This is just semantics.
The lady in the video should have said, “We do not want to be a DIRECT democracy.” Kind of dumb on her part to enable this sound byte.
She is against the expansion of the popular vote, and wants to continue being a republic. The United States is in actuality a republic, so her being in favor of being a republic is not all that controversial.
They also want to repeal 17th Amendment allowing for the voting in of Senators.
The point of posting isn’t debating a Constitutional Republic and a Constitutional Democracy, which aren’t mutually exclusive…it’s that the GOP, by and large, want to limit as much voter control over the levers of power as possible.
One side wants the people to vote and have the power to affect change. The other wants the opposite. .
This would be the single greatest thing our nation could do to restore balance between States and Feds.
Repeal of the 17th amendment in my understanding wouldn’t allow the “voting in” of senators, but the appointment of 2 Senators by each State’s legislature.
This would mean that these senators wouldn’t be beholden to all voters in our country, but to their own state voters and more importantly, to their state legislatures who appointed them.
This would mean, in theory, that these senators would actually fight for their states interests in rights which would act as a check on the federal machine in place today.
The Federal government has become a behemoth. It has made the States insignificant in the discussion on Capitol Hill.
You do realize we already did this, saw what happened, and changed it with a Constitutional amendment, right? It’s not hypothetical. No need for theories. We have examples. It wasn’t good. It was the backroom deals between the legislators who appointed them ONLY and they were beholden ONLY to those legislatures, where they weren’t accountable to the people in any way, whatsoever.
Oddly, the simple answer is to remove lobbyists, remove political action groups, reverse GOP led Citizen’s United case which led to unregulated dark money in politics…but, you never mentioned that. I don’t recall you mentioning anything about that ever, actually. Instead, you want to remove another lever controlled by the actual citizens of the country.
Isn’t this already the way it’s set up, because only voters in a state can vote for their state’s senators, no?
No matter what system you put in place there will be corruption.
I’d rather the State’s appoint a person that fights for their interests than have the general public do it. The general public doesn’t know the issues that the State would want to combat the Feds on. The state legislatures do.
You can’t. They are all protected by 1st amendment.
The state legislature would send someone to represent THEIR interest. Specifically.
Understood. As with your stated history, you prefer less control by the citizenry and more by the state itself. Again, you prove over and over your penchant for authoritarianism
Proving once again that you have no value for citizen’s rights or fighting corruption. It’s your bread and butter. Authoritarianism and corruption through and through.
The legislature’s members themselves, not the citizens of the state. That’s what you’re supporting.
Time and time again…not sure how much more clearly we can get at it…Trumpkins, like GSC, want to remove as much power and influence as possible from the citizens, empower the dark money groups and corporations and enable as much of the back room dealing as humanly possible.
It’s pretty clear that corruption, itself, is the lifeblood of the government you want. Authoritarianism and corruption. Flat out.
My reasoning is that it’s constitutional and it was prescribed this way for a reason. Our founders saw that our republic could easily devolve into a simple democracy where simple majority rules. They also thought it was extremely important that the States have a direct voice on Capitol Hill, lest the Federal Government try to bully them. The Senate was created for these reasons.
Now the senate is merely an upscale Congress. It isn’t differentiated any longer.
I’m not responding the childish ad hominems any longer. Prove me wrong that you can restrict lobbyists and interest groups from expressing their political point of views or knock it off.
Yes- they are the one’s with the vested interest in protecting their state’s rights. They are in the perfect position to oppose the Federal Govenrment’s initiatives to either bribe or bully them into submission.
So is direct election, as per the 17th Amendment to said Constitution.
and it didn’t work. Several states went years without representation because the state legislatures couldn’t agree upon the vote or how to take the vote, overtaking most of the state’s senatorial duties. That’s why we now have a 17th Amendment. Further, it was seen as a millionaire’s club as they were buying their Senate seats directly. It’s a lot easier to bribe a state’s legislative body than all the people in the state. Again, we tried it. It didn’t work.
First, you should buy a Dictionary. The Senate is a part of “Congress.” “Congress” is the legislative body comprised of the House and Senate. As for your statement it isn’t differentiated any longer, you’re wrong. That’s why we had the Great Compromise and Connecticut Compromise and it led to a bicameral legislature with a House based upon population and a Senate with states allocated the same # of representatives.
False. The Senate was designed after the House of Lords in Britain, but without inherited titles. It was designed to counter the populism of the House and as a cooling saucer for the “hot tea” of the House as Jefferson so eloquently put it. It was the “anchor” of the Government, acting as a “necessary fence” against the “fickleness and passion” of the House. That’s what it was for. What you’re discussing is bicameralism, as outlined in the Connecticut Compromise dealing with a House based upon population and a Senate with equal # of seats per state. This was the whole debate between the Virginia Plan, New Jersey Plan and Connecticut Compromise.
You can absolutely restrict interest groups and lobbyists, hence restrictions on the amount a citizen can donate directly to a campaign. It’s the GOPers, like yourself, who allowed the idea that corporations are people and we should have unlimited dark money in politics. We can do all kinds of stuff, we just have to vote on it. Under the current interpretation with this Supreme Court, we cannot. You are correct. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.
Again, your points are pretty clear. You believe in less direct affect by the citizenry, itself. You believe in unchecked influence by lobbyists and special interest groups.
Except we got the 17th amendment directly because State Senates were being bribed for the positions. You make a good point, except for the fact that we tried it for around 140 years and have a myriad of examples as to why we Constitutionally changed it.
I understand this. We tried this way as well (popular vote) and we’ve produced a Senate that is not beholden to its original mandate (protect states).
What I do know is this. Before the 17th amendment - States had more power to obstruct the Federal Government and/or to negotiate a better deal for their interests.
Today there is no one on Capitol Hill who cares one ounce about how a Federal Bill will negatively impact a State.
Here we go again with the ad hominems. Substitute “Congress” for upscale “House”…. That’s obviously the meaning of the statement.
The point is- why have a bicameral legislature when they serve the same constituents.
The Senate was created and differentiated to exclusively represent State Legislatures interests. Now you have a body in Congress that is confused. You’ll hear senators talking about Citizens as their constituents when in fact their constituents are supposed to be state legislatures.
We might as well save the American people a lot of money and just dissolve the Senate. Give the House their powers and duties as add ons.
Citizens United says you’re wrong.
Are you suggesting that the 17th amendment stopped political bribes of Senators?
Or did it just merely change the manner in which they are bribed and by whom?
Corruption will always exist. The question shouldn’t be how do eliminate corruption. The question should be which process granted states more power against the Feds?
Where within the framing documents does it state the Senate’s job is to protect the states?
Do you have any examples? 1861-1865 didn’t work out quite that way.
Rhetoric. We get a daily barrage of Congress talking about how bills will affect their states. Every funding bill has ample pork specifically allocated to their states, etc. I can show you examples of them talking about how particular bills will affect their state. Can you defend your statement or are you blowing off steam and posting rhetoric?
False. Ad hominems attack the character or motive but not the substance. Your substance was attacked as it was incorrect. Why would I substitute anything for anything. Words have definitions. Learn your words.
It’s a great question and one that lends to specific areas where you appear that you can bulk up your understanding of the argument. First, this isn’t esoteric knowledge. The Constitutional Convention debated these points and wrote extensively on them at the time of their discussion. I suggest you spend some time reading about it, reading what they said and what their arguments were.
First, the House is based upon population. The Senate has an equal number of representatives per state regardless of population. Your concern that the Senate’s job is to be beholden or to protect the states is one that is only in your head. It has no basis in fact or history.
Under the Articles of Confederation, the state legislatures had to approve federal legislation before it was implemented in the states. The Virginia Plan proposed 3 branches of Government: legislative, executive and judicial. The legislative branch would be broken into a bicameral body in winch each state would have a different number of representatives based upon the state’s population. The New Jersey plan, proposed by William Paterson, proposed a unicameral structure provided under the Articles of Confederation, in an effort to revise the current AOC rather than replace them. Each state would get 1 vote per state in the national legislature and required the “consent of the state legislatures” before exercising legislative authority directly upon individuals. This led to the Connecticut Compromise as mentioned earlier.
False. Again, these are documented discussions. You are making up reasons and context that contrasts itself against basic, recorded history.
False. I don’t think you’re making things up. I just think you don’t know the basics of the argument. Your notion was summarily dismissed at the Constitutional Convention when we abandoned the Articles of Confederation. This is all covered in 7th grade civics/government class.
The framers decided upon a bicameral Congress, consisting of 2 Houses…the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House is represented based upon population and only serves a term of 2 years, making them directly beholden to the people. The Senate has a term of 6 years, making them less beholden to the whims of the population and based upon the same # of representatives for each state.
Both their terms of 6 years and their #, same for each state, serve to protect the interests of the smaller states that wanted to hold onto the Articles of Confederation and keep them at a distance from the whims of voters.
I suggest when your kids get to 7th grade, you spend some time with their textbooks so you, too, can know and understand the very basics of how our Government was created and for what reasons.
That’s what happens when you have a GOP dominated Supreme Court who are openly corrupt, bought and paid for. But, to direct a response to your statement, you’re incorrect again. Citizens United doesn’t say I’m wrong. It says unlimited dark money is legal in politics. My statement that we can do something about that is not negated or infringed upon by Citizens United. We can make a law. It’s that simple. So, again, we definitely CAN do something about the decisions that allowed so much of the open corruption you so favor.
Significantly less than before, yes. Further, it stopped the state legislatures from leaving Senate seats open regularly.
It’s less the Senator’s were being bribed as the prospective Senators used to buy the votes of the State Senate to get the job, itself. Again, none of this is esoteric. Why don’t you read a book about it? Read some of the articles of the time or speeches. You’re acting like this is mysterious information.
It’s recorded. Go look it up.
To you, a person who favors control of the state over the individuals, has no problem with unlimited money in politics, etc…the question relates to state control. But, you’re debating something that’s been debated as far back as the founding, and has already been decided. You appear to just not like the results or how the country you’re living is was formed and structured.
To you, corruption is not a concern, obviously. I’d suppose that you’re in the minority on that opinion.