APP - 10th amendment revisited

Watermark said:
I really can't believe you're trying to say that a body which gives a person in Wyoming 50 times the voting power of a Californian leaves us "to the will of the popular vote". There's absolutely no reason that legislatures electing senators would lead to "more stability" or whatever other nonsense you made up. The only likely effect would be that people would start voting for their state legislature based on what senator they promised to put in office.
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i disagree, it will still be partisan and people will likely vote for the candidate of their party

having said that, my hope would be to remove some of the big money spent on senate races and make the selection more a reflection of the political makeup of the state
 
Watermark said:
It doesn't matter what they considered if they didn't put it in the constitution. The federal government clearly has a lot of possible power under the commerce and general welfare clauses.
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They did put in in the Constitution, and Amendment X merely stands to underscore this important concept. In the US, power flows from God, to the People, to the States, and finally to the Federal government. Unfortunately for you Liberals, of course, who desire a monarchy or dictatorship.
 
Watermark said:
It doesn't matter what they considered if they didn't put it in the constitution. The federal government clearly has a lot of possible power under the commerce and general welfare clauses.
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um, no. the federal government has an extreme amount of power given to them by a weak supreme court which now allows the federal government to tell you whether you can grow roses or dandelions in your front yard. I'm thinking that the framers of the constitution didn't want the feds to have that kind of power.
 
I really can't believe you're trying to say that a body which gives a person in Wyoming 50 times the voting power of a Californian leaves us "to the will of the popular vote". There's absolutely no reason that legislatures electing senators would lead to "more stability" or whatever other nonsense you made up. The only likely effect would be that people would start voting for their state legislature based on what senator they promised to put in office.
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How does a Wyoming Senator have "50 times" the voting power of a CA Senator? Each senator has one half the total voting power in the senate for their state. (Voting power outside the senate makes no difference, since senators cannot vote on bills outside the senate.

The only way you can get that ridiculous claim is by focusing entirely on population, which is EXACTLY what the founders did not want to happen. Equal representation is needed for the states BECAUSE without this balance, the high population states would simply overwhelm and dictate to the less populous states. (Which is precisely what was happening in the 1850s that eventually, along with the industrial vs. slave economy conflict, resulted in the American Civil War.)

The original design was for the state governments to select senators to represent the specific interests of their state. This was designed to be a significantly different job than that of representative of the people. Dedicating the focus of the Senate on states' interest gave the states a measure of power directly in the federal government.

However, when the election of senators was handed over to popular vote, the selection of senators quickly shifted to approximately reflect the division of popular vote in the House - and therefore an approximation of the partisan split in the popularly elected House. This is NOT what was intended. The Senate was supposed to be the speaking house for the states as entities, not another popularly elected representative of the people. By handing over the selection of senators to the popular vote, we end up with A great deal of state power being subverted, and idiots thinking that means Wyoming has more representation power in the Senate than California.
 
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Watermark said:
It doesn't matter what they considered if they didn't put it in the constitution. The federal government clearly has a lot of possible power under the commerce and general welfare clauses.
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General Welfare is not a "clause" it is the reason they got the listed powers of the feds.

It's silly to start talking about WHY you are going to give the federal government certain powers, then list the powers, and pretend that the list means nothing because they said this WHY thing over here... Those who wrote the danged document spoke of this in the Federalist Papers basically stating (paraphrasing here), "The powers are limited, therefore General Welfare cannot be used to take over all means of government."

It is foolish to just lie down and submit because the SCOTUS has ruled that things like MJ and home gardens can be legislated under the Commerce Clause (an actual power of the Federal Government, not just one of the reasons for the powers they were granted). It is far better to work to get some people in there that will limit the government as it was supposed to be limited.
 
DonQuixote said:
i think that the 17th amendment should be repealed

while the big money people will just subvert the legislatures, it will be more public and maybe something could be done about

we also need to eliminate unfunded laws at both the state and federal levels

lets shine more light on the big money people
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I'm not even sure that it would plausable for money to be poured into state legislative races. The money would be spread so damned thin to keep up with the volume of legislative districts, and on top of that, the races are soooo close to home that it would be much harder for people to be bought.
 
Damocles said:
General Welfare is not a "clause" it is the reason they got the listed powers of the feds.

It's silly to start talking about WHY you are going to give the federal government certain powers, then list the powers, and pretend that the list means nothing because they said this WHY thing over here... Those who wrote the danged document spoke of this in the Federalist Papers basically stating (paraphrasing here), "The powers are limited, therefore General Welfare cannot be used to take over all means of government."

It is foolish to just lie down and submit because the SCOTUS has ruled that things like MJ and home gardens can be legislated under the Commerce Clause (an actual power of the Federal Government, not just one of the reasons for the powers they were granted). It is far better to work to get some people in there that will limit the government as it was supposed to be limited.
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when the original articles of confederation failed and the federalists wrote the constitution (check the anti-federalist papers) the fear was that a strong federal government would take too much power away from the states and guess what, so it has

a weak central government failed and a strong federal government has taken over

however, without a strong central government we would still have slavery

the whole anti-slavery and later civil rights movements were illegal until scotus decided that they were legal...except at the state level

but then there is that equal protection under the law provision...
 
Threedee said:
I'm not even sure that it would plausable for money to be poured into state legislative races. The money would be spread so damned thin to keep up with the volume of legislative districts, and on top of that, the races are soooo close to home that it would be much harder for people to be bought.
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perhaps, but look at conn. and how the insurance industry has taken over the state
 
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