Quote (Thor123422 @ 10 Dec 2019 22:24)
What are you even talking about? The politicians electing the Senate would be themselves elected.
I know you're half trolling
Not trolling... I was thinking of info that was partly true partly false, and I failed to make it clear what I was referring to, so ... my bad.
Let me clarify:
Before the ratification of the 17th amendment that introduced the popular election of U.S. senators, the state legislatures chose their state's senators. But they did so at their own rules, which in practice were often times undemocratic and/or corrupt.
Some quotes from the wiki article (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution ):
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those in favor of popular elections for senators believed that two primary problems were caused by the original provisions: legislative corruption and electoral deadlocks.[12] 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.
[...]
[...]
The reputation of corrupt and arbitrary state legislatures continued to decline as the Senate joined the House of Representatives implementing popular reforms.
And perhaps more importantly:
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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.
It is this situation in the Southern U.S. that I was primarly thinking of when I polemically said "the people wont get a say anymore if this is implemented". I was remembering this stuff too superficially; obviously, such a situation could not repeat itself nowadays.
Another issue that existed back then:
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The Seventeenth Amendment had a dramatic impact on the political composition of the U.S. Senate.[44] Before the Supreme Court required "one man, one vote" in Reynolds v. Sims (1964), malapportionment of state legislatures was common. For example, 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.
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I still see three problems with going back to this system in the present. First, it would drastically reduce the chances of a state having a split Senate delegation. In states like North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida or Colorado, we very often see one Democratic and one Republican senator. If the party controlling the state legislature could choose the senators, we would imho see this a lot less. The second problem is deadlock if the two chambers of the state legislature are controlled by different parties. Which also happens quite a lot. The third problem is that the chambers of state legislatures can be gerrymandered, while statewide popular elections for senator cant.
In general, I'm not so sure that your arguments in favor of going back to this system would serve the goals you mentioned. State legislatures can be prone to populist surges, and state legislatures typically contain a fair number of weirdos and unqualified nutjobs.
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Dec 10 2019 05:01pm