When the Constitution was written, the Founders decided to have a bicameral legislature. The House of Representatives was to be the People’s House, the number of members determined by population. The Senate was to give equal representation to each state, thus every state received 2 senators.
Senators were selected by the state legislatures, making them wholly answerable to those same legislatures for re-election. State legislators took a dim view of Senators transferring power from the state (them) to the federal government (someone else in a distant capitol). The 17th Amendment to the Constitution upended that balance. The Senate became a second People’s House with fewer members and a lower turnover rate. The state governments now had no representation in the federal government.
That brings us to Obamacare. Currently, 26 states are suing the federal government over a variety of issues with the health care overhaul and have requested the Supreme Court to overturn it. Those 26 states have 52 senators, not only more than the 40 needed to stop legislation but a majority of the senate. And yet Obamacare passed with 60 votes. Prior to 17th Amendment, the health care overhaul could not have passed with so much opposition from the state governments.
Since the passage of the 17th Amendment, there has been a steady transfer of power from the states to the federal government. Oddly enough, senators owe no allegiance to the governor or legislators of their state. It is a hard sell to say ‘I prevented the federal government from taking power from our great state and will continue to gum up the federal works if re-elected.’ It is much easier to say ‘I brought billions of federal dollars to our state and I’ll bring back even more if re-elected.’
Few things would do more to restore federalism and representative republicanism than to repeal the 17th Amendment. The federal government would have a much tougher time inflicting unfunded mandates on the states; there are more than 150 such mandates.
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