I get tired of all the bashing of the 17th Amendment from people who haven't read history. Congress only ratified the 17th Amendment because enough states to meet the 2/3 threshold had threatened to call an Article V Convention of States to ratify it themselves if Congress didn't do it.
Why did the states threaten to do a convention to ratify it themselves? Because the prior method of sending Senators to DC was through a vote of the state legislatures. This caused shitloads of vacancies to pile up if one party controlled the State House and another controlled the State Senate. This would mean that the Senate seat stayed vacant until the next Midterm when the State Legislature changed parties or potentially even longer if the divided state legislature stayed. And there would be multiple vacancies for years if the state level gridlock wasn't resolved.
Let's take today as an example. Minnesota House is Democrat, and Minnesota Senate is Republican. So one of the US Senate Seats would be vacant until potentially the 2022 Midterms, meaning a 50R-49D split, with no party in the majority and the VP unable to break ties. If this was in multiple states, it would be even worse and the Senate would literally be useless.
So this whole narrative that the 17th Amendment is the "federal govt encroaching on states' rights blah blah" is just bullshit. Anybody that has read US history will tell you that the states themselves demanded Congress to ratify it or they would do it themselves through a Convention.
Term limits are bad for many reasons. The most basic is I don't have to worry about reelection so I will do whatever is best for me and not those I represent.
Thanks again 17th amendment. The destruction of the republic started with you.
I get tired of all the bashing of the 17th Amendment from people who haven't read history. Congress only ratified the 17th Amendment because enough states to meet the 2/3 threshold had threatened to call an Article V Convention of States to ratify it themselves if Congress didn't do it.
Why did the states threaten to do a convention to ratify it themselves? Because the prior method of sending Senators to DC was through a vote of the state legislatures. This caused shitloads of vacancies to pile up if one party controlled the State House and another controlled the State Senate. This would mean that the Senate seat stayed vacant until the next Midterm when the State Legislature changed parties or potentially even longer if the divided state legislature stayed. And there would be multiple vacancies for years if the state level gridlock wasn't resolved.
Let's take today as an example. Minnesota House is Democrat, and Minnesota Senate is Republican. So one of the US Senate Seats would be vacant until potentially the 2022 Midterms, meaning a 50R-49D split, with no party in the majority and the VP unable to break ties. If this was in multiple states, it would be even worse and the Senate would literally be useless.
So this whole narrative that the 17th Amendment is the "federal govt encroaching on states' rights blah blah" is just bullshit. Anybody that has read US history will tell you that the states themselves demanded Congress to ratify it or they would do it themselves through a Convention.
Can we get a states convention to mandate senate and congressional term limits? And voter ID?
Term limits are bad for many reasons. The most basic is I don't have to worry about reelection so I will do whatever is best for me and not those I represent.