Under the original arrangement, senators had strong incentives to protect federalism. They recognized that their reelection depended on pleasing state legislators who preferred that power be kept close to home. Whereas House members were considered representatives of the people, senators were considered ambassadors of their state governments to the federal government and, like national ambassadors to foreign countries, were subject to instruction by the parties they represented (although not to recall if they refused to follow instructions). And they tended to act accordingly, ceding to the national government only the power necessary to perform its enumerated functions, such as fighting wars and building interstate infrastructure. Moreover, when the federal government expanded to address a crisis (such as war), it quickly retreated to its intended modest level after the crisis had passed. Today, as historian Robert Higgs has observed, federal expansion creates a “ratchet effect.”...
Establishment media and liberal politicians have mocked tea partiers’ calls for repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment as anti-democratic. To be sure, indirect election would be less democratic than direct election, but this is beside the point. Notably, those who are most shocked by the proposal to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment are also the most vociferous in denouncing democratic election of judges. The Framers understood what today’s self-interested sloganeers of democracy do not: What matters is not whether a given method of selecting governmental officials is more or less democratic, but whether it will safeguard the constitutional functions bestowed upon each branch and conduce to their competent execution. Indeed, certain of the Senate’s duties — such as its role as a type of jury for impeachment proceedings — make sense only if it is somewhat insulated from the public’s passions of the moment, as was well demonstrated by the farcical Senate trial of Bill Clinton.
Critics of repeal have also contended that election of senators by state legislatures was, and would be today, unusually prone to corruption and bribery. But research by historian C. H. Hoebeke found that of the 1,180 Senate elections between 1789 and 1909, in only 15 cases was fraud credibly alleged, and in only seven was it actually found — approximately one-half of 1 percent. Moreover, it is absurd to think that even this modest degree of corruption would be tolerated in the modern media age, any more than politicians can today sell judgeships or other appointed offices, as they frequently did in the past. And even in the progressive era it was not believed that direct election of senators would prevent corruption. Among the Seventeenth Amendment’s staunchest supporters were urban political machines (hardly advocates of clean government), which understood that direct election would boost their control of the Senate as they drove and bribed their followers to the polls.
It gives me some hope to see this issue being publicly discussed more!
Go read the whole thing! There are a lot more facts there that will help you explain to people why this is a good idea.
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