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.
Tom Butler yet it also give the state rights to remove said senator should they forget who they work for.
Jonathan Dodge wrong. 2/3 of the house and senate propose an amendment. 3/4 of the state legislatures agree, and amendment is passed. This is how prohibition was repealed.
The Amendment Process
There are two major steps in the amendment process. First, amendments must be proposed. Amendments can be proposed in two different ways. AN AMENDMENT CAN BE PROPOSED BY CONGRESS if two-thirds of the members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate vote in favor of it. Alternatively, two-thirds of the legislatures of the fifty states can call for a constitutional convention for the purposes of proposing amendments to the Constitution. Since the Constitution was ratified in 1789, numerous amendments to the Constitution have been proposed by the Congress, but the states have never voted to call for a new constitutional convention.
Once an amendment to the Constitution has been proposed, it must be ratified to become “valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of [the] Constitution.” Article V specifies two methods by which proposed amendments can by ratified. First, an amendment can be ratified if three-fourths of the legislatures of the several states vote in support of it. Alternatively, the Congress can direct the states to establish special ratifying conventions to consider proposed amendments. If three-fourths of these conventions approve the amendment, it is ratified and becomes part of the Constitution.
Yeaa, B******t…
The 17th amendment should be repealed. The senators were not selected by popular vote originally for a reason.
Jonathan Dodge Do you mean perhaps, like the 2nd Amendment????
Switzerland is my favorite democracy because everything is voted by the people in direct referendums – case closed. If 51% vote for something or against something then that is it. Even Swiss citizenship- if you live 15 yrs in Switzerland and you did everything right, to get Swiss citizenship a group of Swiss citizens are convened and they vote if you are worthy of Swiss citizenship or not. If they vote no – guess what? You ain’t getting it! No lobbyists, no special interest groups can help you.
How about they recognize the THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT first and maybe just maybe most of the problems would go away
All 27 amendments have been done by Congress.
The “House of Representatives” was to be the “Peoples” house. The “Senate” was to be the “States” House (elected by State Legislatures.) Woodrow Wilson’s Progressives took the power away from the States in 1913 with the 17th.