Senator Russ Feingold strikes again: "Proposal Calls For Elections To Fill Senate Vacancies" on NPR's Morning Edition today. The idea is to resolve the conflicting ways that vacancies in the House and Senate are filled:
[Article I, Section 2] When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.
[Amendment 17] ...When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
It's clearly that that last sentence is the one causing the mischief which Feingold's proposed amendment wants to address. The tradeoff is that a Senate seat could remain vacant for months until a special election occurs. But it didn't bother the Framers to do just that for House seats.
I guess the reason that Amendment 17 contains this troublesome clause is that, when it was created almost 100 years ago, it still took quite a while in large or populous states for candidates to gear up and campaign for a vacant seat. I don't think that applies anymore. With instant communications, candidates can be in the field in a week or two, and there's no reason a campaign should last more than a month. Special elections do favor special interest groups, since overall voting in special elections is normally sharply lower than in general elections, but modern voting methods (via mail and/or Internet) may level that playing field. In any case, anything has to be better than the farces we've seen in New York and Illinois lately.
Reading the Constitution gets me to wondering:
[Article I, Section 8] The Congress shall have Power...To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
...
[Amendment 2] A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Doesn't this make it clear that the phrase "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State" at the start of the amendment is not the irrelevant window dressing that the NRA wishes would be?
Not to mention:
[Article VI] ...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
I'm still waiting for a candidate to throw this in the teeth of anybody who asks them anything about their religion, let alone anyone who fosters the nonsense about "a Christian nation" or "our Judeo-Christian tradition."
But I digress.