Prior to the passage of the 17th Amendment, U.S. Senators were chosen by state legislatures, not by voters at the ballot box. Conservatives have been debating the merits of the 17th Amendment for a long time, and voices advocating for repeal are growing in number. A bill with eight co-sponsors has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to do just that.
I do not support this idea, but it’s important to acknowledge why there is a legitimate debate about this as a way to improve the dysfunctional (non-functioning?) Senate. (RELATED: The Abysmal Quality of the GOP Senate Caucus Is the Real Issue, and the SAVE Act Mess Has Made That Clear)
The invaluable Instapundit (Glenn Reynolds) published a recent piece discussing the merits of repealing the 17th Amendment, acknowledging that, “Over the years I have gone from skeptical of claims to repeal the Seventeenth to reasonably supportive. Part of that is just from observing how the system works today.”
Professor Reynolds makes several valid arguments for repeal, including that with the current system of choosing senators:
- The Senate is more dependent on special interests for support than on home-state politicians who are closer to the electorate.
- Facing voters means there is a permanent campaign and the need for continuous cash-raising.
- Senators would be “more accountable to state interests, acting as a check against federal expansion, unfunded mandates, and overreach.”
There was a time when I could possibly be persuaded that this was a good idea, but my interest in repealing the 17th was for much the same reason I’ve supported term limits — the intractable power of incumbency. The Senate had effectively become a House of Lords, with unaccountable members serving until past the age of infirmity. Turnover is needed, whatever the mechanism. I’m still very receptive to term limits, but I now believe that repealing the 17th Amendment would be a mistake. Republican U.S. Senate primaries this year proved the reason why. (RELATED: Let’s Be Honest — Why Is Poor Mitch McConnell Still in the Senate?)
Cornyn’s and Cassidy’s humiliating removal from office by fellow Republicans would almost certainly not have occurred if state legislators were choosing senators.
In an act of “political hygiene,” incumbent Republican Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana were voted out of office in their respective state primaries. Both of the perfidious senators had cozied up with Democrats to defeat the Trump/MAGA agenda in recent years. Both also seemed to believe that despite their very public betrayal of conservative voters, their incumbency made them invulnerable…so long as they ran as Republicans in their deep red states. Cornyn’s and Cassidy’s humiliating removal from office by fellow Republicans would almost certainly not have occurred if state legislators were choosing senators. (RELATED: Beware the Renegade Caucus)
Even more importantly, too much of our federal governance is already in the hands of unelected rulers, be they judges or bureaucrats. We, voters, would like to remove many of them, but we can’t. The last thing we should do right now is take away the ability to vote out bad senators too.
It’s also important to remember that several of the most deep-red states have legislatures that are technically Republican-majority, but they are full of moderates and RINOs who work to obstruct the conservative agenda, not to advance it. This is true in both Texas and Florida.
In Florida, Governor DeSantis has repeatedly battled a Republican-majority state House that works with Democrats to defeat his agenda. DeSantis won 59 percent of the vote in his 2022 gubernatorial election bid, but the Republican legislature treats him as a right-wing adversary. This is not a legislature that would ever choose a conservative activist to be their U.S. senator.
In Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton just defeated incumbent senator John Cornyn in the Texas primary. Paxton is an activist who is very aggressive about fighting the left, but he never would have been chosen as senator by the state legislature. In fact, Paxton endured an impeachment trial just one year prior, led by the “Republican” speaker of the Texas House, Dade Phelan. Sixty out of 83 Republicans in the Texas House voted to impeach Paxton, joining all 60 Democrats. Phelan was assured he had the Senate votes lined up to convict, but when one or two Republican senators wobbled, the impeachment was defeated in the state Senate chamber. (RELATED: Advice for Ken Paxton)
When the Texas legislature next convened in 2025, the Democrat / RINO alliance once again held a solid working majority. Despite Republicans having a numerical majority of House members, the elected speaker was the Democrats’ choice, Dustin Burrows, who received the vote of all 49 Democrats, plus 36 “moderate” Republicans. If a Dade Phelan or Dustin Burrows were in charge of whipping votes for Texas’s U.S. Senator, John Cornyn would be their kind of guy — someone who calls himself a Republican but works with Democrats to defeat conservatives.
Why are there so many Democrat-aligned Republicans in conservative red states? The simple answer is that’s often the only way for someone who leans left to get elected in places like Tennessee, Texas, and Florida. Voters assume that because a candidate runs as a Republican, he shares conservative values, but the proliferation of RINOs proves that is not the case.
How to fix the problem of left-leaning Republicans in state legislatures warrants its own discussion, but the simple fact that RINOs hold so much power in red state legislatures is enough reason not to hand them the power to choose U.S. Senators. Ted Cruz and Ken Paxton are both conservative insurgents who defied the establishment to win their U.S. Senate nominations. Neither would have ever been chosen by the Texas legislature, but conservative voters made that choice at the ballot box.
Let’s keep the 17th Amendment in place so voters can directly elect senators who share their values, and remove those who don’t.
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