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States' Liberty Party E-BookMorality & the ConstitutionChapter 12 – Federalism and the Seventeenth Amendment
Every member of he Roosevelt court that stripped religion from the schools had been confirmed by a new U.S. Senate elected by the people. The Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in 1913 changed the election of Senators to a direct popular vote, where previously the Senate had been elected by the separate State legislatures. Federalism is a system of government where powers are shared between a central federal government and separate regional governments. Such a government allows for greater freedom, for the people can regionally fashion their own laws according to need. What’s good for New York may not be best for Wyoming. Two Houses of Congress were accordingly created, a House of the People and House of the States, or Senate. Every new bill must be approved by both people and states before becoming law, and either may introduce legislation. The Seventeenth Amendment threw a wrench into the masterful balance given to us by our Founding Fathers, replacing the House of the States with a second House of people, but with disproportionate representation, distributed evenly by State. The States still held equal weight, large or small, but Senators were no longer answerable to the States. There were now two Houses of the People, and the separate legislatures had entirely lost their voice and representation in their own central government. Legislators would find a major task to be simply the scurrying to ensure that state laws are compliant with new federal laws and Supreme Court decisions. More, the States lost their important power to review and then confirm or reject new federal judicial appointments. Senators, now elected by the people, were no longer bound to their State governments, instead sometimes feeling a superiority over them, because their legislators no longer were needed for securing a US senator’s reelection. The Everson and the McCollum Supreme Court of the late 1940’s was under this new management and must not have felt beholden to the States. A repealing of the Seventeenth Amendment will reverse the process, and federal judges and justices under the nomination process will gain a renewed respect for the States, or perhaps risk rejection. |
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