Amendment and his right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment.[51] These arguments were rejected by the Third Circuit, which ruled that the Seventeenth Amendment does not require primaries.[52]
Another subject of analysis is whether statutes restricting the authority of governors to appoint temporary replacements are constitutional. Vikram Amar, writing in the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, claims that Wyoming's requirement that its governor fill a senatorial vacancy by nominating a person of the same party as the person who vacated that Senate seat violates the Seventeenth Amendment.[53] This is based on the text of the Seventeenth Amendment, which states that "the legislature of any state may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments". The amendment only empowers the legislature to delegate the authority to the governor and, once that authority has been delegated, does not permit the legislature to intervene. The authority is to decide whether or not the governor shall have the power to appoint temporary senators, not in what fashion he should do so.[54] Sanford Levinson, in his rebuttal to Amar, argues that rather than engaging in a textual interpretation, those examining the meaning of constitutional provisions should interpret them in the fashion that provides the most benefit, and that legislatures being able to restrict gubernatorial appointment authority provides a substantial benefit to the states.[55]
Due to the controversy over the effects of the Seventeenth Amendment, advocates have emerged for both reform and/or repeal of the amendment. Under President Barack Obama's Administration in 2009, four sitting Democratic senators left the Senate for appointed executive branch positions: Barack Obama (President), Joe Biden (Vice President), Hillary Rodham Clinton (Secretary of State), and Ken Salazar (Secretary of the Interior). Controversies developed about the successor appointments made by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and New York Governor David Paterson. New interest was aroused in abolishing the provision for the Senate appointment by the governor.[56]
Accordingly, Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin[57] and Representative David Dreier of California proposed an amendment to remove this power; Senators John McCain and Dick Durbin became co-sponsors, as did Representative John Conyers.[56] The Tea Party movement has been arguing for repealing the Seventeenth Amendment entirely, claiming that it would protect states' rights and reduce the power of the federal government.[58]

[Boats]

Re: http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/02/sev...ua-spivak.html

Topic: Don't Repeal The 17th Amendment
By: Joshua Spivak

Seemingly embittered by the passage of the health care reform, Congressman Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, has proposed a radical action to help his party: repealing the 17th Amendment–which mandates the direct election of senators. Instead, Gohmert would have state legislatures once again elect U.S. senators.

This isn’t a new idea–over the last few years it has been gaining popularity with conservative proponents of federalism. The theory behind this revision is that it would increase the power of the states in the political process, and have elected officials who, presumably, would care primarily about the state’s interest. Perhaps not coincidentally, the plan would probably benefit the Republican Party, adding a handful of senators to its total number of representatives.

While Gohmert and others may like the short-term political benefit, it does beg a basic question: Have any of its proponents looked at the state of state legislatures? The “laboratories of democracy” have not exactly been the source of national pride, as they are frequently in the news for some new leadership indictment. For example, over the last few years current and former legislative leaders in New York, Massachusetts, Alaska and Florida were indicted on corruption-based charges. It is rare that a state doesn’t have prominent legislative leaders facing investigation and indictment.

But what would be the practical effect if the state legislatures were tasked with choosing senators? Currently, Senatorial hopefuls have to raise and spend a huge amount of money to have a chance at winning election. The money is needed to woo voters–as it is spent on ads, get-out-the-vote campaigns and others basics tool of electoral democracy.

Repealing the 17th Amendment would not remove this pervasive influence of money in the process. Candidates would still spend a ton of it (both personal and fundraised) to win office–only this time it would be directed at one specific interest group: state legislators. The senators and assembly representatives would be showered with campaign funds and other potential benefits (after all, many of the part-time legislators hold outside jobs). Avoiding bribery and corruption in the selection process was one of the stated impetuses for the 17th Amendment in the first place. Despite a century of campaign finance reform debates and better investigative techniques, nothing has really changed with the state legislature. We may quickly find that enough legislators are still susceptible to financial inducements.

But that is not the only problem. State legislative elections would be instantly nationalized. We would quickly see massive amounts of campaign money spent to influence key local races. The issues that state legislators ran on would be further nationalized, turning local races on local issues into a national fever pitch environment, with the election decided on topics that have nothing to do with an average legislator’s job. This already happens, of course, but it will become the norm. We can also expect recall elections run specifically to try and gain the majority in a closely divided legislature. This has also already happened, but may be a regular occurrence under the new system.

Maybe the worst result is one that is already being threatened–the growth in importance of gerrymandering. Redistricting is already overwhelmingly important. After the census is taken each decade, state legislatures redraw district lines. The law requires that each district contain an equal population. But even with this limitation, political leaders are able to slice the maps to maximize political benefit. Elected officials are aware that, with careful crafting skills, they can give themselves and nearly everybody in their party virtually unbeatable districts. The value is so great that former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay basically gambled his career on doing a controversial mid-term redistricting to score a few more seats for the Republicans in Texas.

This year both parties are raising and spending money specifically to elect state legislators to help win the gerrymandering war. Imagine how much more intense this battle will become, and how much more the parties will lean on abusive redistricting practices, if the U.S. Senate itself is actually at stake.

The argument to get rid of the direct election of senators is a tough sell. It goes against the strong current in America favor of increased democracy. Though they claim it would benefit the populace by restoring the federal-state balance and presumably limit government, proponents would have to overcome the argument that they, in effect, do not trust the American people to properly select their own officials.


These are high hurdles to jump. Just as bad, though, is if voters are asked to take a look at the modern record of state legislatures throughout the country. While they may decide that repealing the 17th Amendment is not the worst idea in the world, they’ll certainly realize it’s up there.


Joshua Spivak is a senior fellow at the Hugh L. Carey Institute for Government Reform at Wagner College.

As we see there are Pro's and Con's to this decision