Our Founding Fathers created a unique form of civil government with numerous checks on power to keep it in balance so that one group of people were less likely to dominate another. One of those checks and balances was the clause from Article 1, Section 3 of the original Constitution, which stated,
“The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof…”
The check and balance in this clause was that each State’s legislature, which is itself composed of representative of the different constituents of that State, would choose the Senators. This clause was a counter-balance to the popular election of US Representatives. The US Senate, as the more senior body, was created to temper the exuberance of the populace.
The originally prescribed appointment system worked well until railroad and industrial magnates began corrupting it in the 1870s. They used their immense wealth to bribe state legislators into appointing Senators that would do the will of those who made the bribes. This corruption led to partisan deadlock in State legislatures in which some States went without one or two Senators for many years. Between 1891 and 1905, there were 46 deadlocks that occurred among 20 States.
By 1912, thirty State legislatures had passed resolutions petitioning Congress for a Constitutional amendment to have Senators popularly elected by each State. At that time, they were two States shy of the two-thirds needed to forced a convention. To pre-empt a Constitutional convention, Congress proposed an amendment to change Senate appointments to a popular vote, and the States ratified the proposed amendment in 1913, which became the 17th Amendment.
Regrettably, the 17th Amendment shifted Gilded Age corruption to campaign finance and lobbying at the national level, and it shifted deadlock from Senate appointments to the floor of the Senate in its frequent inability to appropriate funding during regular order. The Senate, as a result, has become far more dysfunctional and a far less discerning body of Congress as it pushes majority popular policy instead of tempered and moderated bills.
America did not need an amendment to fix the corruption problem and the resultant deadlock. Congress and the States could have created anti-corruption and ethics provisions enforceable by both federal and state law, and mandated public recorded votes for transparency, thus eliminating back-room appointments prone to corruption.
Now, to restore the check and balance that our Founders gave us, as well as eliminate or significantly curtail all types of Senate election corruption and partisan deadlock, we must repeal and replace the 17th Amendment.
Attached is a draft bill to repeal the 17th Amendment, restore the legislative appointment process with safeguards against all types of bribery, corruption, and deadlocks, while enabling constituents recall ability.