Should the 17th Amendment be repealed?

The 17th Amendment provides for the direct election of U.S. senators by popular vote.

Before the amendment's adoption in 1913, state legislatures elected their senators, according to the original creation of government by the founding fathers.

There is a growing sentiment against the amendment to return to what the founding fathers intended.

Much of the activism against the 17th Amendment comes from the tea party movement, whose advocates argue for government that holds more strictly to the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Many tea party backed candidates were elected and could take up the cause in the new Congress.

"People would be better off if senators, when they deliver their messages to Washington, remember the sovereignty of the states," said Mike Lee, the Republican U.S. senator-elect from Utah. He supports repeal.

Repeal proponents say the amendment upsets the founding fathers' balance between national and state governments. They argue that returning to the Constitution's original blueprint would give states the ability to kill federal legislation they don't like by recalling their senators, thus diluting the power of the federal government in favor or states’ rights.

Opponents counter that direct election of senators, long a goal of the Progressive movement of the early 1900s, expanded democracy.

None of the current and incoming members of the New Hampshire delegation to Congress has advocated for the repeal of the 17th Amendment.

In Concord in January 2012, however, Laconia Republican Rep. Robert Kingsbury sponsored HB 1126, which would require the Legislature to nominate U.S. senators from New Hampshire. The bill died in the House.

Nevertheless, no resolutions expressly urging Congress to begin the process of amending the U.S. Constitution to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment are before the Legislature in the 2012 session. Any effort to repeal would first involve an act of Congress and ratification by voters across the country.

It would take a new amendment to the Constitution to repeal a current amendment. For example, the 21st amendment was adopted in the 1930s to repeal the 18th amendment, which created Prohibition.

Congress would first have to agree to an amendment to repeal the 17th, then voters in each state would have to ratify the new amendment by popular vote.

What is your feeling on this issue? Should the new Congress take up the repeal of the 17th Amendment? Should our congressmen and senators vote to create an amendment to repeal the 17th? And, if it came to a vote, would you vote to repeal it by voting for the new amendment?