Edit: 17. Q. 17 No one noticed that on the conversation thus far below.
Original:
Direct election of US Senators. This amendment, on its Fucking face most changed how our country was established. If this didn’t happen, Republicans would hold a MASSIVE majority in the US senate. MASSIVE. There is no local pressure on our county/district officials. None. Everyone looks to Washington. REPEAL THIS. NOW.
1913 coincidence?
The Seventeenth Amendment restates the first paragraph of Article I, section 3 of the Constitution and provides for the election of senators by replacing the phrase “chosen by the Legislature thereof” with “elected by the people thereof.” In addition, it allows the governor or executive authority of each state, if authorized by that state’s legislature, to appoint a senator in the event of a vacancy, until a general election occurs.
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/SeventeenthAmendment.htm https://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/17th-amendment
Wait?! So Senators used to be selected by the state legislatures and then it was changed to them being elected by the people of the state? Am I understanding that correctly?
Yes and no. By 1900 very few states actually selected their senators. Most had already changed it the same way they did for presidential electors, to assign that task to the citizen vote.
It kinda makes you wonder why they needed to go through the trouble of amending the constitution.
To force the total removal of the states to have any power in the federal government to stop it.