Now we're talking...

The name of this blog comes from the idea that sometimes one has to backtrack to make real progress. George Will employs this concept very well in a column looking at the effects of the 17th Amendment:

The House, directly elected and with two-year terms, was designed for responsiveness. The Senate, indirectly elected and with six-year terms, was to be more deliberative than responsive.

Furthermore, grounding 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.

The drive to implement direct democracy across our systems of government has not exactly resulted in the utopia on earth the advocates advertised. Perhaps it's time to reexamine the wisdom of those seemingly archaic provisions of the Constitution we were so eager to scrap over the last 100 years.

Oh, and while we're at it, let's put repealing the 16th Amendment high on the priority list. The Framers had it right the first time, specifically prohibiting such nonsense...