Notwithstanding controversies over the effects of the Seventeenth Amendment, advocates have emerged to reform or repeal the amendment. Under President Barack Obama's administration in 2009, four sitting Democratic senators left the Senate for executive branch positions: Barack Obama (President), Joe Biden (Vice President), Hillary Clinton (Secretary of State), and Ken Salazar (Secretary of the Interior). Controversies developed about the successor appointments made by Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich and New York governor David Paterson. New interest was aroused in abolishing the provision for the Senate appointment by the governor. Accordingly, Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Representative David Dreier of California proposed an amendment to remove this power; senators John McCain and Dick Durbin became co-sponsors, as did Representative John Conyers.
Reform and repeal efforts
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Reform and repeal efforts
Barack Obama (President), Joe Biden (Vice President), Hillary Clinton (Secretary of State), and Ken Salazar (Secretary of the Interior). Henry R. Storrs and Andrew Johnson Henry R. Storrs and Andrew Johnson/ Barack Obama (President), Joe Biden (Vice President), Hillary Clinton (Secretary of State), and Ken Salazar (Secretary of the Interior).
who elected senators under the provisions of the constitution as originally ratified
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State legislative election.
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who proposed this amendment?
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The Seventeenth Amendment (Amendment XVII).
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when did it become the part of constitution?
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On April 8, 1913.
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what were the issues related to it?
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Legislative corruption and electoral deadlocks.
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who were reformers for the calls for constitutional amendment?
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Calls for a constitutional amendment regarding Senate elections started in the early 19th century, with Henry R. Storrs in 1826 proposing an amendment to provide for popular election. Similar amendments were introduced in 1829 and 1855, with the "most prominent" proponent being Andrew Johnson, who raised the issue in 1868 and considered the idea's merits "so palpable" that no additional explanation was necessary. As noted above, in the 1860s, there was a major congressional dispute over the issue, with the House and Senate voting to veto the appointment of John P. Stockton to the Senate due to his approval by a plurality of the New Jersey Legislature rather than a majority.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Calls for reform
However, when the joint resolution reached the Senate, it failed from neglect, as it did again in 1900, 1904 and 1908; each time the House approved the appropriate resolution, and each time it died in the Senate.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Calls for reform
William Randolph Hearst opened a nationwide popular readership for direct election of U.S. senators in a 1906 series of articles using flamboyant language attacking "The Treason of the Senate" in his "Cosmopolitan" magazine. David Graham Philips, one of the "yellow journalists" whom President Teddy Roosevelt called "muckrakers", described Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island as the principal "traitor" among the "scurvy lot" in control of the Senate by theft, perjury, and bribes corrupting the state legislatures to gain election to the Senate. A few state legislatures began to petition the Congress for direct election of senators. By 1893, the House had the two-thirds vote for just such an amendment.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Calls for reform
As time went by, more and more state legislatures adopted resolutions demanding that a convention be called, thus pressuring the Senate to finally relent and approve what later became the Seventeenth Amendment for fear that such a convention—if permitted to assemble—might stray to include issues above and beyond just the direct election of senators.
Constitutional amendment | Federal constitution
Some members of the Tea Party movement argued for repealing the Seventeenth Amendment entirely, claiming it would protect states' rights and reduce the power of the federal government. On March 2, 2016, the Utah legislature approved Senate Joint Resolution No.2 asking Congress to offer an amendment to the United States Constitution that would repeal the Seventeenth Amendment. , no other states had supported such an amendment, and some politicians who had made statements in favor of repealing the amendment had subsequently reversed their position on this. On July 28, 2017, after Senators John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski voted no on Affordable Care Act repeal attempt Health Care Freedom Act, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee endorsed the repeal on the Seventeenth Amendment, claiming that Senators chosen by state legislatures will work for their states and respect the Tenth Amendment, and also that direct election of Senators is a major cause of the "swamp".
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Reform and repeal efforts
The only remedy was another constitutional convention. Calling a constitutional convention required the approval of a majority of voters in two successive elections or a two-thirds majority of both houses of the General Assembly. In February 1797, the General Assembly voted to put the question before the electorate in the upcoming May elections. Of the 9,814 votes cast, 5,446 favored the call and 440 opposed it, but 3,928 had not voted at all, and several counties recorded no votes on the issue either way. This cast doubt in the minds of many legislators regarding the true will of the people.
James Garrard | A new constitution
According to Judge Jay Bybee of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, those in favor of popular elections for senators believed two primary problems were caused by the original provisions: legislative corruption and electoral deadlocks. There was a sense that senatorial elections were "bought and sold", changing hands for favors and sums of money rather than because of the competence of the candidate. Between 1857 and 1900, the Senate investigated three elections over corruption. In 1900, for example, William A. Clark had his election voided after the Senate concluded that he had bought votes in the Montana legislature.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Issues
Notwithstanding controversies over the effects of the Seventeenth Amendment, advocates have emerged to reform or repeal the amendment. Under President Barack Obama's administration in 2009, four sitting Democratic senators left the Senate for executive branch positions: Barack Obama (President), Joe Biden (Vice President), Hillary Clinton (Secretary of State), and Ken Salazar (Secretary of the Interior). Controversies developed about the successor appointments made by Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich and New York governor David Paterson. New interest was aroused in abolishing the provision for the Senate appointment by the governor. Accordingly, Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Representative David Dreier of California proposed an amendment to remove this power; senators John McCain and Dick Durbin became co-sponsors, as did Representative John Conyers.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Reform and repeal efforts
In reaction, the Congress passed a bill in July 1866 that required state legislatures to elect senators by an absolute majority. By the 1890s, support for the introduction of direct election for the Senate had substantially increased, and reformers worked on two fronts. On the first front, the Populist Party incorporated the direct election of senators into its Omaha Platform, adopted in 1892. In 1908, Oregon passed the first law basing the selection of U.S. senators on a popular vote. Oregon was soon followed by Nebraska. Proponents for popular election noted that ten states already had non-binding primaries for Senate candidates, in which the candidates would be voted on by the public, effectively serving as advisory referenda instructing state legislatures how to vote; reformers campaigned for more states to introduce a similar method.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Calls for reform
Sanford Levinson, in his rebuttal to Amar, argues that rather than engaging in a textual interpretation, those examining the meaning of constitutional provisions should interpret them in the fashion that provides the most benefit, and that legislatures' being able to restrict gubernatorial appointment authority provides a substantial benefit to the states.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Court cases and interpretation controversies
With direct election, each vote represented equally, the Democrats retained control of the Senate. The reputation of corrupt and arbitrary state legislatures continued to decline as the Senate joined the House of Representatives implementing popular reforms. Bybee has argued that the amendment led to complete "ignominy" for state legislatures without the buttress of a state-based check on Congress. In the decades following the Seventeenth Amendment, the federal government was enabled to enact progressive measures. However, Schleiches argues that the separation of state legislatures and the Senate had a beneficial effect on the states, as it led state legislative campaigns to focus on local rather than national issues.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Effect
In "Trinsey v. Pennsylvania" (1991), the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit was faced with a situation where, following the death of Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania, Governor Bob Casey had provided for a replacement and for a special election that did not include a primary. A voter and prospective candidate, John S. Trinsey, Jr., argued that the lack of a primary violated the Seventeenth Amendment and his right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Third Circuit rejected these arguments, ruling that the Seventeenth Amendment does not require primaries. Another subject of analysis is whether statutes restricting the authority of governors to appoint temporary replacements are constitutional.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Court cases and interpretation controversies
The transition began with two special elections in Georgia and Maryland, then in earnest with the November 1914 election; it was complete on March 4, 1919, when the senators chosen at the November 1918 election took office.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Introduction
State legislatures retained the theoretical right to "instruct" their senators to vote for or against proposals, thus giving the states both direct and indirect representation in the federal government. The Senate was part of a formal bicameralism, with the members of the Senate and House responsible to completely distinct constituencies; this helped defeat the problem of the federal government being subject to "special interests". Members of the Constitutional Convention considered the Senate to be parallel to the British House of Lords as an "upper house", containing the "better men" of society, but improved upon as they would be conscientiously chosen by the upper houses of state republican legislatures for fixed terms, and not merely inherited for life as in the British system, subject to a monarch's arbitrary expansion.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Original composition
But analysts Bybee and Todd Zywicki believe this concern was largely unfounded; there was a "dearth of hard information" on the subject. In more than a century of legislative elections of U.S. senators, only ten cases were contested for allegations of impropriety. Electoral deadlocks were another issue. Because state legislatures were charged with deciding whom to appoint as senators, the system relied on their ability to agree. Some states could not, and thus delayed sending representatives to Congress; in a few cases, the system broke down to the point where states completely lacked representation in the Senate. Deadlocks started to become an issue in the 1850s, with a deadlocked Indiana legislature allowing a Senate seat to sit vacant for two years.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Issues
The tipping point came in 1865 with the election of John P. Stockton (D-NJ), which happened after the New Jersey legislature changed its rules regarding the definition of a quorum. In 1866, Congress acted to standardize a two-step process for Senate elections. In the first step, each chamber of the state legislature would meet separately to vote. The following day, the chambers would meet in "joint assembly" to assess the results, and if a majority in both chambers had voted for the same person, he would be elected. If not, the joint assembly would vote for a senator, with each member receiving a vote.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Issues
at the time the new "Landdag" was to be convened). This procedure resulted in a Resolution of the States of 17 April 1627, which became known as the Appeal about Abuses. This formed the basis for the so-called "poincten reformatoir" (reform points) of 1627, a terminology that was repeated at later occasions.
States of Friesland | Attempts at constitutional reform
Most of the South had one-party states. When the resolution came before the Senate, a substitute resolution, one without the rider, was proposed by Joseph L. Bristow of Kansas. It was adopted by a vote of 64 to 24, with four not voting. Nearly a year later, the House accepted the change. The conference report that would become the Seventeenth Amendment was approved by the Senate 42 to 36 on April 12, 1912, and by the House 238 to 39, with 110 not voting on May 13, 1912.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Proposal in Congress
While the enaction of the 1870 state constitution restored former Confederates' right to vote, Conservatives— a faction of moderate former Unionists and Confederate sympathizers— were concerned that Radicals would use the Fourteenth Amendment (which barred Confederate politicians from holding office) to negate any Conservative election victories. Candidates in the August 1870 judicial elections were thus selected by Conservatives for their ability to survive Fourteenth Amendment challenges. The Conservative ticket, which consisted of Deaderick and T.A.R. Nelson for East Tennessee, Peter Turney and Alfred O. P. Nicholson from Middle Tennessee, and John L.T. Sneed and Thomas J. Freeman from West Tennessee, swept the elections.
James W. Deaderick | Tennessee Supreme Court
The resolution required state conventions, rather than the state legislatures, to approve the amendment, effectively reducing the process to a one-state, one-vote referendum rather than a popular vote. A few states continued statewide prohibition after 1933, but by 1966 they all had abandoned it.
Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Calls for repeal
By 1912, 27 states had called for a constitutional convention on the subject, with 31 states needed to reach the threshold. As the number of applications neared the two-thirds threshold, the Senate abandoned its strategy of obstruction. An amendment to the Constitution establishing the popular election of United States Senators by the people of the states was approved by Congress on May 13, 1912, and submitted to the state legislatures for ratification. By April 8, 1913 it had been ratified by the requisite number of states (36) to become the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Presidency of William Howard Taft | Direct election of senators
It was hoped they would provide abler deliberation and greater stability than the House of Representatives due to the senators' status.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Original composition
The 1816 constitution was never amended, although some of its provisions were criticized after its adoption. Demands for changes to constitution were made as early as 1820, but referendums in 1823, 1828, 1840, and 1846 on holding a constitutional convention were unsuccessful. In addition, fifteen more efforts to convene a state constitutional convention were made between 1820 and 1847, but they also failed. The most notable criticisms of the 1816 constitution were Corydon's identification as the seat of state government for the next nine years, inadequate provisions for amending the constitution, prohibition of salary increases for state government officials until 1819, term limits for judges, and a failure to provide for selection of a state attorney general or prosecuting attorney.
Constitution of Indiana | Criticisms and call for rewrite
Anticipating an increase in Democratic membership in the following Congress, Republicans used the lame-duck session of the 40th United States Congress to pass an amendment protecting black suffrage. Representative John Bingham, the primary author of the Fourteenth Amendment, pushed for a wide-ranging ban on suffrage limitations, but a broader proposal banning voter restriction on the basis of "race, color, nativity, property, education, or religious beliefs" was rejected. A proposal to specifically ban literacy tests was also rejected. Some Representatives from the North, where nativism was a major force, wished to preserve restrictions denying the franchise to foreign-born citizens, as did Representatives from the West, where ethnic Chinese were banned from voting.
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Proposal
The Seventeenth Amendment (Amendment XVII) to the United States Constitution established the popular election of United States senators in each state. The amendment supersedes , Clauses 1 and2 of the Constitution, under which senators were elected by state legislatures. It also alters the procedure for filling vacancies in the Senate, allowing for state legislatures to permit their governors to make temporary appointments until a special election can be held. The amendment was proposed by the 62nd Congress in 1912 and became part of the Constitution on April 8, 1913, on ratification by three-quarters (36) of the state legislatures. Sitting senators were not affected until their existing terms expired.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Introduction
If no person received a majority, the joint assembly was required to keep convening every day to take at least one vote until a senator was elected. Nevertheless, between 1891 and 1905, 46 elections were deadlocked across 20 states; in one extreme example, a Senate seat for Delaware went unfilled from 1899 until 1903. The business of holding elections also caused great disruption in the state legislatures, with a full third of the Oregon House of Representatives choosing not to swear the oath of office in 1897 due to a dispute over an open Senate seat. The result was that Oregon's legislature was unable to pass legislation that year.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Issues
In 1911, the House of Representatives passed House Joint Resolution 39 proposing a constitutional amendment for direct election of senators. The original resolution passed by the House contained the following clause: This so-called "race rider" clause would have strengthened the powers of states over senatorial elections and weakened those of Congress by overriding Congress's power to override state laws affecting the manner of senatorial elections. Since the turn of the century, most blacks in the South, and many poor whites, had been disenfranchised by state legislatures passing constitutions with provisions that were discriminatory in practice. This meant that their millions of population had no political representation.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Proposal in Congress
Since the establishment of the United States Electoral College by adoption of the U.S. Constitution in 1789, a number of efforts have been made to reform the way it works or abolish it entirely, either of which would require a constitutional amendment. In 1971, one of these attempts was almost successful in being proposed to the States. Another attempt, which would bypass the requirement for a constitutional amendment, is at 73% of successful completion .
Efforts to reform the United States Electoral College | Introduction
Richard Labunski is an American journalism professor at the University of Kentucky and newspaper columnist who is an outspoken advocate for reforming the United States Constitution in his book "The Second Constitutional Convention". He has been a critic of voter apathy, low voter turnout, and excessive campaign spending. Labunski's book "James Madison and the Struggle for the Bill of Rights" (2006) argued that Madison was initially lukewarm to the idea of a Bill of Rights to the Constitution, but later came to energetically support the ten amendments and worked hard for their inclusion. He has called for a Second Constitutional Convention of the United States, and argued that reform will not happen through the current system because Congress would be reluctant to "limit its own powers."
Richard Labunski | Introduction
Supporters of the "No" vote successfully argued that section 24 protected the influence of the Senate, and thus the interests of less populous states and rural areas. Holt did make one other significant legal reform, albeit one that did not require a constitutional amendment. In September 1967, he announced that his government would use section 74 of the constitution to remove the potential for High Court cases to be appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The necessary legislation was not passed until after his death.
Harold Holt | Constitutional reform
Rockefeller, Jr. stated in a letter: As more and more Americans opposed the Eighteenth Amendment, a political movement grew for its repeal. However, repeal was complicated by grassroots politics. Although the U.S. Constitution provides two methods for ratifying constitutional amendments, only one method had been used up until that time; and that was for ratification by the state legislatures of three-fourths of the states. However, the wisdom of the day was that the lawmakers of many states were either beholden to or simply fearful of the temperance lobby.
Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution | Background
The legislature called a constitutional convention itself and submitted a new constitution to the people. The government's constitution was defeated by the narrow margin of 676 votes out of 16,702. This new constitution provided for most of what Dorr and his followers had been seeking, and historians believe their rejection of it was a tactical error. Feelings had become very bitter, and the Dorrites had already put their constitution into effect by electing an entire state ticket, with Dorr as governor.
Thomas Wilson Dorr | Constitutional Convention called
In 2017, Sitaraman published "The crisis of the middle-class constitution: Why economic inequality threatens our republic". Sitaraman seeks to explain significant stresses that the American legal system is undergoing, and attributes these stresses to the collapse of the American middle class. Specifically, he studies the connection between the Constitution of the United States and economic inequality, arguing that the constitution is dependent on a substantial middle class to safeguard it, in contrast to constitutions that are created in conditions of economic inequality and encode rules to perpetuate that inequality. Sitaraman argues that when significant economic inequality threatens the efficacy of the constitution, structural change is required in order to recover political stability; a successful historical example of this process is the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which embedded reform in a fundamental legal modification, whereas the New Deal reformers were unsuccessful in the long run because the policy changes they pursued could eventually be reversed.
Ganesh Sitaraman | Research
In the 63rd, 64th, and 65th Congresses he was Chairman of the Committee on Coast and Insular Survey, and in the 65th Congress he was also a member of the Committee on Pacific Islands and Puerto Rico. By the time his term expired, the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution had been enshrined, so he had to face voters for the first time. In the election of 1918, he lost to Republican L. Heisler Ball, a former U.S. Senator. This loss has been attributed to his opposition to women's suffrage in the United States and his refusal to support the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Willard Saulsbury Jr. | Political career
Writing for the majority, Justice James Clark McReynolds held that the U.S. Constitution did not grant Congress the power to regulate primary elections or political party nomination processes. The power of Congress over federal elections, McReynolds said, has its source solely in Article I, Section 4, of the Constitution. The Seventeenth Amendment, promulgated in May 1913, neither instituted nor required a new meaning of the term "election" and so did not modify Article I, Section 4. Primaries, McReynolds argued, are definitely not elections for office. Neither a plain reading of the Constitution nor the meaning ascribed to them by the framers of the Constitution permits any other conclusion, he said.
Newberry v. United States | Decision
Lessig's initial constitutional amendment would allow legislatures to limit political contributions from non-citizens, including corporations, anonymous organizations, and foreign nationals, and he also supports public campaign financing and electoral college reform to establish the one person, one vote principle. Lessig's web site convention.idea.informer.com allows anyone to propose and vote on constitutional amendments. On October 15, the Occupy Wall Street Demands Working Group, published the "99 Percent Declaration" of demands, goals, and solutions, including a call to amend the U.S. Constitution to reform campaign finance. Occupy movement protesters have joined the call for a constitutional amendment.
Campaign finance reform amendment | History
Some Radical Republicans, such as Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, abstained from voting because the amendment did not prohibit literacy tests and poll taxes. Following congressional approval, the proposed amendment was then sent by Secretary of State William Henry Seward to the states for ratification or rejection.
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Proposal
In the final years of the Civil War, Union lawmakers debated various proposals for Reconstruction. Some of these called for a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery nationally and permanently. On December 14, 1863, a bill proposing such an amendment was introduced by Representative James Mitchell Ashley of Ohio. Representative James F. Wilson of Iowa soon followed with a similar proposal. On January 11, 1864, Senator John B. Henderson of Missouri submitted a joint resolution for a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, became involved in merging different proposals for an amendment. Radical Republicans led by Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner and Pennsylvania Representative Thaddeus Stevens sought a more expansive version of the amendment.
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Crafting the amendment
senator legislatively.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | First direct elections to the Senate
In continuation of the work of the Parliament met in Congress and adopted on a constitutional amendment that creates or amends 47 articles of the Constitution: articles 1, 3, 4, 6, 11, 13, 16, 17, 18, 24, 25, 34, 34-1 (new ), 35, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 47-1, 47-2 (new), 48, 49, 50-1, 51-1 (new), 51-2 (new), 56, 61, 61-1 (new), 62, 65, 69, 70, 71, 71-1 (new), 72-3, 73, 74-1, 75-1 (new), 87 (new), 88-4, 88-5, 89. The vote was 539 votes in favor acquired with the adoption threshold is 538 votes, or two-thirds of the votes cast.
Constitutional amendments under the French Fifth Republic | 2008: Institutional reform
In the early twentieth century Lochner era, the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional various state laws that limited labor contracts. The Constitution was criticized as putting the government at the beck and call of big business. More recent criticism has often been academic and limited to particular features. University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson wonders whether it makes sense for the Connecticut Compromise to give "Wyoming the same number of votes as California, which has roughly seventy times the population". Levinson thinks this imbalance causes a "steady redistribution of resources from large states to small states." Levinson is critical of the Electoral College as it allows the possibility of electing presidents who do not win the majority, or even plurality, of votes.
History of the United States Constitution | Expand democracy
Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig has argued that a movement to urge state legislatures to call for a constitutional Convention was the best possibility to achieve substantive reform: Lessig argued that the ordinary means of politics were not feasible to solve the problem affecting the United States government because the incentives corrupting politicians are so powerful. Lessig believes a convention is needed in view of Supreme Court decisions to eliminate most limits on campaign contributions. He quoted congressperson Jim Cooper from Tennessee who remarked that Congress had become a "Farm League for K Street" in the sense that congresspersons were focused on lucrative careers as lobbyists after serving in the Congress, and not on serving the public interest.
Second Constitutional Convention of the United States | Particular views
Despite growing feelings of nationalism, particularly among younger Americans, the efforts of nationalists to grant Congress greater powers were defeated by those who preferred the continued supremacy of the states. Most Americans saw the Revolutionary War as a struggle against a strong government, and few state leaders were willing to surrender their own state's sovereignty. In 1786, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina led the creation of a grand congressional committee to consider constitutional amendments. The committee proposed seven amendments, and its proposals would have granted the central government the power to regulate commerce and fine states that failed to supply adequate funding to Congress.
Confederation Period | Reform efforts
From the early 19th century, it also meant a lame duck Congress and presidential administration would fail to adequately respond to a significant national crises in a timely manner. Each institution could do this on the theory that, at best, a lame duck Congress or administration had neither the time nor the mandate to tackle problems, whereas the incoming administration or Congress would have both the time, and a fresh electoral mandate, to examine and address the problems the nation faced. These problems very likely would have been at the center of the debate of the just completed election cycle.
Twentieth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Historical background
The Union of Christian and Centre Democrats, commenting on the proposal, asked for the abolition of the 4% cut-off clause, whereas the National Alliance did not show any favour to this attempt of reform, with its leader Gianfranco Fini claiming to want first to vote for the constitutional reform, and then for the new voting system, on condition that the 4% cut-off were not repealed.
Berlusconi III Cabinet | New electoral law
Vikram Amar, writing in the "Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly", claims Wyoming's requirement that its governor fill a senatorial vacancy by nominating a person of the same party as the person who vacated that seat violates the Seventeenth Amendment. This is based on the text of the Seventeenth Amendment, which states that "the legislature of any state may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments". The amendment only empowers the legislature to delegate the authority to the governor and, once that authority has been delegated, does not permit the legislature to intervene. The authority is to decide whether the governor shall have the power to appoint temporary senators, not whom the governor may appoint.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Court cases and interpretation controversies
Originally, U.S. Senators were chosen by the Virginia General Assembly. On February 19, 1914, legislation was introduced in the Virginia House of Delegates calling for the direct election of United States senators by the voters of Virginia. This followed enactment of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on April 8, 1913. Virginia had not voted to ratify the amendment.
Electoral reform in Virginia | Direct election of U.S. Senators
However his political views begin to change and began to admire the American political regime. In the first edition of the Colonial Advocate, he writes, "we would never wish to see British America an appendage of the American presidency; yet we would wish to see British American thrive and prosper as well does that presidency." Having lived there for a few years, Mackenzie got to experience first hand this sort of democracy. On January 3, 1828, he published article titled "We The People" further discussing constitutional reform, ""the constitution of a country is not the act of its government, nor of any distant authority, but of the people constituting a government suited to their necessities -- a constitution contains the principles on which the government shall be established" once again displaying his desire to have a government that supports the people.
Colonial Advocate | Constitutional reform
After U.S. Supreme Court decisions between 1873 and 1875 denied voting rights to women in connection with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, suffrage groups shifted their efforts to advocating for a new constitutional amendment.
Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Reconstruction Amendments and woman suffrage (1865-1877)
The web site of "United for the People" lists 17 constitutional amendments introduced in the 112th United States Congress and 12 introduced by March 13, 2013, in the 113th proposing to overturn Citizens United in different ways. The libertarian think-tank the Cato Institute is concerned that most proposed responses to Citizens United will give "Congress unchecked new power over spending on political speech, power that will be certainly abused."
Electoral reform in the United States | Overturning Citizens United
The Seventeenth Amendment requires a governor to call a special election to fill vacancies in the Senate. It also allows a state's legislature to permit its governor to make temporary appointments, which last until a special election is held to fill the vacancy. Currently, all but five states (North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin) permit such appointments. The Constitution does not set out how the temporary appointee is to be selected.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Filling vacancies
The current constitution limits the president to a single five-year term. In late 2016 and early 2017, Cartes and his supporters in Congress attempted to pass a constitutional amendment to run for re-election, a move described by the opposition as "a coup". On 31 March 2017, a series of protests erupted after supporters of the amendment in the Senate voted for the amendment during a secret session in a closed office rather than on the Senate floor, during which demonstrators set fire to the Congress building. Several people were reported injured, including one protester who was killed after being hit by a shotgun blast by police, and one lower-house deputy who had to undergo surgery after being injured by rubber bullets.
Horacio Cartes | Reelection attempt
The vote in the House was 144 to 44, with 35 not voting. The House vote was almost entirely along party lines, with no Democrats supporting the bill and only 3Republicans voting against it, some because they thought the amendment did not go far enough in its protections. The House of Representatives passed the amendment with 143 Republican and 1Conservative Republican votes of "Yes"; 39 Democrat, 3Republican, 1Independent Republican and 1Conservative votes of "No"; 26 Republican, 8Democrat and 1Independent Republican not voting. The final vote in the Senate was 39 to 13, with 14 not voting. The Senate passed the amendment with a vote of 39 Republican votes of "Yea", 8Democrat and 5Republican votes of "Nay"; 13 Republican and 1Democrat not voting.
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Proposal
Originally, under , Clauses 1 and2 of the Constitution, each state legislature elected its state's senators for a six-year term. Each state, regardless of size, is entitled to two senators as part of the Connecticut Compromise between the small and large states. This contrasted with the House of Representatives, a body elected by popular vote, and was described as an uncontroversial decision; at the time, James Wilson was the sole advocate of popularly electing the Senate, but his proposal was defeated 10–1. There were many advantages to the original method of electing senators. Prior to the Constitution, a federal body was one where states effectively formed nothing more than permanent treaties, with citizens retaining their loyalty to their original state.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Original composition
Having been passed by Congress, the amendment was sent to the states for ratification and was ratified by: The Utah legislature rejected the amendment on February 26, 1913. No action on the amendment has been completed by: Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia, Alaska or Hawaii. Alaska and Hawaii were not yet states at the time of the amendment's proposal, and have never taken any official action to support or oppose the amendment since achieving statehood.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Ratification by the states
On May 8, 1866, during a debate on the Fourteenth Amendment, Thaddeus Stevens, the leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, delivered a speech on the amendment's intent. Regarding Section 2, he said: Federal law () implements Section 2's mandate.
United States Electoral College | Fourteenth Amendment
The Seventeenth Amendment altered the process for electing United States senators and changed the way vacancies would be filled. Originally, the Constitution required state legislatures to fill Senate vacancies. According to Judge Bybee, the Seventeenth Amendment had a dramatic impact on the political composition of the U.S. Senate. Before the Supreme Court required "one man, one vote" in "Reynolds v. Sims" (1964), malapportionment of state legislatures was common. For example, rural counties and cities could be given "equal weight" in the state legislatures, enabling one rural vote to equal 200 city votes. The malapportioned state legislatures would have given the Republicans control of the Senate in the 1916 Senate elections.
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Effect
The Legislature met at the Old State Capitol in Albany on January 4, 1820, and adjourned on April 14. John C. Spencer (Clint.) was elected Speaker by a combined Clintonian/Federalist majority with 64 votes against 50 for Peter Sharpe (Buckt.). Aaron Clark (Dem.-Rep.) was re-elected Clerk of the Assembly with 87 votes against 32 for James Van Ingen (Fed.). After resolutions for the call of a Constitutional convention had been rejected during the two previous sessions, Gov. DeWitt Clinton now recommended to call a convention with limited powers to amend the State Constitution. This convention should have the power to abolish the Council of Appointment, and consider such other amendments as designated by the Legislature.
43rd New York State Legislature | Sessions
The second method requires Congress, "on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states" (presently 34), to "call a convention for proposing amendments". In 1943, Alexander Hehmeyer, a lawyer for Chicago-based Marshall Field's department store as well as Time Inc., wrote "A Time for Change" (Farrar & Rinehart), in which he proposed a second Constitutional Convention to streamline the Federal Government. In the late 1960s, Senator Everett Dirksen called for a constitutional convention by appealing to state legislatures to summon one. Three times in the 20th century, concerted efforts were undertaken by proponents of particular issues to secure the number of applications necessary to summon an Article V Convention.
Second Constitutional Convention of the United States | Background
Due to the events of the Civil Rights Movement, several U.S. federal laws, court cases, and the 24th Amendment had nullified large parts of the Virginia State Constitution which had been drafted in 1902. Therefore, Governor A. Linwood Holton Jr. and the Virginia General Assembly collectively decided to call a constitutional convention in order to overhaul the constitution and remove its discriminatory elements. After this measure was passed the Government of Virginia established a Commission on Constitutional Revision which generated the current Virginia State Constitution. Voters were asked the following question: ""Shall the Constitution be generally amended and revised, as agreed to by the General Assembly at its 1969 and 1970 sessions (except for the three proposals separately stated below)?""
1970 Virginia ballot measures | Question 1
On January 8, 2016, Abbott called for a national constitutional convention to address what he sees as abuses by justices of the United States Supreme Court in "abandoning the Constitution." Abbott proposed passing nine new amendments to the Constitution, intended to limit the power of the federal government and expand states' rights. Speaking to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Abbott said, "We the people have to take the lead to restore the rule of law in the United States." In 2016, Abbott spoke to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, calling for a Convention of States to amend the U.S. Constitution.
Greg Abbott | Convention of States proposal
In the end, the new Constitution was rejected by the voters at the New York state election, 1869, with 223,935 votes for and 290,456 against it. The Republican Party advocated the adoption, the Democrats the rejection of the new proposed Constitution of 1867-68, and by 1869 the Democrats had a majority in the State. Only the "Judicial Article" which re-organized the New York Court of Appeals was adopted by a small majority, with 247,240 for and 240,442 against it. William A. Wheeler presided. Waldo Hutchins, George Opdyke, George William Curtis, Horace Greeley, Ira Harris, Martin I. Townsend, Charles Andrews, Charles J.
Constitution of New York | Constitutional Convention of 1867–1868
On April 23, 1867, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were elected, resulting in a Republican majority. On June 4, the Constitutional Convention met at Albany; adjourned on September 23; and met again on November 12. On February 28, 1868, the Constitutional Convention adjourned "sine die". How to put the proposed amendments before the electorate was then debated throughout the 91st and the 92nd Legislature. At this time there were two major political parties: the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.
93rd New York State Legislature | Background
In 1916 the Massachusetts legislature and electorate approved a calling of a Constitutional Convention. Hibbard was elected as one of the representatives of the Massachusetts 1st First Congressional District to the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1917.
Charles E. Hibbard | 1917 Massachusetts Constitutional Convention
On April 23, 1867, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were elected, resulting in a Republican majority. On June 4, the Constitutional Convention met at Albany; adjourned on September 23; and met again on November 12. On February 28, 1868, the Constitutional Convention adjourned "sine die". How to put the proposed amendments before the electorate was then debated throughout the 91st and the 92nd Legislature, and all amendments, except the re-organization of the judicial system, were eventually rejected by the voters at the New York state election, 1869. At this time there were two major political parties: the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.
92nd New York State Legislature | Background
Due to the maintenance of the imbalanced apportionment scheme, many Upstate residents proved dissatisfied with the constitution. In 1794, a number of prominent Upstate residents, including Wade Hampton I and John Kershaw, formed the Representative Reform Association to challenge the system. Initially, the Lowcountry-dominated legislature rejected their appeals. However, the Upcountry residents, aligned with the newly ascendant Democratic-Republican Party, eventually prevailed. In 1808, the constitution was amended to create an apportionment system based on the total white population, substantially alleviating many of the issues. Further amendments to the constitution were later adopted. Most significantly, in 1810, an amendment granted the suffrage to all white men over the age of twenty-one.
Constitution of South Carolina | Constitution of 1790
James J. Kilpatrick, a political columnist, asserted that the states were "extorted" into ratifying the Twenty-sixth Amendment. In his article, he claims that by passing the 1970 extension to the Voting Rights Act, Congress effectively forced the States to ratify the amendment lest they be forced to financially and bureaucratically cope with maintaining two voting registers. George Gallup also mentions the cost of registration in his article showing percentages favoring or opposing the amendment, and he draws particular attention to the lower rates of support among adults aged 30–49 and over 50 (57% and 52% respectively) as opposed to those aged 18–20 and 21–29 (84% and 73% respectively).
Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Opposition
If she has the political will to do it she has to muster political will in spite of all these noises." Meanwhile, Representative Victor Ortega of La Union, chairman of the House committee on constitutional amendments, said that his survey showed that 115 (94.26%) of the 123 solons were in favor of amending the Constitution. However, opposition and leftist lawmakers questioned the results and the intent of Ortega's survey and called Arroyo's proposal a ploy for her "perpetuation in power" and the removal of protectionist provisions in the Charter. The survey showed 62 respondents favored constitutional reform by a constitutional assembly, and 89 respondents were in favor of shifting to a parliamentary form of government, compared to 56 who voted for federalism, and 70 respondents preferred to amend the Constitution after the 2010 presidential elections.
Constitutional reform in the Philippines | Constituent Assembly under Nograles-Pimentel
Under the 1977 Political Reform Act, the Spanish Cortes were envisaged as a provisional legislature that was to approve a new constitution in a short timespan. Initiative for constitutional amendment belonged to the Congress of Deputies, as well as to the Government. Constitutional bills required to be passed by an absolute majority in both the Congress and Senate. If the Senate rejected the bill as passed by Congress, discrepancies were to be submitted to a Mixed Commission and, if the deadlock persisted, a joint sitting of both Houses would convene as a single legislative body in order to resolve on the issue by an absolute majority.
1977 Spanish general election | Electoral system
Both Southern and Northern Republicans also wanted to continue to deny the vote temporarily to Southerners disenfranchised for support of the Confederacy, and they were concerned that a sweeping endorsement of suffrage would enfranchise this group. A House and Senate conference committee proposed the amendment's final text, which banned voter restriction only on the basis of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." To attract the broadest possible base of support, the amendment made no mention of poll taxes or other measures to block voting, and did not guarantee the right of blacks to hold office. This compromise proposal was approved by the House on February 25, 1869, and the Senate the following day.
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Proposal
Bills have been made proposing constitutional amendments that would replace the Electoral College with the popular election of the president and vice president. Unlike the Bayh–Celler amendment, with its 40% threshold for election, these proposals do not require a candidate to achieve a certain percentage of votes to be elected.
Efforts to reform the United States Electoral College | Proposals to abolish
The American Revolution led to the creation of a new Constitution of the United States in 1787, with a national legislature based partly on direct elections of representatives every two years, and thus responsible to the electorate for continuance in office. Senators were not directly elected by the people until the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. Women, men who owned no property, and blacks, and others not originally given voting rights in most states eventually gained the vote through changes in state and federal law in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. Until it was repealed by the Fourteenth Amendment following the Civil War, the Three-Fifths Compromise gave a disproportionate representation of slave states in the House of Representatives relative to the voters in free states.
Representative democracy | History
In 1868, a constitutional convention restored the state government of North Carolina. Though the Fifteenth Amendment was also adopted that same year, it remained in most cases ineffective for almost a century—not to mention paramilitary groups and their lynching with impunity. The elections in April 1868 following the constitutional convention led to a narrow victory for a Republican-dominated government, with 19 African-Americans holding positions in the North Carolina State Legislature. In attempt to put the reforms into effect, the new Republican Governor William W. Holden declared martial law on any county allegedly not complying with law and order using the passage of the Shoffner Act.
North Carolina | Reconstruction
The Constitution was amended to allow re-election if the terms were not consecutive. With that change, Obregón ran in the 1928 election and won; but before his inauguration he was assassinated by a religious fanatic. Given that Calles had just served as president, even with the constitutional change to allow a form of re-election, he was ineligible to run. The founding of a national political party that had an existence beyond elections became the mechanism to control power through peaceful means.
Institutional Revolutionary Party | Presidential succession before the party, 1920–1928
There have been two nearly successful attempts to amend the Constitution via an Article V Convention since the late 1960s. The first try was an attempt to propose an amendment that would overturn two Supreme Court decisions, "Wesberry v. Sanders" and "Reynolds v. Sims", decisions that required states to adhere to the one man, one vote principle in drawing electoral districts for state and federal elections. The attempt fell only one state short of reaching the 34 needed to force Congress to call a convention in 1969, but ended by the death of its main promoter Senator Everett Dirksen. After this peak, several states (whose legislatures by this point had been re-engineered in the wake of the rulings) rescinded their applications, and interest in the proposed amendment subsided.
Convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution | Congressional apportionment
The referendum occurred on the same day as the 1997 presidential election.
Seventeenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland | Overview
In 1834 a convention met at the capital of Providence to consider the matter again. Dorr was a member of the committee which drew up an address to the people. All efforts at reform, however, were blocked again by the legislature, dominated by rural interests. Its apportionment resulted in an under-representation of the growing urban populations in the industrializing cities. By 1841 Rhode Island was almost the only state that had not adopted universal suffrage for white males. It was the only state that did not adopt a new written constitution after the Revolution. It relied on its original 17th-century colonial charter.
Thomas Wilson Dorr | Background
A second ball would immediately be drawn after, and that state's candidate would be named vice-president. The resolution did not pass the House. Representative Vinton proposed an identical amendment in 1846. Again, it was unsuccessful. The driving force behind the introduction of the resolution is unclear, as there is no recorded debate for either proposal. Other constitutional amendments, such as the Every Vote Counts Amendment, have been proposed seeking to replace the Electoral College with a direct popular vote, which proponents argue would increase turnout and participation. Other proposed reforms include the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an interstate compact without Congressional authorization, whereby individual participating states agree to allocate their electors based on the winner of the national popular vote, instead of voting their respective statewide results.
United States presidential election | Proposed changes to the election process
Watson responded by starting a new push for ratification with a letter-writing campaign to state legislatures. In "Dillon v. Gloss", , the Supreme Court remarked that "ratification [of a proposed constitutional amendment] must be within some reasonable time after the proposal", and suggested that it was "quite untenable" to view proposed amendments from 1789, 1810, 1861 as still pending. However, in "Coleman v. Miller", , the court ruled that the validity of state ratifications of a constitutional amendment is political in nature, and so not a matter properly assigned to the judiciary. It also held that as a political question, it was up to Congress to determine if an amendment with no time limit for ratification was still viable after an extended lapse of time based on "the political, social and economic conditions which have prevailed during the period since the submission of the amendment".
Twenty-seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution | Revival of interest
It advocated a constitutional convention to abolish debt, end the right of inheritance, and bring about the equalization of productive and personal property of the nation among its adult citizens.
Thomas Skidmore (reformer) | Introduction
In the absence of this process, they held that the Seventeenth Amendment did not require primary elections to fill vacancies, and more broadly gave state legislatures wide discretion as to how to hold elections; as such, the statute did not violate the constitution. In December 1991 the Supreme Court denied a writ of "certiorari", presumably because the special election had already taken place in November and the issue was thus moot.
Trinsey v. Pennsylvania | Judgment
Inserted a new subsection in Article 28.4: The existing subsection 3º of Article 28.4 was renumbered as subsection 4º.
Seventeenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland | Changes to the text
On July 4, 1917, police arrested 168 of the protesters, who were sent to prison in Lorton, Virginia. Some of these women, including Lucy Burns and Alice Paul, went on hunger strikes; some were force-fed while others were otherwise harshly treated by prison guards. The release of the women a few months later was largely due to increasing public pressure.
Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Woman suffrage and World War I patriotism
While the 1663 Charter was democratic considering its time period, rising national demands for voting suffrage in response to the Industrial Revolution put strains on the colonial document. By the early 1830s, only 40% of the state's white males could vote, one of the lowest white male voting franchise percentages in the entire United States. For its part, the General Assembly proved to be an obstacle for change, not eager to see its traditional wealthy voting base shrink. Constitutional reform came to a head in 1841 when supporters of universal suffrage led by Thomas Wilson Dorr, dissatisfied with the conservative General Assembly and the state's conservative governor, Samuel Ward King, held the extralegal People's Convention, calling on Rhode Islanders to debate a new liberal constitution.
Rhode Island General Assembly | State constitutions
In early May 2013 the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government had started drafting a constitutional amendment to reduce the terms of office of the President and the Chief Justice to five years each, instead of Six years for the President and unlimited term, to age 65, for the Chief Justice. According to the proposed amendment, there would be no limit, however, on how often a President could be re-elected. That drafted amendment had addressed National issues of power devolution and proposed to repeal land and Police powers vested with the Provincial Councils.And by May 2013 then opposition political groups, diplomats and civil organizations like the People's Liberation Front or JVP, Jathika Hela Urumaya, Athuraliye Rathana Thero of "Pivithuru Hetak National Movement", and Maduluwawe Sobitha Thero had proposed to change the Constitution back to a Westminster style Parliamentary system for the country to address various issues, especially the issues arisen by the 18th Amendment.
Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka | Drafting process
An alliance was therefore forming between the would-be reformers, who would like to finally push their reforms through, by "Bonapartist" means, if necessary, and the people who wished to restore the old federal order, in the hands of the old regent class. Director Besier in particular was amenable to a project that would extend executive power (and curtail that of the Assembly), and revert the constitution to federal devolution. With the help of Sémonville he now started to push a project of constitutional reform that followed the French Constitution of the Year VIII in important respects: a bicameral legislature would be appointed by a "National College" (akin to the French Senate) from a list of names produced by a convoluted system of national elections.
Batavian Republic | Pressure for constitutional reform
An argument raised in the case of "Trohimovich v. Commissioner" is that the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was not properly ratified, and that all laws passed by Congress since the year 1919 (which was not the year of ratification) are invalid. The "Trohimovich" case involved a criminal contempt charge against the taxpayer in connection with a failure to obey a subpoena to produce books and records needed for the trial of the case. The United States Tax Court stated: The court rejected the taxpayer's arguments, and ordered that "he be imprisoned for 30 days as punishment" for criminal contempt in failing to obey court orders or subpoenas.
Tax protester constitutional arguments | Seventeenth Amendment
The experience also encouraged both radical and moderate Republicans to seek Constitutional guarantees for black rights, rather than relying on temporary political majorities. More than seventy proposals for an amendment were drafted. In late 1865, the Joint Committee on Reconstruction proposed an amendment stating that any citizens barred from voting on the basis of race by a state would not be counted for purposes of representation of that state. This amendment passed the House, but was blocked in the Senate by a coalition of Radical Republicans led by Charles Sumner, who believed the proposal a "compromise with wrong", and Democrats opposed to black rights.
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Proposal by Congress
The 8th general election was held on May 5, 1971. Park's Democratic Republican Party took 113 seats out of 204. However, it didn't reach the minimum condition to pass a constitutional amendment. It required the concurrence of two thirds or more of the total members of the National Assembly. Therefore, Park couldn't amend the constitution through the lawful procedure.
October Restoration | 1971 legislative election
Prime Minister Renzi was accused by some law scholars and politicians, such as Stefano Rodotà and Fausto Bertinotti, of being authoritarian and anti-democratic for proposing this reform. Others, like Gianfranco Pasquino, argue that the adopted text is badly written. In April 2016, a paper called ""Appello dei costituzionalisti"" ("A Plea from Constitutional Scholars") was written by 56 law scholars (mainly constitutional law scholars), showing criticism of the proposed reform and their numerous concerns: among them are Francesco Amirante, Paolo Caretti, Lorenza Carlassare, Ugo De Siervo, Giovanni Maria Flick, Paolo Maddalena, Valerio Onida, Alfonso Quaranta and Gustavo Zagrebelsky. The main points of criticism the paper raises are the following: Later, in May 2016, other 184 law scholars and professors of various disciplines (among whom Franco Bassanini, Massimo Bordignon, Stefano Ceccanti, Francesco Clementi, Carlo Fusaro, Claudia Mancina, Stefano Mannoni, Angelo Panebianco, Pasquale Pasquino, Francesco Pizzetti, Michele Salvati, Tiziano Treu) signed, instead, an appeal in favour of the constitutional reform.
2016 Italian constitutional referendum | Reactions and criticism
The government proposed the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill 1958, which would have altered the electoral system from proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote to first past the post. It was put to a referendum on 17 June 1959, the same date as the presidential election. It was defeated by a margin of 48.2% to 51.8% of votes cast.
Government of the 16th Dáil | Constitutional referendum
Main Article: 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution In 1913 the 17th amendment was passed and signed into law. This amendment effectively defeated Hamilton's argument on the matter of the election of senators and the necessary evil that he saw as a check by the states on the power of the federal government. Specifically, Article 1, Amendment 17, The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures."
Federalist No. 59 | 17th Amendment
On 17 April, Cartes announced that he would not run for a second presidential term even if the amendment passed. On 26 April, the Chamber of Deputies rejected the proposed constitutional amendment for presidential re-election. In a June 2019 interview with the "Financial Times", when asked about the amendment, Cartes said, "If you ask me today if it was a mistake, yes it was because it created an unnecessary climate."
Horacio Cartes | Reelection attempt
Between January 1918 and June 1919, the House and Senate voted on the federal amendment five times. Each vote was extremely close and Southern Democrats continued to oppose giving women the vote. Suffragists pressured President Wilson to call a special session of Congress and he agreed to schedule one for May 19, 1919. On May 21, 1919, the amendment passed the House 304 to 89, with 42 votes more than was necessary. On June 4, 1919, it was brought before the Senate and, after Southern Democrats abandoned a filibuster, 36 Republican Senators were joined by 20 Democrats to pass the amendment with 56 yeas, 25 nays, and 14 not voting.
Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Final congressional challenges
Zyuganov's Communist Party had earlier opposed a "strong presidency", and Zyuganov criticized the "excessive" concentration of executive power afforded by the constitution adopted by Russia in 1993. However, during his 1996 campaign, he advocated neither replacing the existing constitution by revolution or by calling a new constitutional convention. Instead, he desired to modify the existing constitution by amending it according to its rules. However, the political reality of achieving this made it relatively unlikely, as the constitution's amendment process is difficult.
Political positions of Gennady Zyuganov | Constitutional reforms
Ives proposed in 1920 that there be a 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which would authorize citizens to submit legislative proposals to Congress. Members of Congress would then cull the proposals, selecting 10 each year as referendums for popular vote by the nation's electorate. He even had printed at his own expense several thousand copies of a pamphlet on behalf of his proposed amendment. The pamphlet proclaimed the need to curtail "THE EFFECTS OF TOO MUCH POLITICS IN OUR representative DEMOCRACY". He planned to distribute the pamphlets at the 1920 Republican National Convention, but they arrived from the printer after the convention had ended.
Charles Ives | Politics
After the approval, Conte stated: "The cut to the parliamentarians is a reform that will bring to a greater efficiency of the parliamentary jobs. Now, citizens to be closer to the institutions. It is a historical passage that, together with other projected reform, will be a prelude to greater efficiency of our parliamentary system." The referendum to approve the reform was scheduled on 29 March, however it was postponed to 20–21 September due to the coronavirus pandemic which severely affected Italy. In September, Italians largely approved the reform with nearly 70% of votes.
Giuseppe Conte | Constitutional reform
Speransky even prepared the Constitution project. The reforms were stopped by 1810 because of the Napoleonic wars and growing resistance from conservative nobility, as voiced by Nikolai Karamzin.
Government reform of Alexander I | Introduction
The party supports the repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment, which allows Congress to tax income derived from interest, dividends, and capital gains, and the Seventeenth Amendment, which requires the direct (popular) election of Senators. The party holds that each state's membership in the Union is voluntary, a stance known as the compact theory.
Constitution Party (United States) | Federalism
However, under the new Constitution, the federal government was granted substantially more power than before. Having the state legislatures elect the senators reassured anti-federalists that there would be some protection against the federal government's swallowing up states and their powers, and providing a check on the power of the federal government. Additionally, the longer terms and avoidance of popular election turned the Senate into a body that could counter the populism of the House. While the representatives operated in a two-year direct election cycle, making them frequently accountable to their constituents, the senators could afford to "take a more detached view of issues coming before Congress".
Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution | Original composition