The 17th amendment struck a near mortal blow to the heart of Federalism, dangerously weakening the biggest check and balance of them all – the Federal govt being answerable to the states – within the system Madison and the founders worked so hard to create, and you can track the spiraling growth and reach of the federal government directly to it.

Regarding graft and politics… well… I am shocked, shocked I say, to hear graft, favoritism and corruption may work its way into politics. As Madison said,

“But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controuls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to controul the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to controul itself.”

The Founders had no illusions about the amount of seamy politics which existed in their own day, and they certainly feared how things might develop in a ‘debased posterity’ such as our own, and as such they had no notions or expectations of eliminating it, what they attempted to do, brilliantly, was to harness them to the benefit of constitutional government.

The famed system of checks and balances did not rest just on defining and arranging the different branches of government, and Federal against States, key to the checks and balances was ordering them so that theambitions of those individuals in each of those parts would work against the ambitions of those in the others.

Yes there will be some in the states who will try and feather their nest with favors and power – ‘We The People’ will never be free from our responsibility to keep a close eye on those in power (the price of liberty is eternal vigilance) – but even those shady deals will tend to benefit the interests of the States, and they will be more wary and jealous of the attempts of the Federal Govt to impose itself on, and usurp their powers within our states. As things stand now, the 17th amendment has left us with state senators who are so unconcerned with our states powers and interests as to say such as I heard Sen. Green say last week, regarding SJR25, on the floor of our senate “”What is the use of so called ‘Sovereignty’, didn’t we deal with that in the Civil War?” (I noted that and more in this post).

As a result of the 17th amendment, our state legislators have nearly zero influence on our U.S. Senators since they have little reason for concern with the concerns of our state legislators, our states have lost their voice in the Federal Govt, the 10th Amendment is nearly disregarded and it is left to ‘We The People’ to point out that something’s deeply wrong here.

It is hard to see how the Fed Govt would be able to consider mandating the purchasing decisions of the citizens of the states, if they were answerable to those relatively few state legislators whose turf they now so recklessly stomp across.

The 17th amendment, like the 18th (prohibition), was a poorly thought out attempt to better things, has proved a colossal failure, and needs to be repealed as well. Pronto.

I think this is a complex problem that repealing the 17th Amendment alone will not solve. Partly, I find that citizens are not informed voters and are voting based on Party over the actual record of candidates. This combined with poor Party leadership to expose members of their own Party who are corrupt or “playing politics” instead of representing the people.

That said, repealing the 17th Amendment certainly would be a step in the right direction.