The tea party’s worst idea
I’ve spent a lot of time reporting on the tea party over the last year, finding some intriguing and positive elements to the movement, and some troubling and ugly aspects as well.
But of all the actual ideas being put forward by conservative activists, the worst may be the idea of repealing the 17th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
That was the amendment, ratified in 1913, that ended the practice of state legislatures choosing United States Senators.
Before it was passed, voters had no direct involvement in choosing the 100 lawmakers who make up the most powerful legislative body in our country.
For conservatives, there is a very clear logic to this step backward: empowering the states.
If they have their way, the Senate won’t in fact reflect the will of the people, it will reflect the sovereignty and authority of the fifty individual US states.
Tea Party activists also argue that the idea is worth reviving because that’s how the founding fathers wanted it.
But let’s be clear: the founding fathers embedded a lot of terrible ideas in the Constitution, including slavery and the denial of voting rights to women.
There are so many problems with the proposal to repeal the 17th amendment that it’s hard to know where to begin, but just for fun let’s start in Albany.
If conservatives had their way, our state legislature — the most dysfunctional in the United States — would have sole authority to decide who represents us in Washington DC.
This is a legislature that can’t even pass a budget, where scandals and indictments are an accepted part of the culture.
And Albany is hardly unique. Legislatures from Alaska to Florida are no better.
Anyone who thinks that corruption, backroom dealing, and gridlock are the solve provinces of our nation’s capital hasn’t been paying attention.
What’s more there’s a lot of evidence that the old system worked horribly.
State lawmakers often went years at a time without choosing a new Senator, leaving their people without national representation.
From 1901 until 1903, the state of Delaware had no US Senators at all because the state’s legislature was stalemated over the question.
There are some in our country who believe that the virtues of Federalism — a system that includes a far more decentralized national government — outweigh these problems.
They are wrong.
Under the current system, each state’s voters gets to make a choice about their representation.
If they want to elect leaders who want a weaker national government and more state’s rights, they are free to do so.
The US Senate is already the least representative legislature in any democracy in the world.
Because it doesn’t grant seats based on population — instead, each state gets two seats regardless of size — small states like Vermont receive 38 times more clout in the Senate per capita than big states like New York.
That’s already a huge redistribution of power.
If we backtrack to an antebellum, good-old-boy system for choosing our lawmakers, then the Senate will have lost almost all connection to the people it represents.
.jpg)
They forget that the founders also made provision to amend the Constitution as times change and we discovered what worked for democracy and what didn’t. Slavery didn’t work, denying women the right to vote didn’t work and appointing the Senate didn’t work. They also forget that the founding fathers were (dare I say it) an elitist group of educated land owners who distrusted the ability of the masses to participate directly in governing themselves.
There are things that need changing to work better, the electoral college system leaps to mind, but going back to something that didn’t work 100 years ago won’t make it work any better now than it did then. Democracy is inherently difficult and messy. It requires a higher level of tolerance than many people are exhibiting these days.
I have a great deal of sympathy for the teabaggers, the little people in this country are getting the shaft and they want to take their country back. Unfortunately their analysis of what the real problem is and who is responsible seems completely backward to me.
There was a class war in this country. The top 1% won; the rest of us lost. Already the business and financial elites largely control the election system, the legislatures and the courts. All we ordinary people have is our vote and if we band together we can take our country back from the corporate elite. It is too bad that the strategy of divide and conquer works so well.
Let me use the “right to bear arms” as an example.I’m going to simplify for sake of brevity. The political “right” believe that the government wants to take their guns away so that they can be more easily enslaved. The fact is that they have been enslaved already by financial elites who hold their pension money, who have trapped them in debt and ever rising taxes. All while the financial elites get richer and pay fewer taxes because the “right” are against raising income taxes on the rich, capital gains taxes, or estate taxes.
The phrase “taking back our country” sounds more like “taking our country backward.”
The phrase also reminds me of those sorry dudes who moan about the good ol’ days, the days when they were still in high school.
The weird thing is that repealing the 17th amendment would likely mean that less tea party candidates would have a chance to win a Senate race in a particular state.
I don’t understand their logic? I am missing how repealing the 17th amendment has anything to do with states rights?
Just one more step in the conservative strategy of drowning the government in the bathtub. They won’t be happy until we have 50 un-United States.
I think federalism is probably something that will save this country. As we become more heterogeneous and more sharply divided on many issues; it will make sense to let states have more autonomy and more power to run their own affairs. It is also more democratic.
I question where the source information on the Tea Party being just frothing at the mouth to repeal the 17th Amend. comes from. This is the first I’ve heard of it. In fact Brian is the only person I’ve ever heard speak of it. While I can understand the desire to see a limited Federal Gov;t as the Founders envisioned, I’m not sure this is at the forefront of anyones list.
What or who is your source on this Brian?
Excellent post Brian. I have one objection. Do you think the State legislature in New York is the most screwed up? I think we Californians have you beat. Our state budget is anticpated to be 20 billion dollars in the red, and state employees are so well organized and so politically powerfull, no meaningful cuts to state employee numbers or pay are possible. Let’s face it, when the baby boom generation was working and paying taxes, state governments created budgets that would assume the money would keep coming in forever. Now that baby bomers are retiring and seeking government benefits, there is no large tax paying cohort paying into the system.
There was an idea awhile back to balance the budget on outsiders. We would charge every visitor who arrived by car, boat or plane coming into California a $10.00 tax. The idea was dropped when detractors mocked it as the “two drink minimum” for the state.
Here’s conservative Tony Blankley talking about the idea
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-blankley/repeal-the-17th-amendment_b_438630.html
Here’s a Columbus Dispatch article about how the debate is surfacing in a political fight in Ohio.
blog.dispatch.com/dailybriefing/2010/04/stivers_i_didnt_really_mean_it_1.shtml
Here’s an article from 2004 where conservative Bruce Bartlett urges the repeal of the 17th amendment
old.nationalreview.com/nrof_bartlett/bartlett200405120748.asp
He writes:
“The 17th amendment was ratified in 1913. It is no coincidence that the sharp rise in the size and power of the federal government starts in this year (the 16th amendment, establishing a federal income tax, ratified the same year, was also important).”
So you have a screwed up legislature in New York state? How did they get there? Were they appointed or elected? They of course were elected by the people of New York so what makes you think that if New Yorkers can’t make a good selection for their state house they will make a better one for the national Congress? It seems to me the argument goes both ways. As far as California goes read Fareed Zakaria’s “Future of Freedom” pp. 187-198. It’s an eye opening reexamination of the dangers of uncontrolled democracy at the state and federal level and see if you don’t think repealing the 17th has a least a little merit (and keep in mind that Zakaria is not a tea partier by any stretch).
If nothing else repealing the 17th will go along way in reigning in special interest money and will get the power closer to the people. I think that is something the right, left, and libertarian could go for.
More power to the states? That’s a horrible decision if you live in NY. Our state legislature is so corrupt and dysfunctional that I want as few decisions as possible made by it. There are no meaningful state ethics or campaign finance laws, and public employees and the health care industry run the show.
I trust DC much more than Albany or NYC- which let’s face it has a stranglehold on our state government.
3 articles, one 6 years old and another about a nobody sticking his foot in his mouth in Ohio? Blankleys article at least makes sense, although I’d want to hear a lot more discussion about it before casting a vote.
Sorry Brian, it may be something Ron Paul talks about, but St Paul also has a Mid East policies that revolves around Israel and nukes and letting things go as they may. Not a real good plan in my opinion.
As for the States each having 2 Senators, yes, as intended. Read the thoughts behind that move before passing judgment. It was a very wise and fair plan. If the Senate was designed like the House with a numerical base to their number…then whats the sense of having a Senate? The Senate is supposed to be the wiser, more moderate voice that slows the hasty moves the House might make. True, now the Senate is just a mess, but I don;t think changing it would be a wise move at all.
The Blankly article was interesting but I don’t see it as a banner for the tea party at all. His point seems to be that corruption would be focused on the state legislature who would appoint the Senators; versus being focused in Washington and thus would serve more directly the corrupt state parties versus the corrupt national parties, which I guess a lesser of two evils. This is not an approach that populist movements are going to get excited about or win with; in that regard I agree with Brian if this IS a tea party plank it is very stupid.
in addition to brian’s links, tpm has a good overview the push to repeal the 17th amendment from within the tea party here.
One aspect of this issue to consider is that the appointment of Senators by the State will once again “localize” the vote for our Senators.
We are much closer to our State representatives, and if they know that we know who they appoint, they will be much more in tune with us than the way it is now.
I’m sorry but I’ve looked around and this repeal action just isn’t on the screen anywhere among the TP sites or blogs I frequent, and that’s quite a few. Is it possible this is just such an odd idea that it strikes a chord with liberals/anti-TP types (like TPM) as an absurd example of TP thinking?
As far as NYs legislature being entrusted with ANYTHING, much less choosing a Senator, isn’t it really sad that in a era when the State Legislature proves day after day that they need to be replaced ASAP that we keep sending them back? Doesn’t a large part of the blame for this belong to those who blindly pull Row A or Row B every election? That in a nutshell is what the TP is all about.
“If conservatives had their way, our state legislature — the most dysfunctional in the United States — would have sole authority to decide who represents us in Washington DC.”
Brian, why do you label tea-party activists as “conservatives”? Sure most share some of these principles, but the majority of “conservatives” are not tea-partiers and they probably don’t support this crazy idea.
BTW I can’t believe that NCPR has not followed up on the APA’s boat house regulation decisions that you were following so well. Friday’s meeting was a classic!
Brian,
Do you want me to send you some links to loony liberals suggesting loony ideas? And then we can just say that ALL liberals are loony and support the loony ideas?
This idea is going no where. I wouldn’t waste any time on it. But suit yourself. I think that some of these TP ideas seem to get steam when liberals latch on to them and start to criticize them. It’s kind of scary.
Personally, I think it is a dumb idea. Discussing the possibility is fine I guess. Here in NY if we let our current legislature choose our senators we would have two that are similar to what we have now. But who knows what you would get in the future.
You can be assured that thoughtful people of all political persuasions – certainly liberals during the Bush Administration, and conservatives in this era of Obama – have endorsed a strong system of states’ rights and American Federalism. In fact, the last person to offer a formal bill in the Senate to begin a repeal of the 17th Amendment was a Democrat. Why?
Because the order and framework of the U.S. Constitution falls apart with the direct election of Senators and the lack of state representation in the national government. The whole notion of checks and balances / separation of powers vanishes after 1913 and the 17th’s passage. Ask: If power corrupts – if corrupted power is unresponsive power – isn’t the point of the U.S. Constitution to limit power? Think, man, how did the constitution do it before 1913 and not after? Think….
http://www.restorefederalism.org