Gerrymandering the US Senate?

[SpacemanSpiff]

I'll admit this is a long shot, but it's along the same lines as the "Gerrymandering the Electoral College" discussion that came up a couple of years ago.*

http://www.standard.net/Government/2016 ... ights-push

The Utah Senate has passed a resolution to repeal the 17th Amendment, so that the election of US Senators are done by the state legislatures rather than by popular vote.

The reason given is that the members of the US Senate are too beholden to the special interests, so the states should control them instead. (Yes, I know. State legislatures have no special interest influence.)

There are some (including Ted Cruz) who have suggested this, it's likely not going to happen, given how hard it is to actually pass an amendment to the US Constitution.

But here's where the Gerrymandering comes into play. Virginia, where I live, is truly a purple state at the national level -- went with Obama in 2008 and 2012, and has two Democratic US Senators. The party affiliations have gone back and forth on those over the years, as has the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General.

The Virginia General Assembly, however, is another matter. The state Senate has basically been as close to 50-50 as you can get; more than one term has been a 20-20 split, where the LG gets the tiebreaker in most matters. But the lower house, the House of Delegates, has been overwhelmingly Republican for some time, primarily thanks to how the districts have been drawn. Currently, it consist of 66 Republicans and 34 Democrats.

So -- Gerrymander the state legislature, repeal the 17th Amendment, and control the US Senate. This seems to be the new battle plan.

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* As a reminder, this was a concept (briefly) thrown out in Virginia, more seriously in Michigan. The concept is to split the Electoral College votes in a state so that the overall state winner got the 2 votes allocated for the US Senator, and each Congressional district in essence voted for their own elector. This sounds good, but look at the outcome - for the 2012 election here in Virginia, where Mr. Obama won with a 51.15% to 47.28% margin, instead of getting the 11 Virginia electors, he would have ended up with only 4, because of how the Congressional districts were drawn.

[flockofseagulls104]

The Utah Senate has passed a resolution to repeal the 17th Amendment, so that the election of US Senators are done by the state legislatures rather than by popular vote.

That is one of the possible amendments to be considered in an Article V Convention of the States to propose Constitutional Amendments. The Constitution gives the States the power to add amendments without involving Congress. This was put into the Constitution specifically as a remedy to a runaway federal government, which is what we have now. Washington will NEVER fix itself. We need 2/3 of the states to call this convention and 3/4 of the states to pass any amendments agreed upon. The Washington cartel has pushed back by implying, totally falsely, that this convention could rewrite the Constitution.

There are states that are signing up now every week. We still have a long way to go, but this is the one solution to the Washington mess that really could work. I would urge you to read Mark Levin's book "The Liberty Amendments" to see some of the amendments he proposes and the reasons why. I don't agree with all of them, but many of them are sorely needed, and Congress will NEVER even consider them.