“Constitutional Tinkering”

“Constitutional Tinkering;” Todd Zywicki; The Volokh Conspiracy

As to the constitutional repeal amendment that spawned this, again there is really nothing radical here. To return to my hobby-horse briefly, prior to the 17th Amendment states had the ability to either propose or block legislation or constitutional amendments directly through their agents in the Senate. The curiosity is the modern era where the states can be only reactive (by refusing to ratify amendments) rather than pro-active in being able to directly propose amendments. So I think that something like the repeal amendment is much more consistent with the original balance on this point at least than that we have had for the past century.

Read the whole post here.