In 1913 the Seventeenth Amendment took the choice of United States senators away from state legislatures and handed it to a statewide popular vote. Constitutional scholar Bill Norton argues that amendment was never validly ratified, and the reason sits in plain text in Article Five: no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. Most scholars read that as satisfied because every state still seats two senators. Norton reads "no state" as the state government itself, which means the Seventeenth Amendment needed unanimous ratification rather than three quarters, and the states that voted against it were stripped of something the Constitution said could not be taken.
Jenny Beth Martin walks him through the whole case in this bonus conversation following Lesson 3 of the founding-principles training on the U.S. Constitution.
In this episode:
• Why the founders never designed the three branches to be equal, and why the legislative branch was built strongest
• The mixed form of government traced from Polybius through Montesquieu to John Adams
• What the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments cost American federalism
• The Illinois Senate seat bought at $2,500 per state legislator, and the outrage that pushed the amendment through
• Why a chamber built as an oligarchy functions badly as a democracy
• The answer to the objection that repeal would take away your vote
• The supremacy clause, nullification, judicial review, and the power Congress already has to limit the courts
Get the free founding-principles training at teapartypatriots.org/1776. Full episodes and show notes at jennybethshow.com. More from Tea Party Patriots Action at teapartypatriots.org. The Senate is still sitting on the SAVE America Act — the Capitol switchboard is 202-224-3121.
00:00:00 — Welcome and the Founding Principles Series
00:01:29 — Why the Three Branches Were Never Meant to Be Equal
00:04:36 — Polybius, Montesquieu, and the Mixed Form of Government
00:10:47 — The Logic of the Seven Articles
00:14:56 — Federalism, the Electoral College, and the National Popular Vote
00:25:16 — The Seventeenth Amendment: What Changed in 1913
00:38:42 — Article Five and How Amendments Actually Pass
00:45:11 — The Case That the Seventeenth Amendment Was Never Valid
00:50:32 — Bring Our Senators Home
01:13:37 — The Supremacy Clause and Nullification
01:23:47 — Judicial Review, Article Three, and No Kings
01:41:28 — Closing and the Bill of Rights Ahead
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