Massachusetts Democrats Make a Hash of the Seventeenth Amendment
The craven demonstration of partisan politics by the Bay State legislature in naming Kennedy's replacement should be outlawed.
The state of Massachusetts has contributed countless gifts to America, including the labors of innovative scientists, classic authors, and several United States presidents. It is perhaps fitting, then, that the Bay State has now provided us with one of the great history tutorials in recent memory. The lesson in question, currently playing out in Boston, demonstrates that our nation suffered a collective lack of clarity in 1913 when we passed the Seventeenth Amendment.
Having rushed through a bill to strip Mitt Romney of the power to appoint an interim senator when it looked as if John Kerry would be packing his bags for the West Wing in 2004, the same august Massachusetts legislative body has now declared that governors should — indeed must! — have that power once again. (Only the most skeptical among you would be crass enough to point out that a Democrat is now in the governor’s mansion.)
Not satisfied with flipping the process on its head twice in five years, their chief executive, Deval Patrick, has declared it to be of such import that his appointment of former Kennedy aide Paul Kirk to the vacated senate seat must take effect immediately, rather than waiting the normal 90 days for any new law to go into effect.
There are few today who would argue in favor of the Constitution’s original procedure where state legislatures would select senators, safely insulated from the uneducated whims of the unwashed masses. But in the process of returning the power of senatorial selection to the voters, we included a loophole: “Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.”
To be sure, persuasive arguments have been made for the wishy-washy option handed to the legislators. Elections are expensive beasts and the prospect of holding several of them in the space of a year or two is daunting. Also, the governor is an elected officer of the voters, so his or her choice could be said to represent the will of the populace.
But the true failing of the Seventeenth Amendment does not arise from concerns of frugality or the legitimacy of the candidate. It is rooted in the flexible nature of a selection process which should be one of the fundamental, bedrock foundations of the democratic process.
Massachusetts, by demonstrating an unabashed, craven willingness to retrofit their electoral procedures to suit the needs of one party, has revealed this system to be a useful tool in partisan warfare never intended by the framers. By now, there are no doubt other states with traditional majorities held by either party casting an envious glance at the shell game they are running in the Bay State. Particularly in an era when legislative majorities can be slim and one vote can spell the difference between success and disaster, the temptation will prove too much for some.
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Jazz Shaw is a heretical, Northeastern former RINO and regular columnist at The Moderate Voice. He can be reached at jazzshaw@gmail.com.
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26 Comments
1. Old Soldier:We all get the government we deserve. The Minutemen in the cememtary in the center of my hometown are spinning in their graves. I left Taxachussetts long ago and will never reside there again.
Sep 28, 2009 - 4:26 am 2. Rich Vail:What is occuring in Mass is a case in point why one party should never, ever gain such a large majority so as to run roughshop over those who oppose it. It’s an exampple of tyranny of the majority and is WHY the framers of the Constitution put in place the Electoral College…so that nationally, a candidate for President has to achieve a MAJORITY OF THE STATES in order to be elected, not merely a majority of votes. They viewed the country as a collection of states, not an indivisible country. Until the the Civil War, America was referred to as “the United States are…” after, “the United States is..” a horse of a different colour.
Sep 28, 2009 - 4:55 am 3. RE:As if politicians give a rip about that annoying US Constitution.
Sep 28, 2009 - 6:08 am 4. savage24:It should be obvious the the most casual observer the the democrats do not care about the Constitution, they only care about power.
Sep 28, 2009 - 6:11 am 5. Glenn DC:Dear sirs:
I respectfully disagree that what happened in Massachusetts is bad. In fact, I am convinced that passage of the 17th amendment was the first turn of the screw in the undoing of the republic. When U.S. Senators became directly elected by the people instead of appointed by Governors and confirmed by the state Senators, the states were left without representation, and began to lose their unique rights in the structure and process of our government. Though some may find Kirk’s appointment distasteful, I wish we could all go back to the time that all senators were appointed in that manner and their job was to represent the interests of their state governments.
Sep 28, 2009 - 6:31 am 6. Poor Citizen:I remember livin in New Hampshire and working in Mass. both states were beautiful but the folks in New Hampshire would call Massachussetts ..the PDRM, peoples democratic republic of Mass and the folks from Mass would call New Hampshire, cow hampshire and of course…the jokes from each side were spicy….it was all funny for me, because I was from Michigan…
However, my friend, this one is a non-starter. Even the archers in the south, very conservative states righters would call you wrong on this one. The state…indeed the people and those they elect have a right to do..in the words of George Wallace “as they damm well please”….
So as a conservative, you should reverse course and get on board..just because its “the other party”…dont make it wrong.
Sep 28, 2009 - 7:03 am 7. B Dubya:I’m with Glenn.
What Taxachussetts does with the 17th ammendment is not nearly so evil as what the 17th ammendment did to the constitutional separation of powers and the federalist system.
Now we have mob rule, with the mobsters only distinguished by the fact that one eschelon has a two year term and the other six. Instead of Daniel Webster, or Henry Clay, we get Teddy “Chappaquidick” Kennedy or Shrillary Clinton (I am so grateful that she cashed in her Senatorial chips for that choice SOS slot she has so successfully botched).
For those of you that were thinking that you might get a Republican senator from Mass, the only Republican in my recent memory from that state is the architect of the Mass. mandated health “plan”, the RINO Mitt “All Thumbs” Romney.
Repeal the 17th ammendment. While you’re at it, declare the current strain of the Democrat party to be a criminal enterprise and outlaw it. (One will happen when the other does,I’m sure.)
Sep 28, 2009 - 7:05 am 8. BIG:Massachusetts should just change their law to read, if a Democrat is Governor, he can do anything he wants and when a Republican is Governor, he has to obey the law. If they did this, they wouldn’t have to keep changing their laws.
Sep 28, 2009 - 7:14 am 9. Bilgeman:#5 GlennDC:
“When U.S. Senators became directly elected by the people instead of appointed by Governors and confirmed by the state Senators, the states were left without representation, and began to lose their unique rights in the structure and process of our government.”
^
Sep 28, 2009 - 7:30 am 10. Duhgee:THIS!
Massachusetts: Its the other Venezuela!
Sep 28, 2009 - 9:46 am 11. Brian Richard Allen:When did the small matter of elections and the choice of our representatives by us and for us ever matter to a damned “Democrat?” Particularly of the East-Coast “establishment” (make that: elitist) variety?
If those pukes and crap-heads are not gerrymandering in ways that make it sure certain that, rather than the way it is intended, it is they who get to select their “electors,” then their Stalinist street agitators and Alinskyist bully boys are registering criminal aliens, the insane, felons and dead folks — and are up all night stuffing ballot boxes.
Sep 28, 2009 - 10:21 am 12. Phd:We in Illinois are so proud! Having our indicted Governor, Blago, name a professional hack, Roland Burris to the now “African-American senatorial seat”, before he was impeached, and certainly with the blessing of Obama, set a fine example for the rest of the country.
Sep 28, 2009 - 10:49 am 13. Chris in Toronto:Glenn in DC nailed it.
Sep 28, 2009 - 12:11 pm 14. karlinsync:This type of politics played out in Mass. is shameful as well as appalling. Everyone of sound mind knows what the “emergency” is…is. I am hard pressed to understand who the good guys are and who is responsibile that the Constutution is upheld. My God, man, it can’t be that hard to follow the law of the land!
Sep 28, 2009 - 12:58 pm 15. Moho:Unless its a Republican. In which case, full steam ahead. Whatever we do is God’s will!
Sep 28, 2009 - 1:17 pm 16. myth buster:It’s not about the fact that the Governor was empowered to appoint a Senator, but rather about the fact that we have a problem with politicians not being willing to play by their own rules, instead choosing to do whatever happens to be the most convenient at the moment, regardless of its legal or logical justification.
Sep 28, 2009 - 1:58 pm 17. Sebastian Shaw:Corruption has been rampant in Massachusetts for decades with the help of the Kennedy’s; therefore, I am not surprised, but saddened to see the law broken as if these laws do not apply to the legislatures as well. The appointment should be struck down.
Sep 28, 2009 - 2:10 pm 18. Peter the Bubblehead:15. Moho wrote:
Unless its a Republican. In which case, full steam ahead. Whatever we do is God’s will!
Moho you idiot, when there was a Republican governor, the Dems couldn’t move fast enough to take the right to appoint a senator away from him. But now that the Libtards are back in the Gold Dome, they bent over backwards trying to explain how it was so important for the governor to be able to appoint an interim senator lest the commonwealth be improperly represented for three months until the election can be organized, a period of time they were MORE than willing to live with, commonwealth-be-damned, when it looked like there might actually be an opportunity for a (shudder) Republican senator!
Sep 28, 2009 - 2:20 pm 19. Eric R.:Massachusetts is truly a one-party state in that the Socialists (Dems are unabashedly Marxist in the Bay State) dominate the state, and as they do everywhere else, control the media, arts and public education.
There is about as much democracy in Massachusetts today was there was in Gorbachev’s USSR.
Sep 28, 2009 - 3:04 pm 20. VinceP1974:Every Progressive Era Amendment has been a disaster for the Republic
XVI
Sep 28, 2009 - 9:02 pm 21. poor Michigander:XVII
XVIII
XIX (just joking)
K E N N E D Y IS JUST ANOTHER WAY TO SPELL CORRUPTION
Sep 29, 2009 - 6:27 am 22. Blake:@B Dubya
Sep 29, 2009 - 10:32 am 23. Steve:Although I do feel that Universal Healthcare in the Bay State is a colossal failure, and runs contrary to the ideals of the founding fathers, don’t place the majority of the blame on Mitt. The plan he promoted was at least fiscally sound until the liberal politicians got hold of it after it was passed. The additions, restrictions and mandates they placed on it were what finally destroyed Mitt’s semi-feasible attempt at insuring the citizens of Mass…so please place the blame for its failure where it lies. Blame it’s creation on Mitt.
Glen from DC is spot on. The Senators are ambassadors from the States, they can also be recalled and replaced, and given instructions. I can know personally my State representative, and go and have a talk with him, and he has a vote on who is Senator.
Then the Progressives (Mousolini renamed them fascists) destroyed the Republic with the 16th (eliminating the power of a State to hold tax levies in escrow) and 17th (transferring Senators from the States to the parties)amendments.
In Minnesota, we were without a second senator for half a year, until ACORN was finally able to fabricate enough votes to get failed comedian Al Franken selected. Mass is more important than we are?
Sep 30, 2009 - 12:16 am 24. Joe:The government of Taxachusetts is inept and corrupt. I moved out of there a year ago and am glad I did.
It’s sad. The state is so beautiful, with such a rich heritage. It would be a great place to live if it had a balanced, ethical and responsible government.
Sep 30, 2009 - 10:12 am 25. westWright:1st time I’ve agreed with Jazz Shaw but I do wonder why this article was posted before the crime was committed???? Jazz Shaw really missed the boat on relevance for this post, typical. BTW, as good as most of the work PJ does, I’m surprised PJ corraled these very poor writers, Shaw, Moron, Navarette. Sortof like Lamont Hill on Fox I guess.
Oct 1, 2009 - 8:10 am 26. Concerned4all:An IDIOT, Appointed to a dead IDIOTS seat in the senate by an IDIOT.
Oct 1, 2009 - 4:25 pm