“Thoughts of Government”©
Donald S.
Conkey
Date: (Feb 18,2007) May 13, 2004 - #
620 - 17th Amendment - 804
In 2004 our local paper
carried a press release from then Senator Zell Miller that suggested it was time that America reverse the 17th
Amendment of the Constitution and allow the state legislatures to again elect the two senators from their respective states,
as the Constitution originally provided. Miller’s story received national coverage, and much attention.
Shortly
thereafter this local paper printed an editorial that challenged the Senator’s position on this subject and suggested the
Senator was “out-of-touch” with the people, and should
be called home by the voters of Georgia. The column provided several reasons the states voted for the change in 1913, valid
reasons at the time, but it did not provide any of the historical background on why the Founding Fathers “insisted” on the election of senators by the state legislatures. It was their insurance policy
against the centralized government we now have – states totally dependent on “big
brother” in so many different
areas of government, including unfunded mandates.
While
Miller was governor he and I differed on a number of issues. I even organized state wide opposition to one of his pet proposals.
We came close to defeating his project but lost due to his endless money supply.
But
on this issue I concur with the Senator. The 17th Amendment should be reversed by the 28th Amendment,
just as the 18th Amendment was reversed by the 21st Amendment. Why? Because it destroyed the Federalism check on centralized government. It was, and still is bad policy – and is counter to the Founder’s wisdom.
Let
me explain my position.
The
17th Amendment destroyed the 10th Amendment, the Amendment that reserves all “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This was a new and very unique idea for government. Since
1913, when the 17th Amendment went into effect, the ‘states’ have effectively lost
all their power in the federal government – their spokesmen on Capital Hill, their senators, no longer report to them.
Many
will say electing our senators is more democratic. But don’t forget – the Founding Father’s set up a Federalist form
of government for a good reason, to give equal power to the states. When that “equal power” was lost America lost one of its most effective checks in our system of
government. The states lost their power to block legislation affecting the states
negatively.
If
a republic is where the people elect those that will govern themselves – what then is Federalism? Federalism, at one time, was regarded as one of America’s most valuable contributions
to political science, federalism is the constitutional division of powers between the national and state governments. James
Madison defined it this way: “The
powers delegated ... to the federal government (by the Constitution) are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the
state governments are numerous and indefinite. The former are to be exercised principally on external objects, [such] as war,
peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce.... The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects which,
in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people.”
Thomas
Jefferson emphasized that the states are not “subordinate” to the national government,
but rather the two are “coordinate departments
of one simple and integral whole.... The one domestic, the other the foreign branch of the same government.” Quite a contrast to what America is today.
The
democratic part, or the peoples direct involvement in our federal government comes with the election of our Congressman every
two years – and locally, with the
election of local and state officials for limited terms. This check system in my county has been used very effectively in
recent years – because it works.
