Tortuga Debates: The 17th Amendment
Should it be Abolished or Remain?
The Tortuga Society is proud to produce the first in a new series: Tortuga Debates
The format is simple: Two Tortugans debate a particular topic — one defending, the other attacking.
Our aim with this series is to edify our readers and foster a friendly but competitive environment where we can hone our intellectual edges and grow as individuals & as a group.
The inaugural debate will be on the 17th amendment. I will be arguing for its abolition and our friend & member Simon Laird will be defending it.
Enjoy! And please leave a comment telling us what you think about this particular issue. Also, let us know what topics you’d like to see debated in the future — or if you’d be interested in participating.
Simon Laird’s Defense of the 17th
Keep the 17th Amendment
The 17th Amendment probably shouldn’t have been passed, but getting rid of it now would undermine the Right. The Amendment created the current system for selection of Senators by popular vote of the whole state’s voting population. Before the Amendment, Senators were selected by the State Legislature. The 17th Amendment (passed in 1912, ratified in 1913) was part of the so-called “Progressive Era” reforms which included a lot of bad things, such as women’s suffrage, workplace regulation, minimum wage and child labor laws.
In the early 1900s when the 17th Amendment was passed, State Legislatures were broadly Right wing and the populist energy was broadly Left-wing. So at the time it was passed, the 17th Amendment weakened the Right. But today the Establishment is Left wing and the populist energy is on the Right. Many state legislatures, even in red states, are filled with careerist student-body-council-types who do not share the values of their conservative constituents. South Carolina and Wyoming are especially bad. Despite very red voters, those two states produced Lindsey Graham and Liz Cheney because their state party leadership is full of RINOs. South Carolina Republican leadership have spent the past few years trying to strangle the State Legislature’s Freedom Caucus, even going so far as to fund primary challengers against every State Legislature Freedom Caucus member.
Critics of the 17th Amendment in the early 1900s said that it would lead to lower quality senators, as underqualified demagogues could appeal to the masses. This critique is true. But today it is a good thing! The Establishment values some aspects of real competence and qualification, but it also values a lot of fake “qualifications” which serve only to entrench the power of the political class. You should not need seniority to hold office in a democracy. You should not need a “long history of public service.” In fact, a long history of career political work makes you a career politician, which should be a point against you, not for you.
“Hilary has experience but it’s bad experience… This country can’t afford to have another 4 years of that kind of experience.” -Donald Trump
Donald Trump, despite his Presidency’s flaws and disappointments, has made a huge improvement to the Right’s position in American politics, and he has had a positive influence mostly because he is a populist outsider. We need more populist outsiders who represent the Right wing base, not fewer. Repealing the 17th Amendment would add a filter between the base and the halls of power. The more candidates have to be filtered through the political establishment, the fewer genuine Right-wingers will get into power.
There is a dangerous tendency on the American Right to focus too much on what the form of government should be. Instead, we should focus more on brass tacks. We need to achieve political wins, pass good policies and get good people in office, and we need to prevent people who hate us from getting into office and passing their policies. We need to help our people and we need to stop the enemies who hate us.
Many on the Right will talk about how we need to uncap the membership number of the House of Representatives. Many try to figure out the exact form of an ideal Constitution. In T.S. Eliot’s words, they are “dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.”
But Man is a political animal and political action requires judgment and initiative. We should be less focused on finding the One True Constitution of the ideally just regime. Instead we should meet the particular challenges of the here and now. We must act to solve specific problems, help our specific people, and defeat specific factions of evil-doers. Political action shouldn’t be a political science class discussion, it is a battle between factions, between peoples, and - we hope - between good and evil with ourselves on the side of good.
We were born into a dying empire ruled by a Byzantine bureaucracy. The course of action which we are called to in order to meet the challenges of our time requires us to harness populist energy. The masses are indeed less sophisticated and less stable than our decadent elites. No matter, we must grab the reins and ride the tiger, and use the populist energy to break the Byzantine, gerontocratic bureaucracy, depose the ruling class and take the levers of power.
When it was passed, the 17th Amendment might have been a bad decision, but today, the 17th Amendment is very good for the populist Right. Without it, the Senate would be dominated by student-body-council-types like Mitch McConnell. With the 17th Amendment, the populist Right has at least a chance to get its people into the Senate.
Theon Ultima’s Call for the Abolition of the 17th
Abolish the 17th — Restoring the Federal Balance
The 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913, marking one of many Progressive victories in expanding democracy under the banner of populist reform. Few of us consider this incredible change in our constitutional republic’s framework — I’m here to show why this rarely considered Amendment was a step in the wrong direction and fundamentally altered our country’s delicate balance between the Federal and State governments.
We live in a time where trust in our federal institutions is at an all time low and the States have found the need to mobilize toward their own interests — from COVID policy to immigration enforcement; the need to restore genuine state representation in Washington has never been clearer. A clear way to achieve this would be to abolish the 17th Amendment.
The Populist Fallacy: Ill-Informed Electorate, Unmoored Representation
The Founding Fathers created our bicameral legislative body with balance in mind. The House would represent the people writ large - their foibles and passions included. The Senate was set apart — meant to serve as a bulwark against the fleeting eristic passions of the moment. The Senate was also meant to represent the independent states & their idiosyncratic interests.
By changing the way in which the Senate was elected, the original purpose of the Senate was thereby undermined. Now the Senate is just a loftier chamber elected by the same effervescent passions of the people. Worse yet, unlike the House with its two terms — the Senate now locks in these passions for a term of six years.
Additionally, the Senate lost its most fundamental aspect — the representation of the States in the Federal Government! The 17th Making it easier for candidates to appeal to emotions rather than articulate policy grounded in state interests.
It Defeats the Purpose of a Bicameral Legislature
This begets a critical question: What is the purpose of the Senate? We have a clear answer in The Federalist No. 39 by James Madison:
“The Senate, on the other hand, will derive its powers from the States, as political and coequal societies... The idea of a national government, as contradistinguished from a federal one, would be lost.”
Madison clearly articulates here that the Senate was to be a direct counter to the House in its composition and purpose. In making the Senate popularly elected — it lost its purpose entirely. It’s simply a higher prestige House and the intended friction between short-term populist pressures and long-term state interests has been exorcized.
Direct election has homogenized the legislature, creating two popular bodies chasing the same voters, campaigns, and headlines. It strikes me that we may have well simply abolished the Senate altogether.
Destruction of Federalism: States as Subordinates
The Framers intended for the Senate to be a check on federal overreach, ensuring that no law passed without the consent of the states themselves. When Senators were selected by the State’s themselves the Senators were more directly tied to the interests and thriving of their constituent states.
By removing the state legislatures from the equation, the 17th Amendment redefined senators as federal politicians, not ambassadors of their states.
This shift contributed to the centralization of power in Washington, weakening the very structure that allowed states to resist coercive federal mandates.
Demagoguery & Party Capture
Direct election of Senators enables national political figures and populist demagogues to capture party machinery and impose their ideological candidates on diverse states. Erstwhile, a State may oppose a President on a particular or myriad of issues — this State could defend its interests in the Federal legislature through its selection of Senators.
Now, however, powerful Demagogues can easily bulldoze a Senatorial candidate who would defend the State’s interests but oppose him. The demagogue can essentially pick and choose who will be the senatorial candidates for their party across the states. This was made clear over the course of 2020-2024, where former & now current President Trump selected the Republican party’s candidates across the States. Whether or not you support President Trump this set a worrying precedent — where senators are elected based on their ideological fealty to a man rather than the people of their State.
Today, senatorial candidates are more beholden to national party platforms, special interest funding, and Twitter mobs than to the actual institutional needs of their states.
Encouragement of Partisan Gridlock
Popularly elected senators often focus more on national party priorities and ideological signaling than on legislating or compromise.
State appointed Senators are more pragmatic since their concerned with promoting their state’s interests rather than national party platforms. Popularly electing our Senators has increased partisan deadlock and performative politiking — steering national discourse ever toward the mean IQ (that is to say incredibly stupid).
The 17th Amendment continues to garner little attention or notice but its ramifications continue to pull our nation toward ever more base and low-born discourse and management. In short the 17th Amendment has:
Annulled the actual purpose of the Senate and our Bicameral legislature
Given more power to the mean, ill-informed American citizen & taken more power from the individual States.
Enabled Demagogues to further curtail State interests
Firmly ensconce our “higher” legislative body in crude performative signaling and faux national culture war nonsense.
Our Founding Father’s original conception of the Bicameral legislature was inherently superior to our current congressional appointment arrangement. We’d do well to repeal the 17th amendment and give back the State’s power to confer their own Senators to the formerly elite upper chamber.
Federalism oft dies from the ever onward push of “democratic reforms” — not revolution.
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Good points, but the abolition argument is stronger
Laird’s position boils down to 17a being kept on the merits that it minimizes the distance between populist sentiment and real levers of power, theoretically allowing based populists to be railroaded into the Senate without the interference of pesky state legislatures. If only the right demagogues come around, industrial democracy will pave the way for easy political wins because the vibes are in our favor.
While this recognizes the need to deal with the system we have and not the one we ought to, it only offsets the wishlist-ing by admitting the need for (and lack of) these hypothetical populists to actually do this. The examples produced via 17a are in your own words either disappointing failures or bad actors. Products of their state-level parties and legislatures they may be, the fact remains that 17a is (presently) not used in a meaningful capacity to channel right-wing populism.
This also seems to imply that it would be easier to hold and wield power without dealing with state govts, or that the student council/ Model UN types they are populated with are an insurmountable obstacle better ignored or by-passed. At some point, control needs to be wrested from them if authentic and lasting success is to be achieved. There is only so much that can be done without the cooperation of lower levels of government, as the current administration is making clear.
Overall cool format, excited for more
I say abolish.
Honestly:
1. The question on federalism vs unitary is already kind of irrelevant at this point.
Federalism vs unitary nowadays is just a question of legitimacy of subnational.
Is the subnational sovereign on its own right, legitimacy wise?
Like, are the subdivisions are given by the central government, or are the subdivision rise from the bottom up and central govt has to pay attention to them?
Look: Spain today is a unitary state, but Spanish province has more autonomy than US states.
2. If you want the States to have max rights, get rid of the political parties. Yes, really - Senators have to be non-partisan.
3. In fact we require a massive constitutional amendment, not just a question of 17th amendment.