State Senator Howard Stephenson has authored a bill that attempts to give legislators back some of the control they had over the selection of U.S. senators prior to the amendment's ratification in 1913. Stephenson, who terms the amendment "a huge mistake," proposes giving state political parties the power to stipulate in their bylaws that their Senate candidates will be selected by the party's members in the legislature.
If the bill were to be enacted, the next step would presumably be to get the state Republican Party to change its rules and, like that, legislators would be choosing G.O.P. Senate nominees. In Utah, that's tantamount to choosing senators.
Conservatives have periodically criticized the 17th Amendment over the years, associating it with a broader trend against states' rights over the past century. What makes Stephenson's bill unusual, however, is that it actually has a chance to become law. In fact, 20 of Utah's 29 state senators are backing the measure, although its prospects in the state House of Representatives aren't clear.
My guess is that the measure would face a legal challenge if enacted -- especially because of another component of the bill. The state legislature would gain the power to "give direction" to U.S. senators and to require senators to report back on how they are following these directions. Whether the directions would bind senators to vote one way or another isn't clear to me from the text of the bill.
What's really going on here is a dispute between big government conservatives in Utah's congressional delegation and small government conservatives in the legislature. Stephenson, who laments "budget-busting" federal spending, likely perceives Utah's U.S. senators, Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett, as among the budget busters. Both voted for the Medicare prescription drug benefit and Hatch also supported No Child Left Behind, which the Utah legislature denounced last year.
