Repeal The 17th Amendment

I'm for the status quo...........con on Repeal The 17th Amendment my opponent is right on one thing that House of Representatives to be the ones elected by people in each district, but the people of the state (all of the people in the state not just the districts) should have the choice of who represents them my opponent's first argument is Legislatures are Smarter than People Now it this argument I will show why that is not true. the whole point of a Legislature is To represent the people the problem is they're not they represent themselves not THE PEOPLE, the job of the senate is to represent the state so the way we vote doesn't matter what matter is if the the right person gets in, but before the 17th amendment there was Intimidation & bribery this show that all though it should have worked it didn't. my opponent's second argument Senate would Respect State Rights more is not true but don't take my word on it. Prof. Ilya Somin 2011. (Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law. M.A. in Political Science from Harvard University, & J.D. from Yale Law School. Research expertise includes constitutional law.) "Why Repealing the 17th Amendment Won"t Curb Federal Power" Sep. 2011. Pg. 91 "Even if a constitutional amendment could effectively eliminate popular election of senators & replace it with selection by state legislatures, it is far from clear that federal power would contract. The claim that senators chosen by state legislatures would act to curb the feds relies on the assumption that state governments oppose federal power. Whatever was the case before 1913, under modern conditions senators chosen by state legislatures often have strong incentives to support expanded federal power. Those incentives arise precisely because senators" reelection depends on "pleasing state legislators." The state legislators in question are often heavily dependent on federal subsidies & regulations. They are unlikely to do anything to overturn the federal trough at which they themselves regularly feed." my opponent's third argument look at my last argument it would happen MORE not less. Sean Gailmar (Assistant Professor, Charles & Louise Travers Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley) and Jeffery A Jenkins (Ph.D. in political science Associate Professor, Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville), 2009; "Agency Problems, the 17th Amendment, & Representation in the Senate" http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu... [ESD] "The 17th Amendment made the terms of the agency relationship quite different. Instead of indirect agency, the principal-agent relationship between voters & U.S. Senators was obviously more direct. Voters no longer had to rely on an imperfectly controlled intermediary to hold a further downstream agent to account for them. Instead, they themselves could select new U.S. Senators & try to induce desired behaviors from sitting senators with any given ideology, based on their own preferences. To the extent that voters were informed about the preferences of new Senate candidates or the behavior of sitting senators, they could hold them accountable just as well as state legislatures could"& hold them to a better standard (from their own point of view, & from a normative democratic point of view)." my opponent's forth argument Problems with Democratic Election, maybe but the state Legislatures are worse not better it is very easy to get a small group of people (state Legislatures) on your side, but it takes a lot more to get a large group of people (the voters) on your side. Sean Gailmar (Assistant Professor, Charles & Louise Travers Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley) and Jeffery A Jenkins (Ph.D. in political science Associate Professor, Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville), 2009; "Agency Problems, the 17th Amendment, & Representation in the Senate" "The 17th Amendment made the terms of the agency relationship quite different. Instead of indirect agency, the principal-agent relationship between voters & U.S. Senators was obviously more direct. Voters no longer had to rely on an imperfectly controlled intermediary to hold a further downstream agent to account for them. Instead, they themselves could select new U.S. Senators & try to induce desired behaviors from sitting senators with any given ideology, based on their own preferences. To the extent that voters were informed about the preferences of new Senate candidates or the behavior of sitting senators, they could hold them accountable just as well as state legislatures could"& hold them to a better standard (from their own point of view, & from a normative democratic point of view)." okay now for my opponent's last argument Problems with Old System I going to restate some evidence on this, Rob Natelson, who spent 25 years as a Professor of Law at the University of Montana & is a constitutional scholar whose works have been published or cited by many top law journals, said on August 26, 2013 "These were not minor problems. When a politician votes to reduce his own power, you know things are bad. But that"s what state lawmakers did. First, they begged Congress to propose a direct-election amendment, then they established de facto direct election systems in some states, & finally they began an application campaign for an Article V amendments convention." THESE WERE NOT MINOR PROBLEMS, yes there still is corruption but it was much worse without the 17th amendment. so in conclusion yes there were problems and they needed to be fixed and that's what the 17th amendment did so we should keep it not Repeal it. "Agency Problems, the 17th Amendment, & Representation in the Senate" http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu... http://www.fed-soc.org... http://tenthamendmentcenter.com...