*sigh* Why‽ Why do want to take are ability to vote for are US Senators away from us?
Do you elect all your judges? You may elect local judges, but many places do not, and you certainly don’t elect Federal judges. Do you elect the president’s Cabinet? Do you elect the parliamentarian? Do you elect who becomes Speaker of the House? Do you choose the president’s running mate when you nominate your party’s presidential candidate?
There are so many roles we do not elect? It’s not like it undermines democracy. Repealing the 17th Amendment is one of the ways I favor the democratic republic government.
Consider this: a senator is elected for six years, while a congressperson is elected for only two; senators are always two per state, while congresspeople reflect the general population. These traits were part of the Great Compromise of 1787 to ensure that small states were not overpowered by large states. But wait a second! Now that the people elect these individuals directly, these traits do not match the power granted a senator. Now a senator is nearly impossible to remove from office until he/she drops dead or decides to throw in the towel. More frequent elections allow for congresspeople to be replaced more readily. Also, if the population itself, instead of the state government, directly elect senators, then what is the point of having two per state? We are not safeguarding the small states when we are granting the general population proportionally larger power than the large states. We are simply divvying out the power of everyone’s vote unfairly.
Now, look at the positives of having the state legislature make the call. First, most people are set in their ways. Elections are decided almost entirely on the whims of the relatively few whose minds are not made up. The rest is left up to the enthusiasm of those committed to their worldview, whether they will get out and vote. But the end result on a large scale is what is called “the tyranny of the majority.” Look at the referendum on the U.K.'s withdrawal from the EU. If you think about it, most people probably did not have their minds changed from the beginning to the end of the process. But a relatively few did, and thus determined what, in my mind, was an economic catastrophe for Europe. What is interesting about deliberative bodies instead of direct democracy is that policy change does not depend on the whims of a relative few. People debate and make decisions they believe will be in the lasting interest of the people. Those decision are not sudden, but rather systematic and slow. Indirect elections can actually put a brake on kneejerk reactions. Take a look at this article where “the majority” of Britons actually oppose Brexit now.
53% to 47%, people now oppose it. Yet, that really represents the minds changing of only a relative few.
If we were to allow our state legislatures to have more of a role in the electing federal officers (i.e. senators), think of the positives. First, Americans would pay more attention to their local elections, making sure they put state legislators in place with whom they agree, and not simply voting for the president of their choice, and then marking all the members of the same party on the rest of the ticket. Second, it would allow for the legislators, who are more keenly aware of the states’ fiscal and policy needs than the average state resident, to elect a senator to represent the state government’s needs. Remember, the state legislators are still directly elected. Now, they’ll actually be better able to perform their jobs because the federal senators would be answerable to them. And third, speaking of being answerable to them, if the senators get out of line, the state legislator could more easily remove them than we as a general population can. Fourth, those brakes I was talking about…senators would be less likely to make snap decisions based on the passing popularity of an item and would be more likely to represent the needs of the deliberative body on the state level.
It may seem counterintuitive, but I believe repealing the 17 Amendment would actually improve the legislative process on the state and federal levels.