Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Amendment XVII (the Seventeenth Amendment) of the United States Constitution proposed on May 13, 1912 and ratified on April 8, 1913 and first in effect for the election of 1914, amends Article 1 Section 3 of the Constitution to provide for the direct election of Senators by the people of a state rather than their election or appointment by a state legislature. It was passed and ratified during the Progressive Era. It states:

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.

Historical background

The selection of delegates to the Constitutional Convention established the precedent that states could choose Federal officials at a higher level than direct election. Originally senators were to be elected by their state legislatures to represent the individual and semisovereign states. This was possibly done to also increase the chances for ratifying the Constitution. Because most of the founders of the Articles of Confederation wanted a looser group of sovereign states, this clause was inserted in order to keep the "sovereign states" represented in federal government. They also expected that senators elected by state legislatures would be able to concentrate on the business at hand without regional pressure from the populace, aided by a longer term than Representatives.

This process worked without major problems through the mid-1850s, when the American Civil War was in the offing. Due to increasing partisanship and strife, many state legislatures failed to elect Senators for prolonged periods. An example: In Indiana the conflict between Democrats in the southern half of the state and the emerging Republican Party in the northern half prevented an election for two years. The aforementioned partisanship lead to contentious battles in the legislatures, as the struggle to elect senators reflected the increasing regional tensions in the lead up to the Civil War.

After the war, problems still multiplied. In one case in the mid-1860s, the election of Senator John Stockton from New Jersey was contested on the grounds that he had been elected by a plurality (majority of those voting) rather than a majority (of the entire membership) in the state legislature. Stockton defended himself on the grounds that the exact method for senatorial election varied from state to state. To keep this from happening again, Congress passed a law in 1866 regulating how and when senators were to be elected from each state. This was the first change in the process of senatorial elections. While the law helped, there were still numerous deadlocks in some legislatures and accusations of bribery, corruption and suspicious dealings in some elections. Nine bribery cases were brought before the Senate between 1866 and 1906. In addition, forty-five deadlocks occurred in twenty states between 1891 and 1905, resulting in numerous delays in seating senators. Beginning in 1899, Delaware did not send a senator to Washington for four years.

Reform efforts began as early as 1826, when direct election was first proposed. In the 1870s, voters sent a petition to the House of Representatives for popular election. From 1893 to 1902, momentum increased considerably. Each year during that period, a constitutional amendment to elect senators by popular vote was proposed in Congress, but the Senate fiercely resisted change. In the mid-1890s, the Populist Party incorporated the direct election of senators into its party platform, although neither the Democrats nor the Republicans paid much notice at the time. Direct election was also part of the Wisconsin Idea championed by Republican progressive Robert La Follette and Nebraska Republican reformer George Norris. In the early 1900s, Oregon pioneered direct election and experimented with different measures over several years until it succeeded in 1907. Soon after, Nebraska followed suit and laid the foundation for other states to adopt measures for direct election.

After the turn of the century, momentum for reform grew rapidly. William Randolph Hearst expanded his publishing empire with Cosmopolitan, which became a respected general-interest magazine and championed the cause of direct election with muckraking articles and strong advocacy of reform. Hearst hired a veteran reporter, David Graham Phillips, who wrote scathing pieces on senators, portraying them as corrupt pawns of industrialists and financiers. The pieces became a series titled "The Treason of the Senate," which appeared in several monthly issues of the magazine in 1906. ^*

Increasingly, senators were elected based on state referenda, similar to the means developed by Oregon. By 1912, as many as 29 states elected senators either as nominees of their party's primary or in conjunction with a general election. As representatives of a direct election process, the new senators supported measures that argued for federal legislation, but in order to achieve total reform, a constitutional amendment was required. In 1911, Senator Joseph Bristow from Kansas offered a resolution, proposing a constitutional amendment. The idea also enjoyed strong support from Senator William Borah of Idaho, himself a product of direct election. Eight Southern senators and all Republican senators from New England, New York, and Pennsylvania opposed Senator Bristow's resolution. The Senate approved the resolution largely because of the senators who had been elected by state-initiated reforms, many of whom were serving their first term, and therefore may have been more willing to support direct election. After the Senate passed the amendment, the measure moved to the House of Representatives.

The House initially fared no better than the Senate in its early discussions of the proposed amendment. In the summer of 1912 the House finally passed the amendment and sent it to the states for ratification. The campaign for public support was aided by senators such as Borah and political scientist George H. Haynes, whose scholarly work on the Senate contributed greatly to passage of the amendment.

The last state needed to ratify was Connecticut which ratified it in 1913, one year prior to the United States Senate election, 1914.

The Amendment

The Seventeenth Amendment restates the first paragraph of Article I, section 3 of the Constitution and provides for the election of senators by replacing the phrase "chosen by the Legislature thereof" with "elected by the people thereof." Also, it allows the governor or executive authority of each state, if authorized by that state's legislature, to appoint a senator in the event of an opening, until an election occurs.

The Seventeenth Amendment is one of the "Progressive Amendments"; they were passed during the Progressive Era, with the support of the political group known as the "Progressives". The other Progressive amendments were: the 16th amendment, which created the income tax; the 18th amendment, which started Prohibition of alcoholic beverages; and the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

Criticism

In 2004, after announcing his retirement, Senator Zell Miller introduced a constitutional amendment (S.J. Res. 35) that would repeal the Seventeenth Amendment, arguing that it gives too much power to Washington's special interests and was an attack on federalism. Alan Keyes, the veteran of unsuccessful presidential and senatorial campaigns, has also criticized the Seventeenth Amendment. At least three prominent libertarians (authors Harry Browne and Thomas DiLorenzo and libertarian web magazine author Lew Rockwell) have come out in favor of repeal, on the grounds that the amendment upsets the balance of power between the federal government and state governments. Constitution.org's own copy of the U.S. Constitution has a note that the Seventeenth Amendment is possibly inconsistent with Article V, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution^* which reads "no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate." Of the 48 states admitted to the union at the time of ratification, 10 (Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and Virginia) did not ratify the amendment, lending validity to the argument that they never consented to deprivation of their "equal suffrage."

Some argue that the Seventeenth Amendment upsets the balance of states' rights. Although some voters are politically aware, most recent polls show people are not. This would lead one to believe that it would be simpler to leave the constitution the way it was intended, meaning the voter would only have to vote for the state legislators, the House of Representatives, and President. Returning the power to the state legislatures would allow the states to lobby for some political ideals unseen to the average American such as disputes between states and interstate commerce regulations.

Although repeal efforts remain in limbo, it seems that supporters of repeal will not be able to accrue the necessary support within Congress—or among the American people—to do away with the Seventeenth Amendment. In fact, as recently as 2002, lawmakers in Alabama, in a symbolic gesture, belatedly approved the Seventeenth Amendment, several decades after Congress offered it for ratification.

Reference

U.S. Senate: Direct Election of Senators

External links

Neutral

Anti-Seventeenth Amendment

Pro-Seventeenth Amendment

Alan Keyes' Daffy Idea to Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment

1913 in law | Amendments to the United States Constitution | United States Senate

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