Repealing the 17th Amendment?

Wow! The 17th Amendment has been offered at the California Conservative to be repealed.

When I first read about the 17th admendment, my first thought was on how strange this law was. I understood that the 17th Amendment was passed based on populist reason, that people should be able to vote for the senators directly rather than the state legislators, because corrupted state legislators may choose cronies instead of competent senators.

Yet, I like the idea of keeping the federal government far from the people, so that the people will be more motivated to keep it close by voting more often. It's a strange motivation of the people. Distancing the politics away from the people will counterintuitively drive people back, because they know that they can only vote once every two years. Each voting session may then be celebrated, rather than complained about or entirely ignored.

With myself aghast at the population that could care less about politics, that are more reactive than proactive in policy decision (use bonds to throw money at the problems), and that simply want less tax (and yet do not understand the complexity of providing for a vast population of competing interests and of allocating finance for them), I may be more inclined to support further distancing of government away from the people, until they are educated enough to wrest it back.

But this is all theory.

I still like the idea of repealing the 17th amendment. California Conservative's statement about how 17th amendment prevented the states from being able to check and balance the federal government's growing power only bolsters my support.

Since some senators probably would not support such a repeal, we may need to resort to the never-once used provision providing the legislatures of "two thirds of the several States" to "call a Convention for proposing Amendments".

I apprehend the ambiguity of that provision. Since once a convention is called, any amendments may be proposed, and I do mean, any, including the most frightening ones.

But we must risk them. I want to see what happens. I want to see every single one of those provisions in the Constitution used. After two-thirds of 50 states call a convention, and the amendments are proposed (presumably only by the legislatures, not by the people), then three-fourth of 50 states must ratify them.

That would be quite an event for me, and for the oldest democratic republic in the world. The last amendment ratified was the one preventing senators and representatives from giving themselves a raise in the middle of a Congressional session, but I was too young to appreciate that.

It shouldn't be difficult. The states, or rather, the cities, are already cooperating, for example, in adhering to the Kyoto Protocol. If the expansive federal government cannot check itself, the Progressives that are taking control at the states' and cities' level, may once again lead the way by cooperating to repeal the 17th amendment, thereafter presenting a check and balance on the federal government again.

Read on ...