DBWI: Senators elected directly

samcster94

Banned
It is an oddity that in the United States, Senators are still chosen by state legislatures. What can be done to change this??? Bonus points if it can be done with a post 1900 POD.
 
Technically, the state legislatures don't actually choose Senators: they nominate candidates for each party, and the people of the state cast their vote.
 
It would take a constitutional amendment to do that, and is it really important enough for it to be accepted?

On the other hand, there'd be a lot less issue of corruption involving how state legislators voted for senators throughout the 20th century.

Technically, the state legislatures don't actually choose Senators: they nominate candidates for each party, and the people of the state cast their vote.

They mainly did that because people got sick of state elections being about who was going to get to be senator and above all else, the supposed and actual corruption in state legislatures. It seems in the last states to adopt that system, Utah and South Carolina, it managed to get people to pay serious attention to state elections.
 
How is it an oddity? In Canada the Prime Minister selects Senators, and their courts stopped efforts for him to use unofficial elections to decide who should be the next one in. Still, it is hardly as if we never did that in the US. Some states tried it at various times, with various levels of how official things were and whether popular vote, delegate, the upper or lower house of the state, or the Governor decided who the Senator would be. Still, it does stagnate things. So many compromise candidates for states with mixed leadership, so they don't have to get rid of them at a future election. Probably part of why the South has so many of the chairmanships in the Senate. They have always been very lopsided in what party was in control, so their Senators dug in until their position was too strong to dislodge. Not as strong as some Representatives, however. It really depends on what committees are most important to what states.
 
Top