Tag: 17th Amendment

Repeal the 17th Amendment: The Anti-Federalist Warnings We Must Not Ignore

December 16, 2024

by Michael Boldin

Repealing the 17th Amendment has become a rallying cry for those seeking to restore federalism. But the Anti-Federalists warned during the ratification debates that structural flaws in the Senate run much deeper than merely the method of election. Corruption, careerism, and usurpations of power won’t disappear with repeal alone – not even close. The Anti-Federalists … Read more

If Constitutional Amendments Are No Longer Absolute, We Can Stop Paying Taxes?

June 11, 2022

by Steve MacDonald

President* Joe Biden has announced that the amendments in the US Constitution are not absolute. Like any good civilian disarmament Democrat, he’d like the government to manage what sort of “weapons” we’ll be allowed to have or use. I want to suggest whatever he left in Afghanistan.

Repeal the 17th Amendment

December 29, 2021

by Burt Janz

The Constitution describes 3 branches of the federal government: the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. It also originally indicated that the rules to elect Senators and Representatives “… shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof” (emphasis mine) and that Senators were elected by each State’s Legislature.

Make America States Again

September 26, 2018August 28, 2018

by Ian Underwood

The 17th Amendment was supposed to solve a particular problem — the political establishment was thought to be exercising too much control over the selection of senators, making the process too susceptible to corruption. The idea was to fix that by taking control out of the hands of that establishment, and putting it directly into the hands of voters.

No, seriously. People apparently thought that would address the problem.

But as is so often the case in politics, the cure turned out to be worse than the disease. Without solving the the old problem, it created a new, and much worse, problem — one that has recently metastasized from the Senate to the House.