George Will writes what I have long thought, but alas, haven't blogged about until now, namely that the 17th amendment to the US Constitution should be repealed. Will's context is a proposal by left-wing Sen. Russ Feingold to commit "vandalism against the Constitution" by amending the amendment so that all senators must be elected, including those (a la Roland Burris) filling a vacated seat between elections.
Senators were originally mandated by the Constitution to be "chosen by the Legislature" of the states (Art. 1, Sec. 3). The 17th amendment required US senators to be elected by the voters of a state rather than selected by the legislators of the state. However, the amendment left the selection of replacement senators up to the states. Now Feingold wants to take that away, too. Will explains:
[G]rounding the Senate in state legislatures served the structure of federalism. Giving the states an important role in determining the composition of the federal government gave the states power to resist what has happened since 1913 -- the progressive (in two senses) reduction of the states to administrative extensions of the federal government.
Severing senators from state legislatures, which could monitor and even instruct them, made them more susceptible to influence by nationally organized interest groups based in Washington. Many of those groups, who preferred one-stop shopping in Washington to currying favors in all the state capitals, campaigned for the 17th Amendment. So did urban political machines, which were then organizing an uninformed electorate swollen by immigrants. Alliances between such interests and senators led to a lengthening of the senators' tenures.
The Framers gave the three political components of the federal government (the House, Senate and presidency) different electors (the people, the state legislatures and the electoral college as originally intended) to reinforce the principle of separation of powers, by which government is checked and balanced.
Since that bellwether year of 1913, separation of powers has given steadily away to a unification of power in Washington.
The 17th amendment was a terrible mistake, but not the only one encompassed in Constitutional amendments. Its immediate predecessor, the 16th, ratified in only two months before the 17th, has proved disastrous also. It
reads in whole:
Amendment 16 - Status of Income Tax Clarified.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Note that the 16th amendment was titled a "clarification" of the status of income taxation, the reason being that the Constitution's original phrasing was not exactly a model of clarity: "No capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken" (Art. 1, Sec. 9). Until 1913, however, it was generally understood, and so ruled by federal courts, that the Congress could not levy taxes directly upon individuals' incomes. It had to levy state governments for tax levied on personal incomes, and then only in proportion to each state's ratio of the total enumerated in the last census.
That the direct federal tax upon individual incomes has been a disaster for the personal freedom of Americans I consider to be pretty much self evident. It led directly to the federal garnishment of wages (employer withholding) and provides a direct source for the insatiable maw of federal appetite.
For after almost 230 years of this experiment, it is entirely apparent that, regardless of which party controls the Congress or the Executive, the federal government is a a ravenous beast that devours money and craps regulations. (Den Beste's Law: "The job of bureaucrats is to regulate, and left to themselves, they will regulate everything they can.") The only way we can retain what few freedoms we have left (see
here and
here) is to starve the beast. That means a tax revolt against our Washington overlords.
There is a sort of tax revolt in incipient stages that has been nicknamed the "
Tea Party USA" movement, but it is just a disorganized, mostly impromptu set of demonstrations by ordinary folks. Which is a good thing, but not the most effective thing. The Congress can always outlast such momentary displays of frustration. What would be more effective? Consider:
When the Congress raises your income-tax rate, you can either pay it or go to jail But what of the Senate's members were chosen by state legislatures? Do you think those senators would pay more attention to a tea party movement going on among the legislators who sent them to D.C. or an unorganized bunch of Joe Dokes who got together on a weekend? Who will ring a Senator's bell more - a few dozen legislators upon whom a Senator's job actually depends, or a few hundred protesting voters whose collective power is pretty much nil?
If the Congress could levy taxes only by working through the states' governments, and the Senate was structurally bound to the states' legislatures, the coercive and punitive nature of taxation would be happily diminished, perhaps vanquished.
The odds of both amendments being repealed are rather remote. If I had to pick one, I'd repeal the 17th and get the Senate working for the states again, rather than itself. That would be a great first step toward starving the federal beast. But both repealing both amendments would, I think, strike a one-two punch on behalf of the people.
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