At the national level I would like to see us repeal the 17th amendment to our constitution.
At one time the states had a real voice in the national government. Senators were appointed by their state legislatures. If a senator wanted to be reappointed at the end of his term, he needed to be mindful of what his state wanted him to do at the national level.
The 17th amendment changed that and now senators are elected by the voters of their state. A state legislature would have a much better chance of influencing a senator who is off the reservation than would individual voters.
I wrote about this in Introduction, my first post to this blog.
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
Cato
elpasospeak 
Seeing how this amendment was approved so quickly by the very same legislatures that stood to LOSE power i don’t understand your pount. With the intent of not removing state control but rather the effects of widely abusive corruption in the selection process it seems to be effective with the main shortcoming being no term limits.
Texas is a good example… we have madly conservative US Senators to match our insanely conservative state legislature and government!
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I agree with epkamikazi on this issue. The last thing we need is a legislature, which is heavily influenced and controlled by special interests, choosing our U.S. Senator. The selection process would be ripe for corruption and backroom dealing at the State level, especially in a state whose administration and legislature are so proud of their “pay to play” politics. Selection by the legislature would be almost as bad as Rick Perry himself personally appointing our Senator, and that is basically what would happen in the current environment.
Cato’s position assumes that the state legislature listens to its voters. Draw your own conclusion on that one.
Voters need more direct influence — not less. If you don’t trust your fellow voters, well that’s a different issue altogether.
A more pressing issue is how to get rid of State Senator Jose Rodriguez. We need to remodel and get a new piece of “furniture”.
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