States are our only hope

Our Founding Fathers knew the remedy for bloated, expansive, central government when they wrote and approved the Constitution. They even included that remedy in the name of the new, independent nation - the United States. A union of states with their own autonomy, yet working together as one nation.

As colonies, the people of this great land were being victimized by a centralized government that was wholly out of touch with their needs, ruling them as subjects from across the ocean. The Founders were not about to create a new government that would have the potential for becoming a new monarchy to replace the old. And a righteously rebellious citizenry was not about to put up with more government-without-representation from afar. So a system of government was created at the Constitutional Convention that gave power to the individual states to keep the federal government in check. However, that power has been eroded over time and the role of the states in our federal government needs to be restored. A part of that process will involve repealing the 17th Amendment so that state governments once again choose their states’ U.S. Senators. We see in our nation a great dichotomy between state governments and Washington D.C. On the one hand, we have state legislators and governors in a number of states working to undo the Progressive agenda in their state governments. On the other hand, the Presidential administration and many of those in the two houses of Congress are content to let our national government grow ever larger and more controlling as the role of states in our union of states is diminished. What better way to begin to make use of an Article V convention of states than to propose an amendment that, if approved by ¾ of the states, restores the states place in the electoral process. Election of Senators has essentially become a national issue where it used to be the main way states would have individuals actually representing their states instead of K Street special interest groups in Washington, D.C.

---

In February 1906 David G. Phillips began a series of articles in Cosmopolitan magazine called “Treason in the Senate,” in which he wrote about the influence of the “wealthy classes in society” on our state legislators. Phillips concluded that direct election of U.S. Senators would stop the Senators from being corrupted by special interest groups leveraging their influence on state legislators. And that view spread, leading to the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1916, with its direct election of Senators by the states’ voters. But as we've seen, in Washington, D.C., the special interests still work to subvert representative government. Removing state governments from the process of choosing our states’ U.S. Senators was not the cure to that problem. Our tax money has become a major source of wealth. We now see that the wealthiest counties across the country are those bordering the District of Columbia, where those working “for” the federal government reside, along with many of the lobbyists whose job is to direct taxpayers’ money toward their special interests. The problem has become one of undue influence over Congress once they get to the Beltway, rather than that of corruption of legislatures in individual states. It’s time to repeal the 17th Amendment so that an informed constituency can vote for their state legislators who will then in turn choose U.S. Senators. Senators will have to be more responsive to the states who represent them, due to the oversight of those whom we elected to send them. Voters in each state will once again be electing those to the state legislature who help represent their local and state interests in the federal government. But about the only way this will happen is when states begin to exert their Constitutional authority to propose Amendments to the Constitution through Amendment Conventions of the states. Through Article V, conventions of states may be held in which 2/3 of the states propose Amendments to the Constitution, which become a part of the Constitution when approved by 3/4 of the states. Passing an amendment that repeals the 17th Amendment will be a good start in helping to return power back to the states and individuals, as described in the 10th Amendment. The federal government should have a limited role in our lives, but it is falsely viewed by many as being some kind of cure-all for everything. It’s time to shatter this illusion that can only lead to an acceptance of and being subject to the whims of whomever is in power in a centralized government.