The Seventeenth Amendment, which guarantees that voters will elect their own U.S. senators — rather than having those senators chosen for them by the state legislature — is strangely unpopular in Tea Party circles. Both Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) believe their own elections to the United States Senate should be unconstitutional. Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) called empowering voters to elect senators a mistake, and even Justice Antonin Scalia lamented the “decline of so-called states’ rights throughout the rest of the 20th century” as a result of the Seventeenth Amendment.

Earlier this month, six Georgia state lawmakers, Reps. Dustin Hightower (R), Mike Dudgeon (R), Buzz Brockway (R), Josh Clark (R), Kevin Cooke (R) and Delvis Dutton (R) decided to get in on this action, introducing a resolution calling for the Seventeenth Amendment to be repealed:

[T]he United States Senate was designed to protect the rights and interests of the individual states, and the repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment would help to prevent the many unfunded mandates and unconstitutional laws passed onto those states by the federal government . . . . NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF GEORGIA that the members of this body request the United States Congress to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Of course, in reality, state lawmakers themselves agreed to enact the Seventeenth Amendment in the first place because the previous system resulted in a kind of Citizens United on steroids. As David Gans explains, the previous system “led to rampant and blatant corruption, letting corporations and other moneyed interests effectively buy U.S. Senators, and tied state legislatures up in numerous, lengthy deadlocks over whom to send to Washington, leaving those bodies with far less time to devote to the job of enacting the laws their states needed for the welfare of the people.”

Late last week, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who is currently campaigning for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ), told a Republican gathering in Payson, Arizona that he supports abolishing the Seventeenth Amendment’s guarantee that voters elect their own senators. Prior to the Seventeenth Amendment’s ratification, the Constitution provided for senators to be selected by state legislatures, a system that was abandoned after it led to “rampant and blatant corruption, letting corporations and other moneyed interests effectively buy U.S. Senators.”

Flake, however, is not alone in his desire to make America less democratic. Indeed, at least two other GOP senate candidates, one GOP governor, one Republican senator and a Supreme Court justice all have indicated agreement with Flake’s ambition to return the Constitution to the halcyon days of the Nineteenth Century:

• Indiana Senate Candidate Richard Mourdock: Mourdock, who defeated incumbent Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) in a GOP primary after campaigning on a platform of refusing to compromise with Democrats, suggested at a campaign event last February that senate elections should be abolished because “the House of Representatives was there to represent the people. The Senate was there to represent the states.”
• Missouri Senate Candidate Rep. Todd Akin: Akin, the GOP nominee facing incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), said during a GOP primary debate last may that “I don’t think the federal government should be doing a whole lot of things that it’s doing and it well may be that a repeal of the 17th Amendment might tend to pull that back.”
• Texas Gov. Rick Perry: Perry’s star has fallen considerably since his “oops” of a presidential campaign. Nevertheless, he remains the governor of America’s second largest state. He also believes that “The American people mistakenly empowered the federal government during a fit of populist rage in the early twentieth century by giving it an unlimited source of income (the Sixteenth Amendment) and by changing the way senators are elected (the Seventeenth Amendment).”
• Sen. Mike Lee: Lee believes that federal child labor laws, FEMA, food stamps, the FDA, Medicaid, income assistance for the poor, Medicare and Social Security violate the Constitution, so it is not surprising that he is also a seventeenther. Lee explained his opposition to his own election to the United States Senate in an interview with Fox Business.
• Justice Antonin Scalia: Scalia, who was widely criticized for his partisan rhetoric during the Supreme Court’s recent health care and immigration cases, also called for the Constitution to be changed to abolish senate elections — “I would change it back to what [the founders] wrote, in some respects. The 17th Amendment has changed things enormously.”

During a Republican primary debate last week, Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin told voters that he may support eliminating the direct election of Senators — the right guaranteed by the 17th Amendment:

This is a very interesting question, and I haven’t jumped up and down and taken a firm position on it. I think in general, my, I have a very serious concern about erosion of states rights. Very serious concern of that, and this, reversing this decision might pull that balance back. I am, as I’ve mentioned, a strong conservative, I don’t think the federal government should be doing a whole lot of things that it’s doing and it well may be that a repeal of the 17th Amendment might tend to pull that back but I haven’t written any thesis on it or anything like that.

Watch it:

A repeal of the 17th Amendment would make America fundamentally less democratic, and calling for the repeal shows a distrust of the American people. Moreover, the Amendment wasn’t enacted as some sort of federal power grab, as Akin suggests. Rather the call for the Amendment was driven largely by state legislatures and only one state, Utah, voted against it.

The 17th Amendment was adopted in no small part because state legislatures were caught selling seats or were unable to fill them because of electoral deadlocks. And in case Akin doesn’t think corruption or incompetence would be a problem for today’s state lawmakers, he need only look at Rod Blagojevich or the failures of a variety of state legislatures to disabuse himself of that notion. Reformers who called for the 17th Amendment believed that it would clean up corruption and give power to the people. Akin apparently believes that power may be safer in the hands of state governments than the people.

Akin isn’t the only Republican candidate who has called for the repeal of the 17th Amendment. Other major Republicans have also come out against the 17th Amendment, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), and Justice Antonin Scalia.

Nevertheless, Akin’s main Republican rivals distanced themselves from him on the 17th Amendment. State Treasurer Sarah Steelman said she is favor of direct election of senators and implied that she worries about the kind of interests that would have influence if the state legislature chose Senators. Similarly, businessman John Brunner is also in favor of direct election of senators and said he is “highly sympathetic to the whole concept of the 17th Amendment, and doing everything we can to bring the power back to the people.”

–Alex Brown

Indiana U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, the Tea Party candidate who proclaimed that “bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view” shortly after defeating longtime incumbent Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), does not think he should be elected to the U.S. Senate. Indeed, he believes that it should be unconstitutional for anyone to run for the Senate. At a campaign event last February, the Tea Party candidate came out against the Seventeenth Amendment, which ensures that senators will be chosen by elections and not by state legislatures:

You know the issue of the 17th amendment is so troubling to me, our founding fathers, again those geniuses, made the point that the House of Representatives was there to represent the people. The Senate was there to represent the states. In other words the government of the states. . . . You know I think most senators if they had to come back every two years and by the way that would solve another problem. It would solve the idea that Senators move out of their state and never return. But it would cause those senators to have much greater contact with their states. You know just think of this. In today’s you see millions and millions of dollars spent on Senate campaigns. Two years ago, in 2010, Sharon Angle out in Nevada spent 31 million dollars, just herself. How much money would be spent in federal senate races if the state legislators were electing those people. You just took the money out of politics. Is that a bad thing?

Watch it:

Mourdock is certainly right that eliminating U.S. Senate elections would end the practice of corporations and wealthy individuals throwing millions of dollars to change the result of those elections. Indeed, under Mourdock’s logic there’s no reason to stop there. If we simply named someone the hereditary monarch of the United States — King Mitt I — then no one would ever spend money to influence an American election again!

Mourdock is dead wrong, however, to suggest that ending Senate elections would eliminate corruption. Rather, one of the primary forces driving the Seventeenth Amendment’s ratification was the fact that the old system led to a kind of Citizens United on steroids:

[T]he system led to rampant and blatant corruption, letting corporations and other moneyed interests effectively buy U.S. Senators, and tied state legislatures up in numerous, lengthy deadlocks over whom to send to Washington, leaving those bodies with far less time to devote to the job of enacting the laws their states needed for the welfare of the people.

Sadly, Mourdock is not the first major Republican to say that the American people should not be allowed to elect their own senators. Texas Gov. Rick Perry believes this, as does Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Justice Antonin Scalia.

The John Birch Society is best known for touting conspiracy theories about how the United Nations is plotting to eliminate everything from paved roads to the game of golf, so all of their claims need to be taken with quite a few grains of salt. Nevertheless, their official magazine contains a very plausible report about Tea Party U.S. Senate candidate Dan Liljenquist (R-UT) that raises serious questions about his judgement if it is true. According to this report, Liljenquist told them they he will work to repeal the Constitution’s guarantee that voters — and not state lawmakers — get to elect United States senators:

[I]n a surprising answer to a question, Liljenquist informed The New American that he supports the repeal of the 17th Amendment. Regarding , [sic] Liljenquist explained his opposition to tthe [sic] popular election of the U.S. Senate that was effected by the ratification of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution:

“There is a disconnect between the state legislatures and the state delegations in Washington, D.C.” “I commit that if I ever lose the support of the Utah State Legislature, I will come home and not return to Washington,” he continued.

If this report is accurate, it is disturbing not just because of its content, but because Liljenquist decided to talk to this extremist group in the first place. Moreover, Liljenquist, has a well documented history of attacking the Seventeenth Amendment’s promise of democracy, so it is reasonably likely that the Birchers are telling the truth here.

At a campaign event in Morgan County, Utah, Liljenquist lamented the fact that, as a state lawmaker, the Seventeenth Amendment prevented him from imposing his will on his primary opponent Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT):

Liljenquist also talked about Senator Hatch. He said, “As a state legislator it has been very disappointing. We have almost no working relationship with our Senior Senator…It was supposed to be that the senate would represent the state and work with the legislature to make sure state’s rights were protected. Last year we passed a bill and we said, ‘Hey, we know that the seventeenth amendment is in place, we can’t tell you what to do, but come and consult with us, come and speak with us.’ Mike Lee said I understand that’s my role and Orrin Hatch said I don’t report to you.

Earlier this month, Liljenquist also claimed that there need to be term limits on Senators to help counteract the effect of the Seventeenth Amendment. And Liljenquist’s past digs on the Seventeenth Amendment are also part of a larger record of hostility to the Constitution. Indeed, a centerpiece of Liljenquist’s campaign against Hatch is Liljenquist’s belief that Hatch should not have voted to provide health care to children because Liljenquist believes a national program to heal children is unconstitutional. Indeed, his proposal for senatorial term limits is also unconstitutional.

Liljenquist also would not be the first prominent conservative to embrace the ludicrous idea that Americans should not be able to elect their own senators. Justice Scalia once slammed the Seventeenth Amendment, as has Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX).

Liljenquist’s campaign did not return a request to confirm or deny the John Birch Society’s claim that he wants to make his own senate election unconstitutional. Nevertheless, in light of Liljenquist’s long pattern of hostility towards the Constitution, and his record of strange statements expressing suspicion about the Seventeenth Amendment itself, it seems reasonably likely that the Birchers’ reporting is accurate.