Cris, commenting on this morning’s post, provides a link to the full text of Zell Miller’s Senate floor speech calling for a repeal of the 17th Amendment.
I still don’t buy the argument but the speech is worth reading, and not only for the entertainment value of lines such as this:
The U.S. Senate has become just one big, bad, ongoing joke, held hostage by special interests and so impotent an eighteen wheeler truck loaded with Viagra would do no good.
I don’t disagree that many of the problems he cites exist or that they’re a shame. I just don’t think repealing the 17th Amendment would solve them, even if it were within the realm of possibility. There’s little reason to think an appointed Senate would act much different. It’s not as if state legislatures are the repositories of our best statesmen. For that matter, the same problems that Miller cites in the Senate exist in the House, most Members of whom are, for all practical purposes, appointed by their state legislatures since they’re drawn into “safe” seats that virtually ensure the victory of the incumbent or a like-minded individual.
