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filler@godaddy.com
In Article 5 of the US Constitution it out lines what needs to be done.
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
For some reason, I don't see the Senate voting to overturn the 17th Amendment, do you? But our Founders have placed a way around Congress for extreme cases, this being one...
State legislatures have to adopt a resolution to attend an Article 5 Convention. Some states have adopted a rather broad scope and some have a tighter rein on what they will allow. I discussed this with Tom Coburn on a radio show once and his position is all or nothing. They wish to do every but repeal the one thing that could help solve our Nations problems in one easy move- Return the Senate to the State Legislatures and let the states set in motion through the Senate this other needed legislation...
Term Limits - For Senators would be about 6 years if the state governments elected the Senators, because there will be someone waiting their turn in that state's legislature. Term limits would be a natural occurrence rather than an exception. Do we really need term limits in the House of Representatives? Maybe, maybe not. If the Senate is controlled by the states, there would be less and less the House could do to work in-concert with the Senate to push legislation through if it did not benefit both state and voter...
Also remember that the states, as a result of the 17th Amendment, were given federal mandates to pay for. Also known as unfunded Federal Mandates. Do you honestly think these mandates would have had a pray of passing the Senate had the state government still controlled the Senate? Um, not only no but HELL NO!!! You want us to pay for your Federal Programs? Hell NO!!!
So while I am in complete agreement that an Article 5 Convention is needed, I would suggest only one simple Amendment to be enacted FIRST as this would be the very first time this procedure is tried, simply returning the Constitution to its former self and repealing the 17th Amendment. You will not make any friends among the present Senators, but then they aren't your friends anyway... Their friends are the Lobbyists, Donors and political Party Officials.
I've changed my mind on the relevance and utility of the conventionofstates.com. You'll notice former House member Tom Coburn is a part of this organization and the organization as a whole wants to do a lot of things all at once, like: a balanced budget amendment, term limits, and this list just continues on. Opening a convention of states with numerous items to accomplish is simply too much to do in a process that has never been done before. Besides, once the 17th amendment is repealed, a lot of what needs to be done can be accomplished in short order through the Senate being controlled by the state legislatures.
So, while a convention of states needs to be called the above website and that organization has a lot of great followers and members, however, if they ever were able to put together a convention of states, I fear it would fail and whatever they passed would never get ratified.
These are the targets. Counties that voted for Trump! They have to be fed up with the Congress as much as anyone. The tangential point is to get action and movement toward returning the Senate to the states. I would doubt if we could get any help from any of the political parties at all... You see like Rich donors, they enjoy the access they have to these senators. I have talked to a few and they told me, they really enjoy getting a phone call from their Senator. When I remind them that they don't return everyone's phone call, I hear, well they return mine... So if this is going to be done, it will have to be a grass roots effort...
The Key to this is informing all state legislators about this as well as having enough push (voters) to move them away from the party line toward forcing this legislation through the state legislature...
Lets face it, lobbying is just another word for political bribery... Isn't it time to put the lobbyists out of business??? If you only lobby one side of the bicameral congress, it won't help you in the other side... Both sides need to be "taken Care of" to get these crazy bills through congress...
Remember that the 17th was passed based on corruption of a Senator buying his senate seat for a couple $100,000 in bribes...
Let's look at 2016s most expensive Senate race: Pat Toomey who spent $30,910,557. However the entire election cost $188 MILLION with outsiders spending $135 million. Outsiders??? OK how about Lobbyists! So with that kind of money being spent to lobby you to vote for him, is he going to listen to you as a voter or is he going to listen to Lobbyists, large donors and party officials??? Yes, your vote really isn't that important to him...
Congressional elections cost a total of $4,057,519,568 to represent you and me in the Congress... 1/3 of the Senators are either elected or re-elected every 2 years... If the state legislature elected them, there would really be no cost and it could be completed in a week. Two weeks at the most... But it really wouldn't matter, because there would be a mandate for the senator to come home and brief the legislature or a committee representing the legislature what was happening in the Senate...
The original design of our government was to place the states higher on the Pyramid chart than the Federal Government. There are things the Federal government is to do that the states can not and vice versa...
There are court cases fighting over this very topic. If the Senate were run by the states, there wouldn't even be a question about what is outside the scope of the federal government.
The states were, through the Senate, given duties that the House was not given, such as advise and give consent to the executive branch. President's cabinet, Judiciary and treaties with foreign nations.
Our founders knew that there would be a few select house members that would cause you to question their constituents motives.
You just have to wonder what public school ol Hank (Think Tank) Johnson went to!!!
When you represent your district this well, it would have been difficult for the Founders to have imagined that they were this right in limiting the power of the House. But even some house members are scary stupid...
Most voters are not politically savvy and there are some Senators that are elected that should never be elected, but then they are easily controlled by their Party.
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