Another attack on the Constitution from right-wing saboteurs: Take votes away from voters

I come to this subject with mixed feelings: Guilt that I’m giving attention to crackpots but, at the same time, a sense of journalistic obligation to tell you what the crackpots are up to.

The latter is especially true when the crackpots are Republican members of Congress running for re-election. And, in the Trump era, nothing on the agenda of right-wing extremists should be dismissed, even the stuff that sounds nuts. When the Supreme Court can’t vote 9-0 to say birthright citizenship is constitutional — when it’s actually in the Constitution — then all aspects of American democracy are at risk.

The latest target of right-wing saboteurs is the election of U.S. senators by popular vote. Eight Republican members of the House of Representatives want to turn back the clock to the 19th Century, when Senators were selected by state legislatures, not voters. These Republicans, all members of the extremist Freedom Caucus — including its chair, Rep. Andy “Dr. Do Nothing” Harris of Maryland — attached their names to a resolution to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment. 

What a swell idea!

The Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, empowered voters in each state with the right to pick their two senators for six-year terms. Until then, the selection of senators took place in state houses, among elected officials and political bosses. The Seventeenth Amendment was a major reform toward direct democracy, and it came out of the Progressive Movement’s push to rein in political corruption.

“The Seventeenth Amendment was seen as part of a broader effort to make an end-run around the control that parties, machines, and special interests had over state legislatures,” according to the National Constitution Center (NCC). “The popular perception that Senate seats could be bought in backrooms of state legislatures fueled support for direct elections. Further, several Senate seats remained open for years when state legislatures couldn’t agree on a choice . . .”

The new opportunity to vote for their senators was “wildly popular” among voters, says the NCC.

But, 113 years later, eight members of the House say this direct democracy business needs to end, with regard to the Senate. In addition to Harris, they are Reps. Eric Burlison (R-MO), Andrew Clyde (R-GA), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Clay Higgins (R-LA), Sheri Biggs (R-SC), Michael Cloud (R-TX) and Scott Perry (R-PA).

Their resolution has no chance of passage, experts say, but I could not let this crackpot idea — reducing, rather than expanding, the voting power of Americans — pass through the news cycle without notice. (Who knows? It might end up before the Supreme Court one day.) That these jokers even broached the idea — at a time when trust in Congress is depressingly low and a politicized Supreme Court invites even more Big Money into campaigns — demonstrates the cluelessness of Republicans and/or their eagerness to concentrate power in the political class. Above all, it shows their contempt for voters (their own constituents) and for democracy.

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