17th Amendment
17th Amendment
The Seventeenth Amendment made it so there would be two senators from each one of the states, voted in by the people. The senators would be given a six year term and have one vote each. They added an article to the amendment so when vacancies happen in the senators seat the state legislation would assign someone until the people voted a senator in.
The old way of picking state senators was by state legislatures choice. This way was used to make sure that the federal government had representatives of the states, and to make them not dependent on popular support. After time they had problems such as the risk of corruption and when an electoral deadlock happened. The Seventeenth Amendment was passed by congress on May 13th, 1912 and ratified on April 8th, 1913. The first state to ratify it was Massachusetts and the most recent was Maryland on April 1st, 2012. The states that haven’t ratified it yet are Utah, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia. Utah has explicitly rejected the amendment, stating that they would want to get a repeal, but it would be too difficult. They believe the state senators should be chosen by the state legislation. My Opinion
I think that this amendment is important because it allowed the people of each state to choose who would represent their state in the U.S. Senate instead of state legislators choosing who would represent their state. I also believe it provides a way for the states to fill a senate seat that became vacant in the middle of a term. If the people didn’t vote who the senator was and the government did they would pick people off of their own needs, which would probably lead to
The Seventeenth Amendment made it so there would be two senators from each one of the states, voted in by the people. The senators would be given a six year term and have one vote each. They added an article to the amendment so when vacancies happen in the senators seat the state legislation would assign someone until the people voted a senator in.
The old way of picking state senators was by state legislatures choice. This way was used to make sure that the federal government had representatives of the states, and to make them not dependent on popular support. After time they had problems such as the risk of corruption and when an electoral deadlock happened. The Seventeenth Amendment was passed by congress on May 13th, 1912 and ratified on April 8th, 1913. The first state to ratify it was Massachusetts and the most recent was Maryland on April 1st, 2012. The states that haven’t ratified it yet are Utah, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia. Utah has explicitly rejected the amendment, stating that they would want to get a repeal, but it would be too difficult. They believe the state senators should be chosen by the state legislation. My Opinion
I think that this amendment is important because it allowed the people of each state to choose who would represent their state in the U.S. Senate instead of state legislators choosing who would represent their state. I also believe it provides a way for the states to fill a senate seat that became vacant in the middle of a term. If the people didn’t vote who the senator was and the government did they would pick people off of their own needs, which would probably lead to