Good Points in the Seventeenth
People who do not understand the importance of an appointed Senator are very supportive of this amendment. They point out how the 17th allowed a popular election campaign to vet the candidates for office in a public forum. That much helps—popular elections do give people a chance to vote directly for who will represent them.
Bad Points in the Seventeenth
For the socialists, this amendment removed an important link of representation between the States and the federal government. With no direct representative of a State’s legislature present in Washington, D.C., the legislature’s immediate concerns cannot easily resonate outside the halls of their capitol building. Their concerns and decisions are emasculated, and become subject to the whims of political emotions every time a senator comes up for reelection.
The lowest level of representation—state senators and congressmen—are approachable by anyone in that voting precinct. Such representatives are their neighbors and have regular jobs outside their legislative duties. People could visit their State senator during lunch, air their grievance, and expect action on that State’s Capitol Hill. If the complaint had enough support, it was relayed through the appointed federal-level senator in Washington, D.C..
Now those direct links are broken. The State legislature may communicate concerns to the senators, but there is no controlling or compelling authority (“Senator, you’re fired”) to make him or her properly represent the legislature’s views in the nation’s capital. The 17th Amendment severed that linkage, and America has suffered for it ever since.
Same as Congressmen: Generally speaking, the “popular vote” essentially makes senators no different than congressmen except for a longer term of office. Their duties are different, but even those lines of demarcation have become blurred.
Legislature Excluded: Without power to appoint their own representative, the legislatures no longer have direct involvement in the decisions taking place in Washington, D.C..
Senators Became Federal Agents: The people have much closer contact with their legislators than their federal representatives. As mentioned, a voter may drive to a legislator’s office for a chat in person. Today’s senators have mazes of well compensated handlers to manage the day-to-day issues because, “Sorry, the senator is so very busy representing you, he/she can’t come to the phone.” And they like it that way. Many senators don’t even try to cast a shadow across their States except before re-election time, and then suddenly they’re everywhere, defending you and your rights and your pocketbook as if they were the next best thing since sliced bread.
For an unfortunate majority—in all parties—that six-year cycle between re-elections has become a predictable sham.
Self-Appointing: The 17th also permits a devious vacancy procedure that has functioned to fulfill aspiring politicians’ fantasies in years past. For example,1. When a senator dies in office, or is otherwise removed, the governor with higher aspirations may resign his office and be replaced by the lieutenant governor.
2. According to a pre-arranged agreement, the new governor appoints the ex-governor to become the new replacement senator for the remainder of the deceased senator’s term.
3. When the new elections roll around, both leaders run as incumbents—and often win reelection.
Impact: Few senators are willing to acknowledge the power of accountability that existed when their direct boss was the State legislature. Senators prefer having the voters be the boss, voters who are easily swayed by singular issues, mail campaigns, and media-driven causes, and whose apathy at the voting booth has become predictable. It’s relatively easy to manipulate the voters every six years, but very difficult to manipulate legislators who jealously make it their mission to be up to date on all the issues and all the voting records.
Repealing the 17th Amendment is unpopular today because the voters would view that as stripping away their right to directly vote for their Senator. Nevertheless, that day of restoration must come before America will gain back control over the federal government. The original Senator was one of the finest controls the Founders invented.
18TH AMENDMENT (Ratified 1919)
The problem with the 18th amendment, “Prohibition,” is that it went beyond the proper role of government and violated the basic right to choose, in this case, the right to choose to consume alcoholic liquor.
Interest in Prohibition had been growing since before the Civil War. Even so, only five States had actually adopted statewide prohibition by 1900. Many other States adopted laws allowing counties to decide on Prohibition if they pleased. These were called the local-option laws.
By 1919, a huge effort by women nationwide was organized into the Anti-Saloon League. This helped push 14 more States to go dry, with many others embracing the local-option laws.
World War I: With the war getting under way, Congress passed a prohibition law as a means of food-control in 1917. That same year Congress went further and passed the 18th Amendment and sent it to the States for ratification. It became law in 1919.
Unpopular: The troops returning home from the war felt left out of the debates and ratification process. Their stubborn resistance to the Amendment over the prohibition of even lighter drinks, such as beer and wine, compounded the Amendment’s unpopularity. Loud complaints grew nationwide until it was repealed with the 21st Amendment in 1933. That Amendment didn’t make drinking legal—it just turned the problem back over to the States where it should have been kept in the first place.
Drug Problem: Alcoholism is the number one drug problem in the U.S. Had Prohibition imposed higher taxes and penalties for intoxication from the hard liquors and left the lighter liquors alone, it might have achieved some good while respecting individual rights. But as an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, that was an improper role for government to play.
Local Level Best: Alcoholic drinks and other social issues that concern society are best managed by the States. Some of these issues include capital punishment, abortion, gun laws, beer and wine distribution, sex education, minimum age of marriage, definition of marriage, gambling, the lottery, dog and horse racing, etc. The Founders’ good counsel was to push the problem to the lowest possible level. That wisdom was timeless, and America would benefit by returning to it.
23rd AMENDMENT (Ratified 1961)
This Amendment gave the seat of government, Washington, D.C., its own electors—that is, representatives to the Electoral College—to help choose the president and vice president.
Good Points in the 23rd Amendment
The people living in Washington, D.C. had no ability to participate in the elections for president and vice president. The 23rd Amendment gave them a place on the electoral college.
Bad Points in the 23rd Amendment
Leaders of the Democratic Party saw an opportunity to stack the political deck against the Republican Party. Washington, D.C., was very left-leaning and would easily become a deciding factor for any legislation if it were allowed two senators and one representative. To achieve this, Congress had to make DC a city-state—that is, grant a city the same powers of representation as a full-fledged, sovereign State.
The first step was achieved with the 23rd Amendment.
The second step was the “Washington, D.C. Voting Rights Amendment” proposed in 1978. It gave the District of Columbia two senators and one representative. This amendment failed to become ratified, and expired in 1985.
If the failed amendment passed, it would have opened the door for additional city-states to be created, probably beginning with New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago—traditional strongholds for the Democratic Party. If the Republican Party had pushed for the same in strongly-conservative cities, the howling on the other side of the aisle would have been just as loud.
The Founders and other students of history observed that the seat of government in any nation throughout history becomes showered with national treasure for its beautification and aggrandizeme
nt. The citizens of such cities become happy converts to the money and attention, and anxiously support whichever ruling party can keep the money flowing.
A simpler solution is to send the residents of Washington, D.C., back to Maryland to cast votes because Maryland was the original landowner of the District of Columbia.
25th AMENDMENT (Ratified 1967)
When the president or vice president dies, resigns, or is removed from office, the one or the other is given authority to fill the vacancy by the 25th Amendment. Before this Amendment, a vacancy in the office of vice president had to remain vacant until the next presidential election, while a vacancy for president already followed a written plan.
Good Points in the 25th Amendment
The procedure for keeping the top two executive positions filled was streamlined by the 25th Amendment. However, the potential to misuse this process is, and has been, dangerously abused.
Bad Points in the 25th Amendment
This amendment allows un-elected people to occupy the highest office in the land. For example:
Ford
In 1973, Spiro T. Agnew resigned as vice president, and President Richard Nixon appointed Congressman Gerald R. Ford of Michigan to fill the spot. This appointment was approved by a majority of the Senate and House.
Rockefeller
In 1974, Nixon resigned as president, and Vice President Ford became the new president. Ford had power to appoint his replacement and called on Nelson A. Rockefeller to become vice president, with approval of a majority of the House and Senate.
Un-Elected Executives
And with that, the United States suddenly had two men in these important positions who were not elected by the American people.
A wiser process would require a 2/3rds majority vote by the Senate instead of a simple majority vote in these various office-hopping activities. Simple majority allows confirmation to follow party lines instead of forcing cooperation between both parties (assuming neither party has a 2/3rds majority).
Power Sharing or Power Usurped?
Delegation: The president can turn over his powers to the vice president any time he pleases, and take them up again at a later time without being stopped in either instance by the House or Senate.
Can the V.P. Launch a Coup? An ambitious vice president who can get a majority of the Cabinet to agree with him can summarily take over the president’s duties, with or without the president’s consent—a type of coup to take over the White House.
Unbalanced Checks on Power: If the president has relinquished power to the vice president, he may not resume his presidential powers without the consent of the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet—the coup may thereby be continued.
Skirmishes: A President recovering from some disability that rendered him unfit for office, temporarily, who then seeks to resume his office is still subordinate to the vice president who sits in the Oval Office as acting president. An ambitious vice president controlling a dominant bloc of Congress could stall a return to power by the president long enough to have certain legislations passed, and sign into law any number of bills that the original president might otherwise veto. Untested in Many Ways
The potential consequences of the dangerous flaws incorporated into the 25th Amendment are not farfetched, as illustrated by the Nixon administration. America has yet to fully try on the 25th Amendment. But, as described above, the Amendment is fraught with dangerous loopholes and potentials for abuse. It should be repealed and replaced with something putting Congress and the Senate more firmly in control, with 2/3rds majorities required to replace an elected officer of the Executive Branch.
* * *
398 For a brief and clarifying discussion on the 14th Amendment, see Skousen, The Making of America, op cite., pp. 721-727.
399 For example, see Raoul Berger, Government by Judiciary, The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment, Harvard, 1977; Bernard Schwartz, The Fourteenth Amendment Centennial Volume, University of London Press Ltd, 1970, Michael Kent Curtis, No State Shall Abridge: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights, Duke University, 1987.
400 Thomas James Norton, The Constitution of the United States—Its Sources and Its Application, Committee for Constitutional Government, Inc., 1952, pp. 235-242.
401 Andrew Johnson, Presidential Proclamation, Dec. 25, 1868.
402 A direct quote from a sitting senator to the author and his two brothers on May 7, 2010.
403 Karl Marx, Freidrich Engels, Communist Manifesto, 1848 (German original) Chapter 2.
404 Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program, 1875, published after Marx’s death.
405 The Utah Independent, March 29, 1973; also, U.S. News & World Report, May 25, 1956.
Chapter 63: Revolutionary: U.S. Supreme Court
Jefferson saw this one coming like a bull charging out of the fog ... and with the passage of time, it corrupted everything.
One of the gaping holes left in the Constitution was how to prevent the U.S. Supreme Court from exercising its prejudiced will when it was supposed to exercise an unprejudiced judgment. The problem then, and now, is that judgments by the Court pivot on the political biases and social philosophy of the individual justices instead of the Constitution and the intent of its Founders. Every president hopes to pack the court with his kind of justices.
For the other branches, the Founders put restraints on Congress with several good safeguards and constitutional remedies. It was the same for the President. But where were the safeguards for the Court?
This is one of the issues the Founders left unfinished. They talked about it, they worried over it, they debated it,406 but the closest they came to crafting controls and a remedy was in three inadequate restrictions.
1.Presidential Appointment: All the judges had to be appointed by the president—with the advice and consent of the Senate. This let the president pick a justice who would support his own political aspirations. This is not strong control by the people.
2.Congressional Restrictions: The Congress was authorized to restrict what cases the Court could handle (its jurisdiction), but that has rarely been attempted. (See Article 3.2)
3.Impeachment: Congress was allowed to impeach the justices and kick them off the bench for treason, bribery, or other crimes, but not for unpopular decisions—even if the Court altered the Constitution with an unconstitutional decision.
Judicial Review
The authority to examine Acts passed by Congress or State legislatures is called the right to “judicial review”—meaning, the Court can review a State law or Act to measure if it violates any provision in the Constitution as designed by the Founding Fathers.
This authority wasn’t spelled out very well. There was much discussion on the matter, but it was never really resolved. This resulted in a gradual evolution of the Court’s power.
Today, the Court is so independent and all-powerful that it has indeed become despotic—an outcome that Thomas Jefferson warned about very early on, as will be discussed later.
Evolution Of the Court’s Power
The Court passed through four stages of development:407
1.John Marshall Period (1801-1835). Marshall was the fourth chief justice and established the Court as the “last say” on all things constitutional. For reference material the Court used the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and the words of the Founders to make their decisions.
2.Roger B. Taney Period (1835-1895). Starting around 1835, the Court began distancing itself from the Founders. It leaned heavily on constitutional doctrines and theories, and the Founders’ philosophy. However, the justices stopped quoting the Founders and the Federalist Papers in most cases. Justice Taney is remembered for delivering the majority opinion in Dred Scott vs. Sanford (1857) that said blacks could not be considered citizens of the United States.
3.Judicial Suprema
cy (1895-1930s). Around 1895, the Court took a giant “progressive” step and became more vocal about its opinions being supreme instead of the Constitution. The Constitution was no longer what the Founders said it was. It was now what the Supreme Court said.
4.‘Super Legislature’ (1930s to today). Today, the Court bypasses the amendment process to make law, voiding Congress and the States if an Act happens to hit the justices wrong for any reason. The norm has been for the sitting president to pack the Court with politically friendly justices who will support his agenda, instead of a good thinker who puts principle and constitutional restrictions at play. The result is decades of reshaping the Constitution from a document of rights to a document of powers.
Court Sides With Strong Federal Government
Just as Jefferson had warned, an unchecked Supreme Court began abolishing, little by little, the subtle protections of rights provided by the Constitution. Each weakening of the Constitution gave ground for the establishment of various components of Ruler’s Law and the seven pillars of socialism. There are hundreds of cases that prove the Court’s progressive tendencies.
CASE: Marbury vs. Madison (1803)
PRECEDENT: Declared a congressional bill unconstitutional.
STORY: This was the first time the Supreme Court declared an Act passed by Congress to be unconstitutional. This decision emphasized that the Constitution was the supreme law of the land, and that’s good. But it also emphasized that the Supreme Court justices wanted everyone to understand that they were the final authority on what the Constitution actually meant. So long as decisions were handed down based on the actual Constitution, this declaration of supremacy was appropriate. When decisions were based on precedent (what prior courts decided), that’s when trouble started.
The Naked Socialist Page 35