Senators should have to answer to their states

John C. Lovelace, St. George, Utah

Thursday, Dec. 30, 2010 | 2:03 a.m.

With respect to the Las Vegas Sun’s Monday editorial, “A states’ rights ruse,” I have to agree. A constitutional amendment to give the states a right to refuse a federal law is unnecessary. The Founding Fathers, in their infinite wisdom when writing the Constitution, divided legislative responsibilities between the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The Senate was to be representative of the states, and senators would be appointed by state legislatures. The House of Representatives was to be representative of the people and would be elected by them. Thus, the states and the people have representatives in the federal government.

For some reason we, the people, decided that senators should be elected by direct vote of the people, depriving the states of their representative in the federal government. Since senators have been elected this way, many laws affecting the states have been passed that probably would not have been passed if senators had been responsible to the states, i.e., laws creating unfunded mandates on the states.

Instead of considering a constitutional amendment as is being suggested, repeal the 17th Amendment, making the Senate responsible to states as was originally intended by the Founding Fathers.