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March 10, 2009

To Amend or not Amend, that is the question

While election of individual Representatives to Congress has always been by direct election, per the Constitution. So too has filling any vacancies been by direct election. Until 1913 and the ratification of the 17th Amendment Senators were elected by each state's legislature. Since then we've all elected our Senators the same way we elect our Representatives. But the 17th Amendment only partially modified how individuals become Senators, leaving the manner in which vacancies are filled up to each individual state.

Oregon, Wisconsin, Massachusetts and Alaska are the only states requiring a direct election to fill a vacant Senate seat. Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold (D) wants to change that so that every state follows a uniform system for filling vacancies in the Senate just as we do for filling vacancies in the House.

There seems to be some confusion about whether Sen. Feingold wants to modify the 17th Amendment (along with co-sponsor Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis) as this article in the Appleton Wisconsin Post-Crescent says or whether Feingold wants to do it via a new 28th Amendment as almost every other source, including Sen. Feingold's own website, indicate.

Coming on the heels of the very public, very sordid fiasco in Illinois in attempting to fill Obama's vacant seat the time seems to be ripe for proponents of completing the break with the past.

If you want to keep things the way they are then I suppose calling your Senators and Representatives to let them know how you feel is in order.

If you agree with Feingold... He's got a handy dandy sign up form on his website where you can sign up to be a Citizen Co-Sponsor.

Posted by Kevin at March 10, 2009 03:54 PM