Joe Miller - Repeal the 17th Amendment - Let Cronies Pick Legislators

According to the Fairbanks News-Miner:

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller told a Fairbanks audience Monday that he would back an amendment to repeal the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitition.

That’s the 1913 amendment that shifted the job of selecting U.S. senators from each state legislature and required a popular vote in each state.

The issue has garnered support from some Tea Party candidates across the country.

The idea, apparently, is that if senators are selected by legislators, they would be less susceptible to special interests and more supportive of states’ rights.

A Wall Street Journal law blog summarizes the argument this way: “Nowadays, Senate candidates have to raise so much money to run that they become beholden to special interests. But state legislators aren’t as compromised and would choose senators who truly put their state’s needs first.”

Given our experience in Alaska with the corruption scandal, I don’t know how anyone can argue that the Alaska Legislature is in a better position to select senators than the voters of Alaska.

Matt Bai of the New York Times wrote in June that, “Putting Senate seats in the hands of lawmakers would not empower states so much as it would resurrect the old-fashioned American political machine – a condition voters in the Internet age would tolerate for about 10 minutes.”