Connect
Get Local
Issues
Tag Cloud
Archives
Subscribe
Arkansas Republican demands 17th Amendment’s repeal
Arkansas Republican demands 17th Amendment’s repeal
Republicans right now are doing everything they can to prove they’re out of touch. Case in point?
A Republican state senator in Arkansas has demanded the repeal of the 17th Amendment to the US Constitution. Specifically, he claims that popular elections have somehow made senators “less responsive to the people,” as the Associated Press described his comments.
For those unfamiliar, the 17th Amendment requires the direct election of U.S. Senators (prior to ratification in 1913, senators were chosen by their respective state legislatures). Amazingly, the Arkansas Republican who proposed repealing the amendment is also a rumored US Senate candidate. And since Arkansas Democrats hold leads of 72-28 in the State House and 27-8 in the State Senate, repealing the 17th Amendment would just about end any chance of anyone from his party winning a U.S. Senate seat.
But despite the Republican’s obviously flawed logic, the 17th Amendment is a source of some interesting academic debate –- particularly for us at the DLCC. Following our success in the 2008 elections, Democrats had complete control of 27 state legislatures and controlled one legislative house in another 8 states. If US Senators were chosen by legislators in the same proportion, Democrats would hold a 62-seat majority (a rough count, to be sure, as an exact estimate would involve many more variables than simple chamber control).
In a more abstract sense, some have argued that the 17th Amendment irreversibly undermined federalism by severing the only direct link between state governments and federal policymaking. Senators would be less likely to preempt state laws, for instance, if lawmakers back home could fire them at the end of their terms. At the same time, popular elections are a much more transparent process for choosing such powerful officials.
Actually, if you account for staggered terms (therefore considering the partisan control of state legislatures in 2004, 2006, and 2008 the Democrats would only have about 55% control of the Senate. Nebraska cannot really be decided.
In the indirectly elected Senate, Democrats gained seats in Iowa, Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, and New Hampshire in 2008. But the Republicans took Tennessee, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Kentucky.
That's very true - and in the states with divided control, it might matter what the margins are in each chamber. The Constitution originally gave no direction at all as to HOW legislatures must choose each Senator. Some states might require the agreement of both chambers, while others might vote in joint session (as I believe was common prior to 1913). Various other permutations are certainly possible.
The Constitution gave no direction, but an 1866 federal law did. “An Act to Regulate the Times and Manner of Holding Elections for Senators in Congress” required that if two chambers could not agree on a Senator (as often is the case in divided government), all state legislators would have to meet and vote in a joint assembly. Therefore to determine whether a state would appoint a Democrat or Republican, I only have to sum the number of Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature, and whoever has a majority appoints a Senator of their party. After the 1866 law, parties made loyal appointments over 95% of the time following this “assumption.”
The real tricky pickle is that some states instituted “direct primaries” where the voters (even before the Seventeenth Amendment) could express their preference for US Senators, and the state legislature would be bound to their preference. So these states' Senators would not be determined by state legislature's partisan compositions. These "direct primaries" is somewhat similar to what the “National Popular Vote” movement is trying to accomplish.