Delaware Finally Ratifies 17th Amendment [Who Knew]
Quick, what does the 17th Amendment provide for?
[Jeopardy music]
Give up? Well, I guess you are not a teabagger then if you did not know this, but the 17th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides for the direct popular election of U.S. Senators rather than having the state legislatures appoint them, which is what the Constitution originally provided for. The Amendment was part of the Progressive push to reform government and politics in the early 1900’s. Today’s teabaggers want to repeal that amendment for some reason, perhaps because they oppose democracy.
Delaware apparently never ratified the Amendment before now, which apparently did not prevent the Amendment from garnering enough states for ratification nearly a century ago. It’s kind of embarrassing, don’t ya think? Did we just forget? Was the bill for ratification lost in the desk drawer of the late Thurman Adams?
Well, a bill sponsored by David Sokola passed the General Assembly providing for ratification. I guess next up is giving women the right to vote. Do we have to? 😉
So that means Ted Kaufmann is a senator but Tom Carper isn’t?
Recall! Recall! Recall!
“I guess next up is giving women the right to vote. Do we have to?”
As my beloved mother says, “Don’t stick your hand in the shark tank.”
jason made me laugh today
seriously, are we retroactively 17th amended in our actions?
Well, technically speaking, the US isn’t a democracy….
Actually, the reason some wish to see the 17th Amendment repealed is that the direct election of Senators upset the balance established by the Founders, under which the States were to be represented in the Senate while the people directly were to be represented in the House.
“US isn’t a democracy”
selection of ‘representatives’ is on paper largely democratic. but of course there’s never been and never will be true communism/freemarkets/meritocracy/utopia/aryannation/fillintheblank
“direct election of Senators upset the balance established by the Founders, under which the States were to be represented in the Senate while the people directly were to be represented in the House.”
hmmeth, the olde concepte seemeth familiare.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords
One of the great things about the Founding Fathers is their understanding that the constitution would require updating (amendments); if some folks want to get back to the original intent, then some could argue that the entire Bill of Rights should be repealed because it was not in the original document, not to mention woman suffrage, outlawing slavery, Presidential term limits etc. etc.
John, that is something of a strawman argument, given that there is no talk of repealing any of those things (well, except by liberals who want to undo the Second Amendment and those parts of the First that allow for the expression of conservative political opinions or traditional Christian belief).
But even accepting your argument as legitimate, that is a weak argument. After all, we have already repealed one Constitutional Amendment, and I can think of at least one more that ought to be repealed (the Twenty-second Amendment) because it altered the balance of power between the branches in a manner that has proved detrimental to the body politic. My point is, of course, that it is possible that a bad amendment can make it through the process, and time supplies the evidence that its adoption was unwise and it therefore needs to be repealed.