Topic: Constitutional Issues
Some U.S. Senators Should be Appointed Not Elected! There are ten (10) States that have a Constitutional right to appoint their Federal Senators and not use a popular election. Article five (5) of the U.S. Constitution says"no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate".by Skip Sanders
(libertarian)
Friday, July 31, 2009
I have recently been spending time looking over the Constitutional details of an Article Five (5) Convention as described in the U.S. Federal Constitution. There is one very interesting line in Article Five (5) that I would like to explore for a moment with you. To keep in complete context I will post the entire text of Article Five (5) and high light in bold font the line I wish to discuss in this work.
Article Five (5) text : "The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate."
As we see, the majority of Article Five (5) discusses the various ways that the U.S. Federal Constitution can be Amended. However, the last line suggest that there is a "State Right" so great that it can not be changed or amended away by a three fourths (3/4ths) super majority of the other State legislatures. "and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate." This line for me, brings to mind a serious contradiction to the Seventeenth (17th) Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This is the Amendment that changed the way States are represented in the U.S. Federal Senate. Before the Seventeenth (17th) Amendment, the legislatures of the several States appointed their representation in the U.S. Federal Senate. After the ratification of the Seventeenth (17th) Amendment the State representation was chosen by popular election, like the House of Representatives . Now the States no longer had a seat on the Federal level. Now, both houses of the federal legislature are effectively "the Peoples Houses". Thus a layer of our Republic had been removed from Federal Power making the Compact among the States much more Federal and Democratic and much less Representative and Republican in actual form.
In fairness let's look at the text of the Seventeenth (17th) Amendment: "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures. When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election, to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct. This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution "
How is it possible if Article Five (5) states," no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate" a majority of three fourths (3/4th) of States can take that right away from the Minority States and put that in the hands of the people, with out the States' consent? The 17th Amendment clearly takes that right away from the minority States who did not voluntarily give consent. So the question now becomes what of those States that did not ratify the Seventeenth (17th) Amendment? What of Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, Virginia, Georgia, Maryland, Delaware and Rhodes Island ? These are the ten (10) States that did not or have not ratified the Seventeenth (17th) Amendment. According to Article 5 of the U.S. Constitution, State representation in the Federal Senate "can not be deprived without consent".
Now all we need is for one of the Ten (10) States that have not ratified the Seventeenth (17th) Amendments to start using their State Houses to appoint their Federal Representation in the U.S. Senate and assert their Article Five (5) rights. Who do you think might be first ?
Did you like this article? If you did, Thumb It! 5 thumbs so far
The views expressed in this
article are those of Skip Sanders only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Skip Sanders is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
The argument presented does not have merit as it bases its claim on a presumption that amendments only effect those states who ratify it. An amendment effects all states whether they ratified an amendment or not.
Further Article V states a state may not denied of its representation without its consent. No state is being denied its representation by having a senator elected. The state is still represented in the senate. Therefore the argument is without merit.
I agree with you in practice: the 17th amendment must be repealed. But your case is lacking, as Mr. Walker notes. Now, what you could argue is that this system makes certain senate seats, especially from minor populated states, much more powerful and therefore creates inequality in the Senate.
Just look at Robert Byrd, and before he was ousted, Ted Stevens. 37th and 49th respectively and they each have served over 40 years in the Senate, giving them greater influence. On that note, you could also try and claim that seniority is an unfair practice on these grounds, but I doubt it would hold up.
But alas, repealing the 17th, while it would greatly help restore the dignity of the Senate, is a pipe dream. After all, it would be taking away a "right", quite blatantly. And that's a very unpopular move, when it's that obvious to say the least.
"Pipe dream" or not, efforts should be made to repeal the 17th Amendment. The 17th is antithetical to the Framer's intent in too many ways to count. If you would like to know more about the 17th, you can visit this educational, non-commercial site: http://www.restorefederalism.org
Posted By: Steven A. Rosile
Date: 2009-08-01 09:12:58
I absolutely agree that the states lost their control over their "creation", i.e., the federal government, when the 17th Amendment was falsely declared ratified and a part of the Constitution. The original Constitution granted not only the selection of US Senators to the state legislatures but also the power to "direct" their Senators' activities (and votes) in the Senate and also to "recall" them when they did not do the legislatures bidding, to be replaced by someone who would. This gave the states the control that they should rightfully have over their creation, the federal government.
I view the last sentence of the last paragraph of Article V as meaning that every state would have had to ratify such an amendment. Meaning that unless all of the states ratified it, it could not become part of the Constitution and binding on any of them. This is just one more (of many) examples where the Constitutiton has been violated to the detriment of all of us.
Senators should be selected by the state legislatures, with or without repeal of the 17th Amendment, so the states can rein in the runaway federal government that seems hell-bent on destroying our once great nation.
Bill, you misunderstand Skip's argument, as he didn't spell it out at length. But it's a good one.
The Constitution distinguishes (in the Tenth Amendment) between the 'States' and the 'People'. The first is the state governments; the latter is the individual citizens. (Some people try to interpret the 'People' as the state governments, especially in regards to the Second Amendment, but that interpretation makes nonsense of the Tenth, and is clearly wrong with regard to the Fourth.)
Sanders is arguing that
1. "State" in Article V similarly means "State government": that Article V says that no State government shall be deprived of its suffrage without its consent.
2. The 17th Amendment deprived the States governments of their suffrage (and gave it to the "People" instead).
3. The States that ratified the 17th Amendment consented to being deprived of their suffrage, so the 17th is constitutional wrt them.
4. However, the 17th Amendment is not constitutional wrt those states that did not consent, by the wording of Article V: "no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate"
Wow! What a rediculous essay! Actually, no state has been deprived of "equal suffrage" in the Senate. The 17th Amendment merely changed the way Senators are elected, but to this day every state still sends TWO Senators to Congress. There is no instance of any state sending only one as a result of the 17th Amendment.
What is this, bad comedy?!
And remember.....the Preamble of the U. S. Constitution starts with "We the People", not We the States.
The tenth amendment states, " .. are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
So you could say we the States, as the constitutional congress was made up of representatives of the states and not the people
but if we accept the interchanging of states and people then we cant accept that the states of lost equal representation...
and even if we accept that the states have been robbed of their votes, all states have been robbed equally therefore fulfilling the article 5 that equal(among the states) they all have 0
I get where the author is going and agree that the 17th should be repealed but this isnt the way to go about it.
Skip, I recently read over Article V and came to the same conclusion. I googled around to see if anyone thought of it, and found your piece. I agree with you and the comment by George Dance -- "State" means "State government" as distinguished from "the People." I would go further and argue that the Article V phrase, "equal Suffrage in the Senate" is really shorthand for the original beginning of Article I, Section 3: "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote." Mess with any of that, and it's depriving of states' suffrage according to Article V.
Therefore I disagree with the comment by devil's advocate (and perhaps others), that going from 2 senators to 0 satisfies "no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate." I believe the statement declares that State (legislatures) would both a.) have Suffrage, and b.) that it be equal.
Even looking at it from a pure mathematical standpoint, the original language contemplates that a state of today would have 1/50 influence in the Senate. Switching to 0 influence and allowing 100% influence by another entity is not equivalent.
Want to comment on this
article? Leave your comment here. Your email address is
required to track your comment. However, we will neither
publish your email address nor distribute it to other
organizations or persons. The only reason we might use
it would be if we needed to contact you regarding your
comment. All comments are subject to our
terms of use policy.
