The “Restoring Honor” event at the Lincoln Memorial was inspiring. That should be just the beginning of a “Restoration Movement.” We don’t really need a revolution in America; all we need to do is restore what once was. I have a suggestion for another aspect of our Founding that needs to be restored—a suggestion that some will call unrealistic, yet one that the Founders considered essential.
Let’s restore the provision in the original wording of the Constitution that allows state legislatures to choose a state’s senators who serve in Congress.
Article I, Section 3 says, “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof.”
The reasoning was lucid: the people of each state already had direct representation into the national government via the House of Representatives; it was necessary as well to provide representation for the state governments in the national Congress. The goal was to make sure that laws passed by each state were not going to be overturned by the national government without good reason.
It was one of those key checks on power; it was to provide balance in the federal system.
Why did this change?
REPEAL THE 17TH AMENDMENT
By
John MacMullin
After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the federal government announced that it would preempt all state jurisdiction over airport security. The federal government preempted state powers without regard to balancing federal and state responsibilities so that these responsibilities, and related costs, could be distributed across federal, state, and local governments. To carry out this preemption, the federal government recently reported that it will employ more than 47,000 federal recruits in the fight against terrorism as newly trained security screeners. They are to begin working at 424 airports nationwide.
These developments, and numerous others in the past, remind us that there are no checks and balances available to the states over federal power or over Congress itself in any area. However, in the history of our country, it was not always this way. In the original design by the Framers of the U.S. Constitution, there was an effective check on Congress through the state legislatures’ power to appoint (and remove) United States Senators.
The Seventeenth Amendment (Amendment XVII) to the United States Constitution established direct election of United States Senators by popular vote. 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, to be consistent with the method of election. It was ratified and took effect on April 8, 1913.
