In 1913 the choice of United States senators moved from state legislatures to a statewide popular vote, and the states lost the one check they held over Washington. Bill Norton walks Jenny Beth Martin through why the founders built the Senate the way they did, what the Seventeenth Amendment actually cost the states, and why he believes Article Five made that amendment impossible to pass the way it was passed. This is the bonus conversation following Lesson 3 of the founding-principles training on the U.S. Constitution.
Guest: Bill Norton, constitutional scholar and author, whose book Behind the Constitution is in draft and expected later this year.
Today's topics:
Why the three branches were never designed to be equal, and why the legislative branch is by far the most powerful
Thomas Jefferson's warning that the courts would act like gravity, gradually pulling our rights down with the Constitution
The mixed form of government the founders built, traced from Polybius to Montesquieu to John Adams
Why the executive branch constitutionally contains exactly one person, and why the vice president belongs to the legislative branch
The House as the democracy chamber and the Senate as the oligarchy chamber, and why the balance between them matters
What the national popular vote would do to every state without a major city
The Seventeenth Amendment of 1913, the Illinois Senate seat bought at 2,500 dollars per state legislator, and the scandal that carried the amendment through
The two things Article Five says can never be amended, and Bill Norton's argument that one of them was ignored
Why the filibuster leaves 40 percent of the Senate controlling the outcome, and why the founders reserved supermajorities for rare business
George Washington's tea saucer answer on what the Senate was actually for
The supremacy clause in Article Six, and why a law made outside the Constitution is not the supreme law of the land
Nullification in practice, from the Real ID Act to marijuana to sanctuary jurisdictions, used by both parties
Marbury v. Madison, judicial review, and the check on the courts that Congress can use with a simple majority
The Office of the Presidency, the bureaucratic layer Congress built inside the executive branch
The Jenny Beth Show airs live Monday through Friday at 1:00 PM ET. Hosted by Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party movement and Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action. Subscribe for daily analysis of politics, policy, and the fight for constitutionally limited government. teapartypatriots.org
#SeventeenthAmendment #BillNorton #JennyBethMartin #Constitution #FederalismExplained #ArticleFive #USSenate #FoundingPrinciples #ElectoralCollege #Nullification #SupremacyClause #JudicialReview #LimitedGovernment #ConstitutionalScholar #TeaPartyPatriotsAction