I agree with Mike Huckabee. As originally conceived, the House represented the people by the popular vote. The Senate was to represent the interests of the 'various' states. There was a balance between the two; one was populist, the other insulated from popular influences. The rise of liberal-progressives started this movement and William Jennings Bryant was an advocate. By 1913 it became law. I don't think most states realized what they had given up, lost. I do seem to recall that there was some concern about the amendment being ratified within the timeframe allotted. We are slowly letting our 'more perfect government' slip away from us.

Well, I'm glad he finally listened to me - I've been saying that for years ;-)

EXACTLY! The Convention of States is the ONLY answer left, and they will do everything they can to prevent it.

Well, there you go, but his rapid exchange of people tends to diminish faith in his judgement, or whoever he is listening too.

Not gonna happen, but surely something to ponder.

"...that eliminates congressional pensions and the ability to exempt themselves from the laws imposed on us..." Yes! x100

And the "new commo dude" is now gone.......didn't even make it to starting date.

http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbyin...

Yes, that's exactly how I see it too.

Can you say "Venezuela?" This is the path we are on and will be there in five to seven generations. Given millennials are pretty passive about their fate I don't see much hope of them changing anything. As government creep continues and self reliance fades into the sunset government dependence will become the norm. And we all know how well that works.
The only hope as I see it is a Convention of States. I just don't see any will from the people to have this happen at this time.

Would be nice, except: What about states who have built a lock in for the Dumbocraps by using the PERS systems in each state to blackmail them. Oregon votes almost exclusively Dumbocrap and has for eons, simply because the Republicans mention these nasty things like "fix it", cut it" because it is unsustainable. The Dumbocraps will strangle the states with the PERS until they explode, like Chicago and Indiana have, with Kalifornia teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. They have built a better fortress than Adolf did in Europe, and that was a bear to break.

Yep. That senator was James Lankford, senator from Oklahoma, with a lot more common sense than all of the dimocrats put together.

It depends, remember how pwerful the media can be, Trump only won because he used free airtime from his crazy tweets to get people to focus on him and then his rallies to put forth his agenda. He is trying the same trick in office but seems to have missed the point there is a difference between a candidate trying to use the system against itself and a man in office, which is why he is losing people. His new communications dude is just a rabid yes man, he is not going to help him.

The race baiters are the same people, there seems to be several facets, they took over the media, the schools and the government, even the local levels.

Indeed, but that implies a plan covering many, many years with individual actions. So what if the crash of 29 was engineered to bring a Progressive into the Presidency and allow all the changes he made? Sounds like a plot for a good book....

This would make senators responsible to their state governments. It might protect us from the arrogance of powerful national senators Who feel no responsibility to their voters. It would also make it harder for big party donors to take over Senate seats. The 17th amendment was, I believe, one of the foundations of turning the US toward a "progressive" direction and enacted during the Wilson administration. Yeah it's time for repeal of the 17th amendment.

Lets dream some more and go back to the original first amendment and ratify it. You know, the one that was to underpin the representative republic, fixing the number of citizens represented by a house member at 75,000 if I recall. Not the arbitrary number of 435 total representatives we use today. And while we're at it an amendment that eliminates congressional pensions and the ability to exempt themselves from the laws imposed on us peons. That should fix the career politician problem.

Did you see the part where the Amendment to implement single-payer was brought up by a Republican? Every single Democrat voted "Present" rather than reveal their own agenda.

I agree to repeal the 17th Amendment. Let's get rid of the 16th, too, while we are dreaming.

The idea of state legislatures electing the Senators was that the states would watch and demand that the senators protected the rights of the state as opposed to promoting the centralization of the federal government. I don't know if this would have worked any better than what we have now as it turned out it was incredibly easy to control the congress by creating political parties and then controlling both parties. If you want to get elected you must conform to the socialist ideals demanded by the parties who are easily bought. The attempt of America to create a republic that respected the rights of individuals has failed, not because the idea or structure was necessarily bad but because it was easily changed from a republic to a democracy to a socialist democracy and the people accepted it. As long as the people accept the enforcement of socialism and demand more of it they will get their desires.

Repeal 16th and 17th amendment. State Legislatures select the States US Senators. Voters in the State elect US House as it is now. State Legislatures change their process to select Presidential Electors so that they do that or perhaps the State governor gets a say as well (State Executives select National Executive). Most US revenue requirements apportioned to the States to raise as they see fit which is actually in the US Constitution.

So now voters can focus on State races and US House and their representatives in the State Legislature and maybe Governor select the US Senate and US President. US President and US Senate protect the States from unreasonable revenue requests from the US House.

Good luck with that! The race baiters will get out in force and tell everyone that we are sending the poor downtrodden minorities back to the plantation, the back of the bus, to separate water fountains and in front of the fire hoses.

Never mind it was all Democrats doing that.

He's right. The whole idea of legislators choosing Senators was to give the States a direct voice. With popular election of Senators, States have lost this.

"which would be a lot more obvious than a bunch of Pacs tossing millions from (where?) into specific states."
I don't have a solid feel for how it would work. I suppose it would add an intermediary. My gut feeling is if a big insurance or defense company wants to make sure there's something for them in some legislation, it would be easier to lobby the senate by doing things to sway the legislatures than to say the public, but I might be wrong on that.

Because they do not need to buy individuals, they do that with advertising, and generate statewide ads in favor of their guy. They would have to buy off a majority of a legislature in a not so subtle way, which would be a lot more obvious than a bunch of Pacs tossing millions from (where?) into specific states.