Tea Party ‘populism’

Saturday, June 5, 2010 | 2:04 a.m.

Despite the rhetoric from the Tea Party about putting power back into the hands of the people, many of the movement’s acolytes are talking about repealing the 17th Amendment, which gives voters the right to choose their U.S. senators.

Take away the vote from the people? Isn’t the Tea Party supposed to be a populist movement?

Well, the Tea Party folks say, the 17th Amendment usurped states’ rights. The Senate was, according to the Founding Fathers, supposed to represent the states, thus the Constitution originally gave state legislatures the power to pick U.S. senators.

The Senate, by its makeup, still does that. All states have equal representation. But there was a serious problem with the way senators were once selected. A series of magazine articles in 1906 outlined bribery and fraud in the Senate and detailed how industries and corrupt legislatures were selecting senators. From 1866 to 1906, there were nine bribery cases brought to the Senate. In response to the corruption, the 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913.

By putting the vote in the hands of the people, senators were in touch with the voters of their states — and not just beholden to a small group of politicians. Since then, ethics and election laws have raised the standard significantly, so much so that what might be considered unethical today wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow in Congress in the 1800s.

Still, the Tea Party types say that senators today are too influenced by special interests, and they try to argue that putting the election back into the hands of state legislatures would somehow change that. But aren’t legislatures influenced by special interests? That was part of the problem in the 1800s. For example, the railroads held considerable power in politics. They were large landholders and were important to the country. As major political players in state legislatures, they were able to control many decisions — such as who the legislature picked to be senator.

The Tea Party movement likes to complain about smoke-filled backroom deals, but how do they think senators were chosen before the 17th Amendment? The Senate’s history office reports that by the 1850s, many legislatures found themselves deadlocked in their attempts to choose senators. Forty-five times legislatures couldn’t pick a senator from 1891 to 1905.

Does the nation really want to return to those “good old days”? Of course not. Those who advocate repealing the 17th Amendment are missing the big picture. In their anger at the nation’s duly elected leaders, they are advocating a destructive course.

It is important to note that the 17th Amendment was advocated by the progressive movement of the early 1900s, reformers who worked diligently to limit the influence of special interests and to bring the government closer to the people. They were successful, particularly with the 17th Amendment. Why anyone would want to repeal that — especially a supposedly “populist” group — is beyond us.