Not new to me (as I’ll explain below), but probably obscure enough to my generation that I’ll put it out there anyway.

The Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified in 1913, changed the way that US Senators are elected.

Today, they are directly elected by the voters in each state, just like US Representatives. Prior to the 17th Amendment Senators were selected by the state legislators in each state. The specifics on how to select the Senators were appropriately left up to the states to decide.

I discovered this fact unsurprisingly not in public school, but during a visit to Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The Park Ranger there (it’s a national park) explained it this way: The Senate was there to represent the interests of the States, and the Representatives were there to represent the interests of the people.

In my opinion it is unfortunate that we’ve gotten away from that set up. George Will agrees with me.

Russ Feingold, unsurprisingly, does not. He wants to make sure Governors can’t appoint Senators when vacancies occur. John McCain agrees with him. I think we should have a law preventing McCain and Feingold from teaming up in the future, since they haven’t come up with a winning idea yet.

Will does a way better job of articulating the argument for repealing rather than amending the Seventeenth Amendment than I can, so I encourage you to read his article.