“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Repealing the 17th Amendment is the right move to help restore federalism – but is it enough? The Anti-Federalists warned us about dangers in the Senate’s structure long before the 17th came along, and without understanding those warnings, we could still end up...
A lot of people believe that before the 17th amendment, state legislatures had the power to recall and replace senators in congress. But that’s nothing more than a myth. Records from the ratification debates show that this power never existed under the Constitution....
When the framers designed the Senate, they envisioned it as a safeguard for the states, with a key component being state legislatures choosing two senators instead of the people at large. But in 1913, the 17th Amendment removed this critical part of the system. In...
Senator Ben Sasse wrote an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal urging some changes to the United States Senate to “Make the Senate Great Again.” Sasse correctly argues that, “The old saying used to be that all politics is local, but...