There shouldn't be anymore breaks until agenda is passed. They haven't earned it.
The Senate is now in Democratic hands.....let's see what the hell they're gonna do? Senate Watch Thread
- Thread starter Politic Negro
- Start date
There shouldn't be anymore breaks until agenda is passed. They haven't earned it.
Me and @roots69 and @Mrfreddygoodbud been telling you brothas about the military spending. That has to be done because the USA is the military enforcement arm of the cabalists which are the think tanks of the Jesuits who all report back to the grey black and white (Pope triumvirate) Remember, “All roads lead back to Rome” (the Vatican)
Dont forget the KKK.. they are all part of Un Sanctum... and like I stated before..
kkk is not just clowns in bedsheets..
Federal Reserve- KKK
Irs- KKK
faternal order of police-kkk
demokkkratic and Repulikkklan party..
running fuckin game..
bruh most folks dont even have a clue.. we once
had an Anti-Mason party.. bruh they literally murdered muthafuckas
to make that party go away...
and dont you dare let the Brutish aka the british off the hook..
they all report to that imposter german queen,
Irs literally sends all our tax dollars to the brutish, and they send that shit
to the vatican..
hence the IRS is scared shitless of an audit and the masses are too sleepy to enforce one..
FOR NOW......
Dont forget the KKK.. they are all part of Un Sanctum... and like I stated before..
kkk is not just clowns in bedsheets..
Federal Reserve- KKK
Irs- KKK
faternal order of police-kkk
demokkkratic and Repulikkklan party..
running fuckin game..
bruh most folks dont even have a clue.. we once
had an Anti-Mason party.. bruh they literally murdered muthafuckas
to make that party go away...
and dont you dare let the Brutish aka the british off the hook..
they all report to that imposter german queen,
Irs literally sends all our tax dollars to the br
Great post!!!
Ive posted too many times how the corners of this triangle is set up!! The queen has one corner, rome has another corner and the us corporation has the last corner!!
Right on, write on, bruh.. Nothing but true info.. I was going to post a thread on how the corporation invented the klan to protect those 4million freed(white) slaves down south!! Television, radio, media/social media, 12+yrs of indoctrination centers, sellouts/gatekeepers doing anything for money, billions of dollars spent yearly to mislead and deceived, has done a number on our people!! Anyway brotha, outstanding post!!
Fuck Biden for giving Rahm Emanuel another honor after the bullshit he pulled in Chicago.
Bruh, aint nobody going to listen!! And the sad thing is, all this info is public record!! You gotta put in sum research time to find it, because they like hiding this information right in front of your face!! Brotha, keep dodging the hijack!!
Joe Manchin Privately Told Colleagues Parents Use Child Tax Credit Money On Drugs
The West Virginia senator just killed Democrats' agenda. In private negotiations, he questioned whether the poorest Americans would spend financial aid wisely.
The West Virginia senator just killed Democrats' agenda. In private negotiations, he questioned whether the poorest Americans would spend financial aid wisely.
Joe Manchin Privately Told Colleagues Parents Use Child Tax Credit Money On Drugs
The West Virginia senator just killed Democrats' agenda. In private negotiations, he questioned whether the poorest Americans would spend financial aid wisely.
www.huffpost.com
Joe Manchin Privately Told Colleagues Parents Use Child Tax Credit Money On Drugs
The West Virginia senator just killed Democrats' agenda. In private negotiations, he questioned whether the poorest Americans would spend financial aid wisely.
Joe Manchin Privately Told Colleagues Parents Use Child Tax Credit Money On Drugs
The West Virginia senator just killed Democrats' agenda. In private negotiations, he questioned whether the poorest Americans would spend financial aid wisely.www.huffpost.com
arent yall tired of the fuckin mindfuckery...
Is he as concerned about the fuckin MILITARY spending our TAX dollar wisely??
these politicians ARE THE FUCKIN ENEMY to the people and
whores for the parasitic elite fucktards who hide behind corporate walls.
the day is coming when they all will be chased into a lake of fire....
Mitch McConnell says 'it would be a great idea' for Joe Manchin to switch parties
www.businessinsider.com
Mitch McConnell says 'it would be a great idea' for Joe Manchin to switch parties
"We do enjoy a cordial relationship," McConnell said of Manchin, who's recently been a holdout on President Biden's domestic agenda.
www.businessinsider.com
Folks getting it from all sides. Got Joe Grizzly running PG for the fucks, but don't forget about Warren in the low post putting in work against 'evil' cypto. That bitch is even more sinister than Grizzly. We know Joe from WV ain't about shit. Warren the 'progressive' who helped setup Bernie in the primaries by not dropping and now shows more of her true colors against the people who helping the little guy in the world of finance.
Much like Grizzly pretending to be a democrat, Warren pretends to be a progressive. Hate these crooked fucks with a passion man. Hate their apologists even more.
Folks getting it from all sides. Got Joe Grizzly running PG for the fucks, but don't forget about Warren in the low post putting in work against 'evil' cypto. That bitch is even more sinister than Grizzly. We know Joe from WV ain't about shit. Warren the 'progressive' who helped setup Bernie in the primaries by not dropping and now shows more of her true colors against the people who helping the little guy in the world of finance.
Much like Grizzly pretending to be a democrat, Warren pretends to be a progressive. Hate these crooked fucks with a passion man. Hate their apologists even more.
that five dollar pseudo indian whore... just another corporate whore in sheeps clothing....
#yousoundlikearepublicanFolks getting it from all sides. Got Joe Grizzly running PG for the fucks, but don't forget about Warren in the low post putting in work against 'evil' cypto. That bitch is even more sinister than Grizzly. We know Joe from WV ain't about shit. Warren the 'progressive' who helped setup Bernie in the primaries by not dropping and now shows more of her true colors against the people who helping the little guy in the world of finance.
Much like Grizzly pretending to be a democrat, Warren pretends to be a progressive. Hate these crooked fucks with a passion man. Hate their apologists even more.
Notice sis went to the BGOL playbook when questioned? Lol
The history of this country is literally a series of bullshit compromises intended to appease smooth brained cacs. From the compromise of 1877 to the current state of access to the ballot.
Of Course Joe Manchin Drives a Maserati
Sen. Joe Manchin thought he could escape the climate activists hot on his trail by dipping into a … Maserati Levante.
Sen. Joe Manchin thought he could escape the climate activists hot on his trail by dipping into a … Maserati Levante.
Sad that she using the twitter playbook. Even sadder the MSM and shills who acted like she handled that shit like a pro.#yousoundlikearepublican
Notice sis went to the BGOL playbook when questioned? Lol
True piece of fucking shit. The amount of pocket watching he does.
Bruh, break this mindfuckery down?? Share with the board how mindfucking is one of this corporations favorite and steady product they push 24hrs a day for FREE!!!
Manchin and Sinema
I said it before and I'll say it again Joe Biden has been a political figure for over 46 years first as senator than as vice president now as president if he can't sway one muthafucka from a podunk state to vote for his agenda that's on him. I don't think other presidents with as much experience as he has would have all this trouble. I don't think Lyndon Johnson would have this trouble and he served 1/3 as long in the senate as Biden.
Looks like they been hooking up.Manchin and Sinema
You keep forgetting that the game changed once Obama was elected. Under normal circumstances I would agree with you but this is a different set of RINO.
How Democrats Blew It in 2021
A year in review from Prospect Staff Writer Alexander Sammon
BY ALEXANDER SAMMON
DECEMBER 29, 2021
Even a most optimistic gloss on 2021 would say it was a year of high hopes and huge disappointments. All the things that looked to have been chased away in 2020—totalitarian Republicans in control, coronavirus out of control—are either back, or a near-certainty to return imminently. Democrats seized power at the beginning of the year and by its end had proven beyond argument that they, as ever, had no intention of wielding it. My year in review traces a few of those steps.
Expand
“The New Progressive Left Shows How to Deal With Sedition”
Six days into the new year, a mob stormed the Capitol in a coup attempt that was orchestrated in close collaboration with Republican leadership—remember that? That group intended to ensure that democratically elected Democrats could never again hold power; they might have been happy to pick off a few choice Democrats (and Mike Pence) in the process. And yet most Democrats were content to scold Donald Trump and his conspirators with a few harsh tweets. Only the Squad extended—young members of the progressive flank—were willing to call for impeachment from the get-go, and they’re the only reason that it happened. Moderate Dems were not comfortable with the “message” it sent. Of course, even those progressives couldn’t get Democratic leadership to use its mandate to prosecute Trump, and now those people will just return to power the old-fashioned way, and pick up where they left off.
“Jim Clyburn Undercuts the Democratic Police Reform Bill”
By May, Democrats were off to the races, by which I mean abandoning their legislative ambitions at full tilt. With the anniversary of George Floyd’s death and a late-May deadline on police reform looming, and not long after House Democrats knelt on the floor of the Capitol Visitor Center in kente cloths in an oddball stunt signaling their support for the largest protest movement in American history, third-ranking Democrat Jim Clyburn went into undertaker mode, hitting the cable news circuit to undermine his very own Congressional Black Caucus’s chief ambitions on police reform (and the party broadly). After swearing on national television that qualified-immunity reforms were not important, Clyburn armed Republican Tim Scott to renege on commitments he’d already made in the bill, and condemned it to death. It would be a few months before this was acknowledged broadly, but I wrote about it in mid-May. Another mild legislative ambition rerouted to the dustbin.
“Biden’s Jekyll-and-Hyde Judicial Nominations”
While the Biden administration was showing next to no urgency in its legislative program, attention turned to its judicial appointments, another arena where Democrats swore they’d learn hard lessons from the mistakes of their predecessors. While President Obama decided the courts weren’t a priority, President Trump had done the opposite, stuffing the judiciary full of underqualified ideologues with lifetime appointments. Biden put out a call to his Senate contemporaries for civil rights and public-interest lawyers to help balance out an irredeemably unbalanced court system; that call was heeded only partway, a troubling sign of the widespread disrespect from Senate Democrats toward their former colleague and self-identified Senate whisperer. Of course, with his primary loyalty to norms and not an agenda, Biden just appointed those corporate lawyer nominees he had explicitly disavowed anyway.
Keep this site free and open for all to read...
SUPPORT THE PROSPECT
“Nina Turner Lost to the Redbox”
This year featured few elections, and with congressional Democrats theoretically in the heat of the legislative process in early August, a special primary election to replace Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge in a D+60 district should have been a non-event. The Marcia Fudge/Shontel Brown race proved to be anything but. A party far more interested in quashing the ascendant progressive bloc than battling Republicans and accomplishing anything in Washington instead went all out in Cleveland. The Congressional Black Caucus, fresh off stranding police reform, went all out to push its preferred candidate, Shontel Brown, across the finish line, with the CBC endorsing Brown without her even receiving a majority of endorsements from caucus members. Brown’s campaign meanwhile relied on a campaign finance gambit of an extremely dubious nature, one that would have been in clear violation of the campaign finance reforms on super PAC collaboration in the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, also a priority of the CBC. Brown won, proving that congressional Dems can achieve something if they care enough. The John Lewis Voting Rights Act was not so lucky.
“Clintonism’s Zombie”
If Senate Democrats had no real regard for the Democratic agenda by June, House Democrats caught up in August. In this profile of New Jersey “Problem Solver” Josh Gottheimer, I traced how the face of legislative sabotage in the House was a true institutional make and model, a product of the Clinton administration from his first day in politics—the very sort of centrist, lifetime Democrat who is always accusing progressives of party disloyalty. Without ever summoning an intellectually legitimate argument, Gottheimer spearheaded the corporate-funded attempt to pass a fossil fuel–heavy, lobbyist-authored highway bill (“bipartisan infrastructure”) and untether it from the Build Back Better Act, where the entirety of the “Democratic agenda” resided. He didn’t succeed, nor did he win any style points, but it was evidence enough of a growing appetite for self-sabotage that was ready to reveal itself months down the line.
“Succession”
This session, according to Nancy Pelosi’s own House rules, was sure to be the last with octogenarians Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Jim Clyburn in the top three ranking leadership spots. With Democrats staring down a possible House minority after 2022’s midterms, the party was going to swiftly pass its ambitious agenda and allow its leaders to ride off into the sunset, with Build Back Better acting as Pelosi’s legacy—or so she said. Of course, the bench of Democratic talent is paper-thin, and the odds-on favorite to succeed Pelosi, New York’s Hakeem Jeffries, had spent the year engaging in internecine squabbles, settling scores with the progressive flank while arming the right-wing minority that helped sabotage Build Back Better. Not long after, Pelosi announced she did not feel comfortable handing over the reins. An aged party gets even older.
A year in review from Prospect Staff Writer Alexander Sammon
BY ALEXANDER SAMMON
DECEMBER 29, 2021
Even a most optimistic gloss on 2021 would say it was a year of high hopes and huge disappointments. All the things that looked to have been chased away in 2020—totalitarian Republicans in control, coronavirus out of control—are either back, or a near-certainty to return imminently. Democrats seized power at the beginning of the year and by its end had proven beyond argument that they, as ever, had no intention of wielding it. My year in review traces a few of those steps.
Expand
“The New Progressive Left Shows How to Deal With Sedition”
Six days into the new year, a mob stormed the Capitol in a coup attempt that was orchestrated in close collaboration with Republican leadership—remember that? That group intended to ensure that democratically elected Democrats could never again hold power; they might have been happy to pick off a few choice Democrats (and Mike Pence) in the process. And yet most Democrats were content to scold Donald Trump and his conspirators with a few harsh tweets. Only the Squad extended—young members of the progressive flank—were willing to call for impeachment from the get-go, and they’re the only reason that it happened. Moderate Dems were not comfortable with the “message” it sent. Of course, even those progressives couldn’t get Democratic leadership to use its mandate to prosecute Trump, and now those people will just return to power the old-fashioned way, and pick up where they left off.
“Jim Clyburn Undercuts the Democratic Police Reform Bill”
By May, Democrats were off to the races, by which I mean abandoning their legislative ambitions at full tilt. With the anniversary of George Floyd’s death and a late-May deadline on police reform looming, and not long after House Democrats knelt on the floor of the Capitol Visitor Center in kente cloths in an oddball stunt signaling their support for the largest protest movement in American history, third-ranking Democrat Jim Clyburn went into undertaker mode, hitting the cable news circuit to undermine his very own Congressional Black Caucus’s chief ambitions on police reform (and the party broadly). After swearing on national television that qualified-immunity reforms were not important, Clyburn armed Republican Tim Scott to renege on commitments he’d already made in the bill, and condemned it to death. It would be a few months before this was acknowledged broadly, but I wrote about it in mid-May. Another mild legislative ambition rerouted to the dustbin.
“Biden’s Jekyll-and-Hyde Judicial Nominations”
While the Biden administration was showing next to no urgency in its legislative program, attention turned to its judicial appointments, another arena where Democrats swore they’d learn hard lessons from the mistakes of their predecessors. While President Obama decided the courts weren’t a priority, President Trump had done the opposite, stuffing the judiciary full of underqualified ideologues with lifetime appointments. Biden put out a call to his Senate contemporaries for civil rights and public-interest lawyers to help balance out an irredeemably unbalanced court system; that call was heeded only partway, a troubling sign of the widespread disrespect from Senate Democrats toward their former colleague and self-identified Senate whisperer. Of course, with his primary loyalty to norms and not an agenda, Biden just appointed those corporate lawyer nominees he had explicitly disavowed anyway.
Keep this site free and open for all to read...
SUPPORT THE PROSPECT
“Nina Turner Lost to the Redbox”
This year featured few elections, and with congressional Democrats theoretically in the heat of the legislative process in early August, a special primary election to replace Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge in a D+60 district should have been a non-event. The Marcia Fudge/Shontel Brown race proved to be anything but. A party far more interested in quashing the ascendant progressive bloc than battling Republicans and accomplishing anything in Washington instead went all out in Cleveland. The Congressional Black Caucus, fresh off stranding police reform, went all out to push its preferred candidate, Shontel Brown, across the finish line, with the CBC endorsing Brown without her even receiving a majority of endorsements from caucus members. Brown’s campaign meanwhile relied on a campaign finance gambit of an extremely dubious nature, one that would have been in clear violation of the campaign finance reforms on super PAC collaboration in the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, also a priority of the CBC. Brown won, proving that congressional Dems can achieve something if they care enough. The John Lewis Voting Rights Act was not so lucky.
“Clintonism’s Zombie”
If Senate Democrats had no real regard for the Democratic agenda by June, House Democrats caught up in August. In this profile of New Jersey “Problem Solver” Josh Gottheimer, I traced how the face of legislative sabotage in the House was a true institutional make and model, a product of the Clinton administration from his first day in politics—the very sort of centrist, lifetime Democrat who is always accusing progressives of party disloyalty. Without ever summoning an intellectually legitimate argument, Gottheimer spearheaded the corporate-funded attempt to pass a fossil fuel–heavy, lobbyist-authored highway bill (“bipartisan infrastructure”) and untether it from the Build Back Better Act, where the entirety of the “Democratic agenda” resided. He didn’t succeed, nor did he win any style points, but it was evidence enough of a growing appetite for self-sabotage that was ready to reveal itself months down the line.
“Succession”
This session, according to Nancy Pelosi’s own House rules, was sure to be the last with octogenarians Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Jim Clyburn in the top three ranking leadership spots. With Democrats staring down a possible House minority after 2022’s midterms, the party was going to swiftly pass its ambitious agenda and allow its leaders to ride off into the sunset, with Build Back Better acting as Pelosi’s legacy—or so she said. Of course, the bench of Democratic talent is paper-thin, and the odds-on favorite to succeed Pelosi, New York’s Hakeem Jeffries, had spent the year engaging in internecine squabbles, settling scores with the progressive flank while arming the right-wing minority that helped sabotage Build Back Better. Not long after, Pelosi announced she did not feel comfortable handing over the reins. An aged party gets even older.
Some Conservatives Want to Repeal the 17th Amendment. Here’s Why They’re Misguided.
John W. York, Ph.D.
Former Policy Analyst
John was a policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation.
Aug 22nd, 2018
www.heritage.org
Repealing the 17th Amendment, which would end the direct election of U.S. senators and return the power of appointing senators to state legislatures, is a popular idea among many conservatives.
They argue that giving state governments a more formal and direct representation in Congress would resuscitate constitutional federalism, which has been adversely affected by the Progressive Era amendment passed by Congress in 1912 and ratified by the states a year later.
Advocates of repeal reason that under the sway of state legislators, senators would rein in federal government overreach and stanch its growth.
But, as I detailed in a recent report, changing the means by which we select U.S. senators may not have the positive impact advocates hope.
Post-repeal, senators and state legislators alike would still have strong incentives to keep significant money and power concentrated at the federal level.
Further, as the first two years of the Trump administration demonstrate, states have significant capacity to resist federal power when they choose to use it. But this power is not always matched by a will to defend state powers or the wisdom to judge when resistance is appropriate.
States Are Reliant on Federal Funds
If state legislators decided to use their influence over the post-17th Amendment Senate to shrink federal revenues, they would be forced to practice greater fiscal discipline than they do today.
States are deeply reliant on federal funds to meet their financial obligations. As of 2015, federal funds made up almost a third of the average state’s revenues.
As George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin argues, “State governments are anxious to get as much federal grant money as possible. This reality is unlikely to change if the 17th Amendment were repealed and legislative selection of senators reinstated.”
Indeed, over the past two years, both Republican and Democratic state governments have pushed back against modest efforts by the Trump administration to rein in federal outlays to the states.
Reliably conservative Republican governors, such as Matt Bevin in Kentucky and Asa Hutchinson in Arkansas and then-Gov. Robert Bentley in Alabama were all vocal critics of the administration’s plan to eliminate the Appalachian Regional Commission and the Delta Regional Authority—economic development and workforce training programs that serve their states.
Wisconsin’s Republican governor, Scott Walker, whose efforts to rein in state employee unions earned him plaudits from Republican leaders around the country, publicly opposed President Donald Trump’s proposed cut to the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which funnels federal money to states in the Upper Midwest.
Other Republican state governments lobbied hard for preschool development grants totaling $250 million.
While repealing the 17th Amendment may not result in less federal spending, money would likely flow down to the states with fewer strings attached. That alone would mark a significant rebalancing of power between the states and the federal government.
Many nationwide policies—such as the national minimum drinking age—have been established voluntarily by states eager to secure federal grants that require compliance with certain federal mandates.
However, freeing states to spend federal funds as they choose would not be altogether positive. States would have more latitude to devise their own policy solutions, but with federal grant money to fall back on, they would not need to bear the costs of their own policies.
Instead, states would be able to continue benefiting from expensive social welfare programs and lavishing money on public-sector employees without raising the necessary revenue themselves, knowing Congress would help foot the bill.
Ideology Often Drives State Politicians to Support Federal Solutions
As with national politicians and the general public, what state legislators think is in their state’s best interest is bound up tightly with their partisan allegiance and political ideology. As a result, when the federal government advances a policy they like—even when it violates state sovereignty—some state politicians will be supportive.
This was clearly illustrated by the reaction of some state politicians to the Supreme Court’s stay of the Environmental Protection Agency’s so-called Clean Power Plan. The Obama-era regulation would have imposed costly state-specific carbon dioxide emissions caps. The Supreme Court’s stay meant these caps did not go into effect, and states could continue to regulate carbon dioxide as they saw fit.
Preferring that all states be yoked with the same stringent emissions standards they apply within their own borders, blue state politicians lashed out at the court. California’s Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, wrote: “As the world gets hotter and closer to irreversible climate change, these justices appear tone-deaf as they fiddle with procedural niceties.”
Politicians who view the constitutional order as just so many “procedural niceties” are unlikely to defend federalism—with or without the 17th Amendment.
Likewise, when Trump repealed an Obama-era requirement that public schools allow transgender students to use the restrooms of their choice, Minnesota’s Democratic governor, Mark Dayton, said, “This is not a ‘states’ rights’ issue. This is a human rights issue.”
Repeal advocates hope that the Senate will represent the states as states—rather than the states as collections of individuals—if the 17th Amendment is repealed. But if state politicians are more concerned with so-called “human rights” than with states’ rights, this hope would likely be chimerical.
When States Decide to Use It, They Have Extraordinary Power
The Trump era has also demonstrated how much institutional power the states really have when they are determined to use it.
As expansive and expensive as the federal government is, it does not have the money or manpower to enforce the law at the street level, everywhere around the country. It relies on the states for help.
Often grant money is enough to induce cooperation, but not always. When states are determined to resist a federal policy, the extent of their power becomes clear.
The Trump administration has struggled to effectively respond to blue states, such as California and Oregon, which have adopted sanctuary state policies on illegal immigration. Even when the federal government has a clear constitutional mandate to set policy—as it does in the case of immigration—it still must rely on the states for help.
If state and local governments direct their law enforcement agents not to inquire about individuals’ immigration status, the federal government must independently identify and detain all those who are here illegally by itself. That is an impossible task for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency of less than 20,000 total employees.
By confounding this administration’s efforts to stop illegal immigration, states such as California have revealed the tenuous power of the federal government. Even without formal representation in the halls of Congress, state legislatures have powerful tools at their disposal to effectively push back against federal laws and regulations—even when they should not.
The fact that states do not often wield the full extent of their power suggests that their will to defend state authority has waned.
That many blue states have chosen to obstruct the federal government’s efforts to discharge clear constitutional authority—while cheering federal overreach into health care policy, environmental regulation, education policy, and many other areas—demonstrates the influence of partisanship and ideology over state lawmakers.
A Goal Worth Pursuing?
The argument for repeal of the 17th Amendment is rooted in a generally accurate perception that this change of the Constitution’s design was out of step with the Founders’ thoughts and presaged the growth of the federal government.
Some argue that was the intent of the Progressives at the beginning of the 20th century who authored the amendment. They gravely distrusted the parochial state legislatures and party apparatchiks who selected senators under the old system. Thus, they sought a more direct link between the populace and national representatives.
While the ratification of the 17th Amendment was part of the problem, a repeal today may not be a sufficient solution. Over the course of the 20th century, the states have become more reliant on federal funds and more enmeshed in national-level ideological fights.
The Trump era demonstrates how far both trends have extended. These two developments greatly complicate the effort to revive constitutional federalism. The Founders’ system, after all, requires that states have sufficient means to guard their sovereignty and the will to use those tools when appropriate.
For this reason, a revived federalism will only follow if the public demands that the federal government stay within its constitutional bounds. No matter the power they wield, state legislators will not fight for constitutional federalism if their own constituents goad them to take federal money and subvert state interests to party ideology.
If focusing on the 17th Amendment plays an educative function, teaching the American public about the important role the Founders intended state governments to play, it might be a noble effort.
The risk of focusing on such an antiquarian and anti-populist goal, however, is that it may well turn the fight for federalism—already an uphill battle for hearts and minds—into a veritable mission impossible.
John W. York, Ph.D.
Former Policy Analyst
John was a policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation.
Aug 22nd, 2018
Some Conservatives Want to Repeal the 17th Amendment. Here’s Why They’re Misguided.
Repealing the 17th Amendment, which would end the direct election of U.S. senators and return the power of appointing senators to state legislatures, is a popular idea among many conservatives. They argue that giving state governments a more formal and direct representation in Congress would...
www.heritage.org
Repealing the 17th Amendment, which would end the direct election of U.S. senators and return the power of appointing senators to state legislatures, is a popular idea among many conservatives.
They argue that giving state governments a more formal and direct representation in Congress would resuscitate constitutional federalism, which has been adversely affected by the Progressive Era amendment passed by Congress in 1912 and ratified by the states a year later.
Advocates of repeal reason that under the sway of state legislators, senators would rein in federal government overreach and stanch its growth.
But, as I detailed in a recent report, changing the means by which we select U.S. senators may not have the positive impact advocates hope.
Post-repeal, senators and state legislators alike would still have strong incentives to keep significant money and power concentrated at the federal level.
Further, as the first two years of the Trump administration demonstrate, states have significant capacity to resist federal power when they choose to use it. But this power is not always matched by a will to defend state powers or the wisdom to judge when resistance is appropriate.
States Are Reliant on Federal Funds
If state legislators decided to use their influence over the post-17th Amendment Senate to shrink federal revenues, they would be forced to practice greater fiscal discipline than they do today.
States are deeply reliant on federal funds to meet their financial obligations. As of 2015, federal funds made up almost a third of the average state’s revenues.
As George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin argues, “State governments are anxious to get as much federal grant money as possible. This reality is unlikely to change if the 17th Amendment were repealed and legislative selection of senators reinstated.”
Indeed, over the past two years, both Republican and Democratic state governments have pushed back against modest efforts by the Trump administration to rein in federal outlays to the states.
Reliably conservative Republican governors, such as Matt Bevin in Kentucky and Asa Hutchinson in Arkansas and then-Gov. Robert Bentley in Alabama were all vocal critics of the administration’s plan to eliminate the Appalachian Regional Commission and the Delta Regional Authority—economic development and workforce training programs that serve their states.
Wisconsin’s Republican governor, Scott Walker, whose efforts to rein in state employee unions earned him plaudits from Republican leaders around the country, publicly opposed President Donald Trump’s proposed cut to the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which funnels federal money to states in the Upper Midwest.
Other Republican state governments lobbied hard for preschool development grants totaling $250 million.
While repealing the 17th Amendment may not result in less federal spending, money would likely flow down to the states with fewer strings attached. That alone would mark a significant rebalancing of power between the states and the federal government.
Many nationwide policies—such as the national minimum drinking age—have been established voluntarily by states eager to secure federal grants that require compliance with certain federal mandates.
However, freeing states to spend federal funds as they choose would not be altogether positive. States would have more latitude to devise their own policy solutions, but with federal grant money to fall back on, they would not need to bear the costs of their own policies.
Instead, states would be able to continue benefiting from expensive social welfare programs and lavishing money on public-sector employees without raising the necessary revenue themselves, knowing Congress would help foot the bill.
Ideology Often Drives State Politicians to Support Federal Solutions
As with national politicians and the general public, what state legislators think is in their state’s best interest is bound up tightly with their partisan allegiance and political ideology. As a result, when the federal government advances a policy they like—even when it violates state sovereignty—some state politicians will be supportive.
This was clearly illustrated by the reaction of some state politicians to the Supreme Court’s stay of the Environmental Protection Agency’s so-called Clean Power Plan. The Obama-era regulation would have imposed costly state-specific carbon dioxide emissions caps. The Supreme Court’s stay meant these caps did not go into effect, and states could continue to regulate carbon dioxide as they saw fit.
Preferring that all states be yoked with the same stringent emissions standards they apply within their own borders, blue state politicians lashed out at the court. California’s Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, wrote: “As the world gets hotter and closer to irreversible climate change, these justices appear tone-deaf as they fiddle with procedural niceties.”
Politicians who view the constitutional order as just so many “procedural niceties” are unlikely to defend federalism—with or without the 17th Amendment.
Likewise, when Trump repealed an Obama-era requirement that public schools allow transgender students to use the restrooms of their choice, Minnesota’s Democratic governor, Mark Dayton, said, “This is not a ‘states’ rights’ issue. This is a human rights issue.”
Repeal advocates hope that the Senate will represent the states as states—rather than the states as collections of individuals—if the 17th Amendment is repealed. But if state politicians are more concerned with so-called “human rights” than with states’ rights, this hope would likely be chimerical.
When States Decide to Use It, They Have Extraordinary Power
The Trump era has also demonstrated how much institutional power the states really have when they are determined to use it.
As expansive and expensive as the federal government is, it does not have the money or manpower to enforce the law at the street level, everywhere around the country. It relies on the states for help.
Often grant money is enough to induce cooperation, but not always. When states are determined to resist a federal policy, the extent of their power becomes clear.
The Trump administration has struggled to effectively respond to blue states, such as California and Oregon, which have adopted sanctuary state policies on illegal immigration. Even when the federal government has a clear constitutional mandate to set policy—as it does in the case of immigration—it still must rely on the states for help.
If state and local governments direct their law enforcement agents not to inquire about individuals’ immigration status, the federal government must independently identify and detain all those who are here illegally by itself. That is an impossible task for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency of less than 20,000 total employees.
By confounding this administration’s efforts to stop illegal immigration, states such as California have revealed the tenuous power of the federal government. Even without formal representation in the halls of Congress, state legislatures have powerful tools at their disposal to effectively push back against federal laws and regulations—even when they should not.
The fact that states do not often wield the full extent of their power suggests that their will to defend state authority has waned.
That many blue states have chosen to obstruct the federal government’s efforts to discharge clear constitutional authority—while cheering federal overreach into health care policy, environmental regulation, education policy, and many other areas—demonstrates the influence of partisanship and ideology over state lawmakers.
A Goal Worth Pursuing?
The argument for repeal of the 17th Amendment is rooted in a generally accurate perception that this change of the Constitution’s design was out of step with the Founders’ thoughts and presaged the growth of the federal government.
Some argue that was the intent of the Progressives at the beginning of the 20th century who authored the amendment. They gravely distrusted the parochial state legislatures and party apparatchiks who selected senators under the old system. Thus, they sought a more direct link between the populace and national representatives.
While the ratification of the 17th Amendment was part of the problem, a repeal today may not be a sufficient solution. Over the course of the 20th century, the states have become more reliant on federal funds and more enmeshed in national-level ideological fights.
The Trump era demonstrates how far both trends have extended. These two developments greatly complicate the effort to revive constitutional federalism. The Founders’ system, after all, requires that states have sufficient means to guard their sovereignty and the will to use those tools when appropriate.
For this reason, a revived federalism will only follow if the public demands that the federal government stay within its constitutional bounds. No matter the power they wield, state legislators will not fight for constitutional federalism if their own constituents goad them to take federal money and subvert state interests to party ideology.
If focusing on the 17th Amendment plays an educative function, teaching the American public about the important role the Founders intended state governments to play, it might be a noble effort.
The risk of focusing on such an antiquarian and anti-populist goal, however, is that it may well turn the fight for federalism—already an uphill battle for hearts and minds—into a veritable mission impossible.
Just following the koch Brothers play bookSome Conservatives Want to Repeal the 17th Amendment. Here’s Why They’re Misguided.
John W. York, Ph.D.
Former Policy Analyst
John was a policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation.
Aug 22nd, 2018
Some Conservatives Want to Repeal the 17th Amendment. Here’s Why They’re Misguided.
Repealing the 17th Amendment, which would end the direct election of U.S. senators and return the power of appointing senators to state legislatures, is a popular idea among many conservatives. They argue that giving state governments a more formal and direct representation in Congress would...
Repealing the 17th Amendment, which would end the direct election of U.S. senators and return the power of appointing senators to state legislatures, is a popular idea among many conservatives.
They argue that giving state governments a more formal and direct representation in Congress would resuscitate constitutional federalism, which has been adversely affected by the Progressive Era amendment passed by Congress in 1912 and ratified by the states a year later.
Advocates of repeal reason that under the sway of state legislators, senators would rein in federal government overreach and stanch its growth.
But, as I detailed in a recent report, changing the means by which we select U.S. senators may not have the positive impact advocates hope.
Post-repeal, senators and state legislators alike would still have strong incentives to keep significant money and power concentrated at the federal level.
Further, as the first two years of the Trump administration demonstrate, states have significant capacity to resist federal power when they choose to use it. But this power is not always matched by a will to defend state powers or the wisdom to judge when resistance is appropriate.
States Are Reliant on Federal Funds
If state legislators decided to use their influence over the post-17th Amendment Senate to shrink federal revenues, they would be forced to practice greater fiscal discipline than they do today.
States are deeply reliant on federal funds to meet their financial obligations. As of 2015, federal funds made up almost a third of the average state’s revenues.
As George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin argues, “State governments are anxious to get as much federal grant money as possible. This reality is unlikely to change if the 17th Amendment were repealed and legislative selection of senators reinstated.”
Indeed, over the past two years, both Republican and Democratic state governments have pushed back against modest efforts by the Trump administration to rein in federal outlays to the states.
Reliably conservative Republican governors, such as Matt Bevin in Kentucky and Asa Hutchinson in Arkansas and then-Gov. Robert Bentley in Alabama were all vocal critics of the administration’s plan to eliminate the Appalachian Regional Commission and the Delta Regional Authority—economic development and workforce training programs that serve their states.
Wisconsin’s Republican governor, Scott Walker, whose efforts to rein in state employee unions earned him plaudits from Republican leaders around the country, publicly opposed President Donald Trump’s proposed cut to the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which funnels federal money to states in the Upper Midwest.
Other Republican state governments lobbied hard for preschool development grants totaling $250 million.
While repealing the 17th Amendment may not result in less federal spending, money would likely flow down to the states with fewer strings attached. That alone would mark a significant rebalancing of power between the states and the federal government.
Many nationwide policies—such as the national minimum drinking age—have been established voluntarily by states eager to secure federal grants that require compliance with certain federal mandates.
However, freeing states to spend federal funds as they choose would not be altogether positive. States would have more latitude to devise their own policy solutions, but with federal grant money to fall back on, they would not need to bear the costs of their own policies.
Instead, states would be able to continue benefiting from expensive social welfare programs and lavishing money on public-sector employees without raising the necessary revenue themselves, knowing Congress would help foot the bill.
Ideology Often Drives State Politicians to Support Federal Solutions
As with national politicians and the general public, what state legislators think is in their state’s best interest is bound up tightly with their partisan allegiance and political ideology. As a result, when the federal government advances a policy they like—even when it violates state sovereignty—some state politicians will be supportive.
This was clearly illustrated by the reaction of some state politicians to the Supreme Court’s stay of the Environmental Protection Agency’s so-called Clean Power Plan. The Obama-era regulation would have imposed costly state-specific carbon dioxide emissions caps. The Supreme Court’s stay meant these caps did not go into effect, and states could continue to regulate carbon dioxide as they saw fit.
Preferring that all states be yoked with the same stringent emissions standards they apply within their own borders, blue state politicians lashed out at the court. California’s Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, wrote: “As the world gets hotter and closer to irreversible climate change, these justices appear tone-deaf as they fiddle with procedural niceties.”
Politicians who view the constitutional order as just so many “procedural niceties” are unlikely to defend federalism—with or without the 17th Amendment.
Likewise, when Trump repealed an Obama-era requirement that public schools allow transgender students to use the restrooms of their choice, Minnesota’s Democratic governor, Mark Dayton, said, “This is not a ‘states’ rights’ issue. This is a human rights issue.”
Repeal advocates hope that the Senate will represent the states as states—rather than the states as collections of individuals—if the 17th Amendment is repealed. But if state politicians are more concerned with so-called “human rights” than with states’ rights, this hope would likely be chimerical.
When States Decide to Use It, They Have Extraordinary Power
The Trump era has also demonstrated how much institutional power the states really have when they are determined to use it.
As expansive and expensive as the federal government is, it does not have the money or manpower to enforce the law at the street level, everywhere around the country. It relies on the states for help.
Often grant money is enough to induce cooperation, but not always. When states are determined to resist a federal policy, the extent of their power becomes clear.
The Trump administration has struggled to effectively respond to blue states, such as California and Oregon, which have adopted sanctuary state policies on illegal immigration. Even when the federal government has a clear constitutional mandate to set policy—as it does in the case of immigration—it still must rely on the states for help.
If state and local governments direct their law enforcement agents not to inquire about individuals’ immigration status, the federal government must independently identify and detain all those who are here illegally by itself. That is an impossible task for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency of less than 20,000 total employees.
By confounding this administration’s efforts to stop illegal immigration, states such as California have revealed the tenuous power of the federal government. Even without formal representation in the halls of Congress, state legislatures have powerful tools at their disposal to effectively push back against federal laws and regulations—even when they should not.
The fact that states do not often wield the full extent of their power suggests that their will to defend state authority has waned.
That many blue states have chosen to obstruct the federal government’s efforts to discharge clear constitutional authority—while cheering federal overreach into health care policy, environmental regulation, education policy, and many other areas—demonstrates the influence of partisanship and ideology over state lawmakers.
A Goal Worth Pursuing?
The argument for repeal of the 17th Amendment is rooted in a generally accurate perception that this change of the Constitution’s design was out of step with the Founders’ thoughts and presaged the growth of the federal government.
Some argue that was the intent of the Progressives at the beginning of the 20th century who authored the amendment. They gravely distrusted the parochial state legislatures and party apparatchiks who selected senators under the old system. Thus, they sought a more direct link between the populace and national representatives.
While the ratification of the 17th Amendment was part of the problem, a repeal today may not be a sufficient solution. Over the course of the 20th century, the states have become more reliant on federal funds and more enmeshed in national-level ideological fights.
The Trump era demonstrates how far both trends have extended. These two developments greatly complicate the effort to revive constitutional federalism. The Founders’ system, after all, requires that states have sufficient means to guard their sovereignty and the will to use those tools when appropriate.
For this reason, a revived federalism will only follow if the public demands that the federal government stay within its constitutional bounds. No matter the power they wield, state legislators will not fight for constitutional federalism if their own constituents goad them to take federal money and subvert state interests to party ideology.
If focusing on the 17th Amendment plays an educative function, teaching the American public about the important role the Founders intended state governments to play, it might be a noble effort.
The risk of focusing on such an antiquarian and anti-populist goal, however, is that it may well turn the fight for federalism—already an uphill battle for hearts and minds—into a veritable mission impossible.
Actually you don't
A constitutional amendment means a constitutional convention which will be used to enact the koch Brothers master plan to rework the political landscape and operations as we know it.
I agree we need term limits but repugs will use that excuse to push the koch agenda and sadly they have enough states legislatures to get the votes needed
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/23/...ush-for-states-to-amend-the-constitution.html
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Liberty_Amendments
The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic is a book by the American talk radio host and lawyer Mark Levin, published in 2013.[1] In it, Levin lays out and makes a case for eleven Constitutional amendments which he believes would restore the Constitution’s chief components: federalism, republicanism, and limited government.[2]
The eleven amendments proposed by Levin:
Levin would have these amendments proposed to the states by a convention of the states as described in Article Five of the Constitution
- Impose Congressional term limits
- Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment, returning the election of Senators to state legislatures
- Impose term limits for Supreme Court Justices and restrict judicial review
- Require a balanced budget and limit federal spending and taxation
- Define a deadline to file taxes (one day before the next federal election)
- Subject federal departments and bureaucratic regulations to periodic reauthorization and review
- Create a more specific definition of the Commerce Clause
- Limit eminent domain powers
- Allow states to more easily amend the Constitution by bypassing Congress
- Create a process where two-thirds of the states can nullify federal laws
- Require photo ID to vote and limit early voting
Sinema Says She Will Not Support Changing Filibuster
Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s comments came after the House approved a set of voting rights measures on a party-line vote of 220 to 203.
www.nytimes.com
Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s comments came after the House approved a set of voting rights measures on a party-line vote of 220 to 203.
Sinema Rejects Changing Filibuster, Dealing Biden a Setback (Published 2022)
Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s comments came after the House approved a set of voting rights measures on a party-line vote of 220 to 203.
Sinema Says She Will Not Support Changing Filibuster
Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s comments came after the House approved a set of voting rights measures on a party-line vote of 220 to 203.
Sinema Rejects Changing Filibuster, Dealing Biden a Setback (Published 2022)
Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s comments came after the House approved a set of voting rights measures on a party-line vote of 220 to 203.
Of course that racoon-looking bitch won't support it.
Personally I hope the Democrats do change it because a year from now when the republicans take power that shit will come back and bite them on the ass.
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