The Utah Senate asked Congress to repeal the 17th Amendment, which was ratified under the Progressive’s of 1913. Utah has boldly challenged a system that was never the intent of the Founding Fathers and suggests that the 17th Amendment has resulted in Senators being bound to special interest groups, that donate enormous sums of money for the Senator’s re-election, and not representing the needs of the people of Utah.
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Al Jackson of Utah, believes that Senators need to “come home every weekend and take direction from their state legislative (sic) body and from the House and the Governor on how they should vote in the upcoming week.”
Passing with 20-6 SJR2 was sent to the House. It demands that Congress repeal the 17th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Read a history of the 17th Amendment and why Utah has made such a bold call to action on the following page.
This is just silly!!!!!
Congress can’t repeal it. Only the states can and it would take 3/4 (38) of them, however the 16th and 17th both should be repealed.
Not sure the state legislators represent the people anymor. The also are funded in their relections but big money.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. With all due respect to the views of Don Douglas, if citizens are fulfilling their responsibilities, then the state legislature is the place to select senators. If the citizens are NOT fulfilling their responsibilities to vote and agitate, then to hell with them.
Yep, one more election we wouldn’t have to worry about. We trust the government to appoint appropriate representation for us…right
So, having the government appoint your representative is wise and having the people vote for all of their representatives is a power play by the government?
Our Founders thought so. That was the system they put in place when the Constitution was written. The biggest area of contention was how to limit Federal power over the States. Giving Governors the power to nominate and the Legislatures the power to confirm Senators, all of whom had been elected by their Citizens, was the mechanism by which the States would control the most powerful side of Congress.
Do you really think Senators over the years would have voted in favor of all the sweeping Federal programs that have been shoved down the throats of the States, forcing their Legislatures to raise State taxes, and the ire of their voters, if those Senators had been subject to being replaced by those State leaders? This was the best Constitutional check on Federal power in the Constitution and that’s why the Progressives pushed so hard to get it changed.
And they did it in typical Progressive/Liberal fashion. By convincing the Citizenry it was in their best interest when, in fact, it was just the opposite.
I don’t understand how anybody thinking the government choosing our representatives is any better than us choosing our own. I see a senate beholden to the House to pass whatever legislation the House wants or they lose their job.
They amend it by passing an amendment, that doesn’t require a Convention of States.
Not beholden to the Federal House of Representatives. Beholden to the Governor and State Legislature of the State they represent. This is the way it was setup by the Founders in the Constitution and it stayed that way until the 17th Amendment was passed in the 1920’s. It’s passage was pushed for by President Woodrow Wilson, a Progressive Democrat.