Essay On The 17th Amendment

The 17th Amendment of the Constitution once it was ratified by a majority of states in 1913 changed the way Senators were elected in the voting process. Prior to the ratification of the amendment, the founding fathers saw it fit that the state legislators be invested with the authority to assign states their chosen Senators. The debate on whether the amendment was significant or not has been argued on among scholars and critics alike. One can say the fact that a debate exists at all answers that question itself. The hysteria behind the attachment of the 17th amendment is that it sets precedent for future changes to laws concerning the balance of power between the states and our central government established by the countries Founding Fathers.

The change

The difference lies in the fact that the average non-political voter will typically vote for a candidate based on appearance and relatively scanty information as opposed to a knowledgeable assembly of politicians who would otherwise have a more thorough association and this can be viewed as a disadvantage. Authors Sean Gailmard and Jeffrey A. Jenkins in their article titled, “Agency Problems, the 17th Amendment, and Representation in the Senate”, found in the EBSCO database clarify this when stating, “While the 17th Amendment did create a direct agency relationship, it also eliminated both the informed selection and monitoring of U.S. Senators by relative political experts, state legislators. Therefore, U.S. Senators may have been held to a better post-amendment standard in democratic terms, but not as tightly as they were held to their pre-amendment