Restore State Sovereignty

A Magic Bullet Will Be Needed to Kill the 17th Amendment.
Paul Hanson

The U.S Constitution "originally" laid out the separation of powers
between the federal government and the State governments in the first paragraph of article 1 section 3.
How this paragraph accomplished that goal will become clear later in this article. This paragraph states:

"The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, chosen by the
LEGISLATURE thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote."

Then in Article I, section 4 we also find this:

"The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators
and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the
Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except
as to the PLACES of chusing Senators." Those places were to be in the State Legislatures.

This balance of power was then permanently locked in by the last
clause of article 5. I call this clause the magic bullet because
it can't be stopped by any means that I can see. Article 5 dealing
with amendments to the Constitution clearly states:

"... and that NO State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its
equal Suffrage in the Senate."

By including this in the section dealing with amendments, it is
obvious that the sections of the Constitution concerning selection
of Senators and the suffrage they provided was not amendable unless ALL of States consented and that
this was to be a permanent provision. All of the above shows how adamant the founders were about this
point by referring to the States representation on no less than 3 occasions. If even ONE State objected
to changes in an area that would affect their suffrage, that change would be invalid. The normal
ratification process could not be used to alter this principle. Yet that is exactly what happened when the
17th amendment was adopted.

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RESOLUTION

A Joint Resolution of the Senate and the House of Representatives of the State of
___________ to declare as defective the current process of choosing Senators for the
United States Senate; to request that Congress transmit for consideration by states of the
United States a new amendment that repeals the 17th Amendment to the United States
Constitution and provides for state legislatures to elect members of the United States Senate
and creates liaison committees; informing the President of the United States Senate, the
Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and each Member of the State's
Congressional Delegation of the request for repeal of the 17th amendment and submission of a
new amendment to the United States Constitution.

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PROPOSED AMENDMENT
Sterling H. Saunders

Clause 1: The Seventeenth Article of Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is
hereby repealed.

Clause 2: The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State,
chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

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AMPLIFIYING THE TENTH AMENDMENT
31 Arizona Law Review 915 (1989)
John MacMullin

In Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority,1 the Supreme Court held that state
interests are more properly protected from federal encroachment by the procedural safeguards found in
the federal political process rather than by judicially defined limitations.2 Justice Powell, in a strong
dissent, asserted that the majority's decision reduced the tenth amendment to "meaningless rhetoric."3
In explaining its decision, the majority observed that State governments, through equal representation
in the Senate, retain sufficient influence over the federal political process to insure their autonomy and
sovereign interests.4 The Court, however, recognized that the seventeenth amendment, which provides
for the popular election of Senators, may have diminished the influence that state governments have
over the federal political process and, thereby, the effectiveness of the states' role in that process.5 In
South Carolina v, Baker,6 the Court reiterated its position in Garcia, and also held that in order to
obtain relief, states must show that the federal political process operates in a defective manner.7

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