US Senate Remains Appointed

Hey that's my district, where do you live now?
I moved to Berwin Heights for grad school. Used to live a bit east of Owings Mills in the northern fringe of the district.

I know all the arguments about why gerrymandering exists and will continue to do so, but that doesn't mean you have to be happy about it in your own backyard.

Then again, I think it is way worse at the Legislative and State Senate levels, where it is not nearly as cartoonishly bad and obvious, but where far more districts have some form of gerrymandering to them, often not even for partisan reasons but just because certain power brokers like it a certain way (for example, any ambitious Prince Georges County Democratic politician will want their district to include a sliver of rich Montgomery County suburbs, so as to have a donor network for a future gubernatorial race, etc.).
 
One of the original reasons for the 17th amendment was as an anti-corruption measure due to issues with Senate seats being effectively bought and sold.
more like literally,
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/contested_elections/089William_Clark.htm
On April 23, 1900, after hearing extensive testimony from ninety-six witnesses, the committee returned a report unanimously concluding that William Clark was not entitled to his seat. The testimony detailed a dazzling list of bribes ranging from $240 to $100,000. In a high-pressure, well-organized scheme coordinated by Clark's son, Clark's agents had paid mortgages, purchased ranches, paid debts, financed banks, and blatantly presented envelopes of cash to legislators
 
"Having Senators appointed by the governor could have the unintended side effect of nationalizing gubernatorial races."

A good point, but the effect would be limited if the state legislature had to approve the governor's appointment.

Actually that would departisanize the Senate itself to some extent. In states with a Governor from one party and a legislature controlled by the other, think of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania currently, the only appointments the Governor could get approval for would be independents, or members of either the gubenatorial or legislative party that would be highly likely to vote much of the other time with the other party (conservative Democrats/ liberal Republicans). Elizabeth Warren might still be a Baker appointment, since before she was nominated by the Democrats for the seat she was an academic with no involvement in electoral politics.

If the American Senate was more like the Budesrat the nature of the Senate would change because it would no longer be a smaller version of the House with unequal districts and weird rules. It would really represent the state governments and not approach things through the prism of national partisan politics. I think it would be more likely that this version of the Senate would be less linked to national politics instead of the states pulled more into national politics. The history of the Bundesrat after 1949 bears this out.
 
Actually that would departisanize the Senate itself to some extent. In states with a Governor from one party and a legislature controlled by the other, think of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania currently, the only appointments the Governor could get approval for would be independents, or members of either the gubenatorial or legislative party that would be highly likely to vote much of the other time with the other party (conservative Democrats/ liberal Republicans). Elizabeth Warren might still be a Baker appointment, since before she was nominated by the Democrats for the seat she was an academic with no involvement in electoral politics.

This could easily lead to deadlocks where Senate seats simply sit empty because neither group can come up with a candidate acceptable to both sides. Frequent deadlocks were another reason why the 17th amendment was necessary. One of the worst instances was when a Delaware Senate seat was unfilled for four years. Given current levels of partisanship, states like Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan which are dominated by the Democrats at the statewide level but have a state legislature controlled by the GOP thanks to gerrymandering could end up with no Senatorial representation at all.
 
In any event, I don't agree that state governments, however defined, necessarily are better judges of "the interests of the state" than the people--unless you beg the question by defining "the interests of the state" as whatever the state governments want.

My point is relatively simple: I think that a system of Checks and Balances is important for any liberal democracy to work, and I think that federalism is an inherent part of this Sseparation of powers. Now, on paper, American federalism is quite strong; I like to point out that every American state has its own criminal and civil codes, meaning that each state can impose different procedures and punishments for one and the same crime. But, in fact, in many areas of policy making American federalism was underminded by conditional federal subsidies; Congress hands out money to the states on certain conditions, meaning that states will give up legislative autonomy to comply with federal regulations, because that's how they can receive money from the federal government.

I don't think that the US Senate is enough of a check to prevent this phenomenon; in fact, Senators are not local politicians (i. e. representatives of their state), but local and national politicians. Of course they have to watch out for the opinion of their constituents (just like their colleages in the House), but those constituents will form an opinion on the basis of national issues, like, for Conservatives, abortion; they will want their Senators to further their interests, i. e. to restrict abortion, in this case. They will thus want their Senators to restrict the rights of the states if that helps to reach the objective of restricting abortion.

If, however, state governors would appoint US Senators, and would have the power to recall them at any time, they would be much more careful about restricting the powers of state governments, because that would affect themselves and their own power; the Senate would be much more reluctant about establishing federal control over matters previously reserved to the states, because the governors appointing the Senators would also be quite reluctant to hand out power to the federal government.
 
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