It would be rather hypocritical to solicit votes for a public office when you don’t believe the public should vote on that office. So it’s no surprise that Ken Buck, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Colorado, has been taking back a comment he made last year.
The question was about repealing the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which allows for the direct election of senators. Buck replied that “I think we get there [repeal] in the very near future when people understand just what a horrendous effect the 17th Amendment has been on the federal government’s spending.”
Buck has since stated, “It is not a position I still hold and it wasn’t a position I held a day later,” after he “reflected more on it.”
Since I’m starting to see his name on yard signs, I’ll take him at his word. But what is it about repealing the 17th Amendment that gets some Tea Partisans so excited?
The original federal constitution did not establish a democracy. There were three branches of government. The executive was chosen by the electoral college, which was selected by state legislatures. The judiciary was chosen by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The legislative branch had two chambers. One, the House, was directly elected; state legislatures chose senators.
In other words, only one-half of one-third of the government was directly elected. And in those days, voting was generally limited to white male property owners.
Fast-forward to the reform movements of the early 20th century, starting with the 16th Amendment of 1913. It allowed for a federal income tax, and if I were a Tea Partisan, that’s the one I’d want to repeal.
As I’m learning from a wonderful history of Prohibition, “Last Call” by Daniel Okrent, the federal government once relied on booze taxes for a third of its revenue. An income tax provided an alternate revenue stream, and this helped Prohibition — the 18th Amendment of 1919 — come to pass.
The reformers had other causes. A century ago, women already voted in some states, starting with Wyoming in 1890 and Colorado in 1893. They got the vote in all states with the 19th Amendment of 1920.
The 17th Amendment fit with the reformist tenor of the times. The Senate was seen as a “millionaire’s club.”
In Colorado, we had silver baron Horace A.W. Tabor spending freely at the statehouse to buy a U.S. Senate seat in 1883. One history called it “the prime example of the prostitution of politics.”
Direct election of senators, it was argued, would fight “the Money Power” by empowering the people. Other reforms of the era included the initiative and the referendum, again empowering the public and diminishing the power of the almighty dollar.
Of course, it hasn’t worked that way. Money still rules. Any millionaire can pay people to circulate petitions to put an initiative on our ballot and then buy TV time telling us why it’s good for us. And Senate campaigns run into the tens of millions.
Going back to legislative selection might make senators less beholden to campaign donors. But I can’t see how it would restrain federal spending. After all, legislators generally enjoy federal largesse — be it for transportation, education, military bases, national parks, farm subsidies, health care or energy research — just as much as plain old voters do.
Thus, legislators would be just as likely to select free-spending senators who bring home the bacon. So the Tea Partisan argument for repealing the 17th Amendment makes no sense. But there’s a lot about that movement that defies rational explanation.
Ed Quillen (ekquillen@gmail.com) of Salida is a regular contributor to The Denver Post.
