Repeal the 17th Amendment
Progressive reformers complained of backroom deals and corruption. But the direct election by the people of US senators has only made things worse.
The Seventeenth Amendment was ratified in 1913, during the height of the Progressive Era. Reformers argued that state legislatures had become hopelessly deadlocked and corrupt. Between 1885 and 1912, legislatures deadlocked seventy-one times over Senate selections, leaving at least seventeen seats vacant for entire sessions or longer. States went unrepresented in Washington, while lawmakers wasted months on partisan warfare.
Scandals amplified the outrage. In Montana, copper baron William A. Clark admitted to spending the equivalent of millions in today’s dollars to buy his seat; the Senate refused to seat him. In Illinois, Senator William Lorimer was expelled in 1912 after evidence showed that four state legislators had been bribed to break a deadlock in his favor. Muckrakers branded the Senate a “millionaires’ club” owned by railroads and industrialists. Direct popular election, they promised, would purify politics, end backroom deals, and return power to the people.
A century later, the juxtaposition is bitterly ironic. The very accusations that justified the amendment — inside dealing, special interest capture, and elite control — now define the system it created, only on a far grander, national scale. Senators still face charges of being bought, but the buyers are no longer a handful of state legislators. They are national donors, super-PACs, and billionaires who pour hundreds of millions into perpetual campaigns. The “cure” has recreated the disease, only now the price tag is measured in billions rather than thousands.
The original constitutional design was no accident. Article I, Section 3 gave state legislatures the power to appoint senators so they would defend state sovereignty against federal overreach. Senators were meant to be insulated from fleeting national passions and directly accountable to the governments that funded roads, schools, and hospitals back home. Direct election transformed the Senate into a slower, more expensive version of the House of Representatives. Senators now chase the same consultants, pollsters, and super-PACs as House members. They vote on multi-trillion-dollar spending bills and regulatory mandates with little regard for the burdens those decisions impose on state budgets. When a senator from a rural, energy-producing state backs California-style emissions rules that cripple local farms and factories, the state Legislature has no direct recourse.
Repealing the 17th Amendment would restore true accountability through a mechanism the current system lacks: recall. If an appointed senator failed to advance the interests or explicit instructions of his state — on energy policy, immigration enforcement, unfunded mandates, or border security — the Legislature that sent him could recall him immediately and appoint a replacement. This ongoing oversight is far more responsive than waiting six years for the next election. State legislatures, themselves elected every two years and living among the people who bear the consequences of federal policy, would serve as an effective, transparent check. Senators would once again act as faithful agents of their states rather than autonomous operators entangled with Washington insiders.
The current direct-election system has also unleashed an explosion of campaign spending that dwarfs anything the Progressives could have imagined. In the 2024 cycle, the Ohio Senate race alone topped $404 million in total spending. Pennsylvania approached $289 million, and Montana exceeded $260 million. Outside groups and super-PACs funneled hundreds of millions more into these contests, with dark money and independent expenditures shattering previous records. Senate races collectively saw billions flow through competitive seats, while overall federal election spending — including presidential and congressional races — reached roughly $15 billion. Winning a single hotly contested Senate seat often demands $20–30 million or far more from the candidate alone. Senators spend hours each day dialing donors instead of deliberating policy. The pressure to amass nine-figure war chests forces them to prioritize national special interests over the specific concerns of their states. Repeal would end this endless fundraising treadmill. Appointed senators, subject to recall, could focus on serving their state rather than courting out-of-state billionaires every six years.
Repeal would not disenfranchise voters. State legislatures are democratically elected bodies, often far closer to constituents than any senator in Washington. Legislators live with the daily realities of rising property taxes, strained schools, volatile energy prices, and regulatory overload. They would choose senators who protect those interests and recall those who do not. The Senate would once again function as a deliberate brake on runaway national majorities, exactly as the Founders intended, with the added safeguard of recall to prevent drift or disloyalty.
The path to repeal requires no permission from Washington. Article V of the Constitution allows two thirds of the states to call a convention. That movement is already building from the ground up. County resolutions in states such as Indiana, Missouri, and Arizona have begun urging their legislatures to support repeal. Local activists testify before state judiciary committees, circulate petitions, and run for state house seats on explicitly federalist platforms. These efforts need no national media coverage or billionaire funding. They succeed when neighbors show up at school board meetings and city council chambers to demand that their state legislators reclaim the Senate seat — and the power to recall — that rightfully belongs to the state.
Critics will call the movement reactionary. They will warn of “backroom deals.” Yet today’s system produces backroom influence on an industrial scale: Lobbyists draft thousand-page omnibus bills while senators chase multimillion-dollar ad blitzes financed by undisclosed donors. A state Legislature appointing and recalling a senator operates with full transparency — every vote is public, every legislator answerable at the next election. Local control is the antidote to centralized dysfunction.
The 17th Amendment was sold as progressive reform to end corruption and empower the people. A century later, it has delivered progressive centralization, fueled by billions in election spending that drowns out state voices. The repair begins where America’s most enduring political changes have always started: in the counties, town halls, and state capitals where citizens still gather face to face.
The call to action is not descending from Washington; it is rising from your own community, your own neighborhood, your own town. The time to repeal the 17th Amendment and restore genuine federalism is now. Start local. The Republic depends on it.
Image via Picryl.