State lawmakers working around 17th AmendmentSay what? Surely they mean working within the 17th amendment, or at worst cleverly manipulating it? Nope. As sketchy State Senator Howard Stephenson explains:
"The 17th Amendment was a huge mistake," Stephenson said Monday, the day he introduced what he calls "a soft repeal" of the 1914 amendment to the U.S. Constitution that called for popular election of the U.S. Senate.Maybe someone should explain to our dear friend, who was elected by a majority of a small locality, how a constitutional amendment works.
First, two thirds of both houses of Congress have to propose the amendment. The first hurdle, therefore, is difficult to say the least (just ask any of Bush's judicial nominees, who were desperate to get 60 votes in the Senate, not 67, and who didn't even have to worry about the House).
Second, after passage in both houses of Congress, the proposed amendment has to be ratified by three quarters of the state legislatures. This is actually a more difficult hurdle than the first, which explains why there have only been fifteen amendments to the U.S. Constitution in the last 200 years.
In 200 years we've had around 50 presidential elections, several thousand congressional elections (435 House seats alone every two years), and apparently a few too many state legislature elections. The 17th Amendment has more authority behind it than State Sen. Stephenson will ever have--no matter how much power he tries to grab.
