07/30/2006
From: Steve Rankin
Re: George Warm’s Letter: A Florida Reader Calls For A Repeal Of The 17th Amendment
I comment on Warm’s letter that called for repealing the 17th Amendment.
The Founding Fathers provided that U. S. senators would be elected by the state legislatures: to check the power of the federal government, senators were to represent their state governments as ambassadors to the national government. This was the states' main check on the federal government.
With the advent of state-mandated party primary elections in the early 20th century, some states began conducting senatorial preferential primaries. The legislatures in those states would usually rubber-stamp the results of those primaries. So the movement began for direct election of U. S. senators, which culminated in the adoption of the 17th Amendment.
I was recently disappointed to learn that Calvin Coolidge, who was then active in Massachusetts politics, supported the direct election of U. S. senators.
Loyola College in Maryland economics professor Thomas DiLorenzo has written an excellent piece calling for repealing the 17th Amendment which is available on the Mises Institute’s website.
While I think restoring the founders' intent would be a good thing, I don’t see it ever happening.
Rankin, who lives in Jackson, posts on his Free Citizen blog.
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