Seventeenth Amendment

The Seventeenth Amendment to the US Constitution allows citizens of each state to vote directly for two US senators to represent their state in Congress. Before the amendment was ratified in 1913, the Constitution stated that senators were to be elected by state legislatures. The Seventeenth Amendment also states that state governors may designate a senator to represent their state if a vacancy occurs between elections.

Brief History

An amendment refers to an addition or change made to a constitution, contract, legislative bill, or other legal or government document. Amendments are commonly made to bills of law as they pass through the legislative process. Because amendments to the Constitution may significantly alter the national political system, such changes must usually undergo a prescribed constitutional amendment process. Article 5 of the US Constitution allows for its amendment. For an amendment to pass, two-thirds of each congressional house, the House of Representatives and the Senate, must approve it, and three-fourths of the states must ratify it via a process determined by Congress. In many states, amendments to a state constitution must be approved by popular referendum. The first ten amendments to the US Constitution comprise the US Bill of Rights. By 2014, the Constitution had twenty-seven amendments; the Twenty-Seventh Amendment was ratified on May 7, 1992.

Before the Seventeenth Amendment, United States senators were appointed by their respective state legislatures. From 1789 to 1913, US senators were not directly elected by their constituents because the Constitution mandated that they be chosen by state legislators. Moreover, by the inception of the twentieth century, many argued that the advances in communication technology and rapid dissemination of information, made indirect representation irrelevant. In order to end the alleged corruption of the system, in 1913 the Senate was made a popularly elected entity.

To the Founding Fathers, according to many scholars, democracy meant the absolute rule of the majority. At the time they envisioned that the states were meant to provide an aristocratic Senate and a monarchical president; however, they often settled for popular expedients when electing senators and presidents, long before the amendment was made. The issue of the amendment was preceded by debates between those who supported a plebiscitary (vote of the people) government and those who preferred a representative checks-and-balances system.

President Abraham Lincoln was among many who worried that the protection of the Constitution would be eventually leveled in time. Many believed that the founders’ intent was to protect federalism. The 1913 ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment eliminated the structured protection offered by the system to federalism, and opponents feared that taking the election of representatives out of state legislatures would leave states unprotected. After the ratification, however, senators were henceforth voted into office by direct election.

The Seventeenth Amendment Today

Some historians examine the electoral connections among constituents, state legislators, political parties, and US senators during the age of indirect elections and have found that the electoral process was unduly influenced by partisan politics, money, and personal interests, even though the representative system had been designed with the purpose of insulating the Senate from that sort of pressure. Newspapers and other documentation of the time uncover many stories of political maneuvering, corruption, and partisanship played out by upper-class politicians, including elected officials, party-machine bosses, wealthy merchants, industrialists, and landowners who dominated the senatorial elections process.

Constitutional reforms such as the Seventeenth Amendment, then, were meant to create a more accountable government, as well as one more responsive to the people. The Seventeenth Amendment amends article 1, section 3, of the Constitution to provide for the direct election of senators by the people of a state. It stipulates that the US Senate will be composed by two senators from each state of the union who are to be elected by the people and serve for a period of six years. Each senator represents one vote in the Senate. In the event of a vacancy between elections, the state governor or executive leader can appoint a senator to serve until the next general election.

Those who opposed the Seventeenth Amendment usually did so out of fear that it would limit federalism in the nation. Federalism refers to the decentralized political system that binds a group of states into a larger, leading state while allowing them to keep their own legislatures and political identities. Federal systems today share a common nationality and direct lines of communication between governments and their respective citizens. There are some principles that are usually found in most federal systems: a written constitution establishing its division of powers; significantly self-sustaining constituent elements; and territorial divisions that ensure representational equality for all of the various groups and interests among its constituents. Changes in the constitution usually require the consent of all stakeholders or constituents who would be affected by the changes. There are some groups today who call for the repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment. That would return authority to state legislatures, which would also give them much more power in Washington, DC, such as being able to significantly check federal expansion, according to its supporters.

It is important to note that the Seventeenth Amendment was created during the Progressive era, an era in which the ideal of the rights and political participation of the common people emerged as a government goal. The Seventeenth Amendment was passed by the Senate on June 12, 1911, and a joint resolution passed both houses of Congress on May 13, 1912. After its ratification on April 8, 1913, it came into effect for the elections of 1914. The Seventeenth Amendment is important, its advocates argue, because it gives the citizenry, regardless of socioeconomic class, race, or gender, the right to select its senators directly. Without this amendment state legislatures would continue to appoint senators based on their own interests and needs, which might lead to the rule of private interests and corruption.

Bibliography

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