How the States Lost Their Voice in Washington

Written by: Harold Pease

Editor’s Note- This article was incorrectly credited at first publication.  This is indeed the work of Dr. Pease.

The Constitution divided power between two separate but co-equal governing bodies: the states and the national government.  This division is called federalism and is so important that the sovereignty of We the People cannot be preserved without it.   It is the concept that in most things the states are not subordinate to the national government but in fact immune to it. DC was to handle mostly foreign concerns, and the states were to handle internal concerns.

The states never surrendered any power that they felt they could manage and any new powers subsequently given required three-fourths of the states’ permission, per Article V of the Constitution.The Constitution then divided the power left at the national level into three branches of government: legislative, executive, and judicial branches, each a check on each other to prevent consolidation of power into one body.  Collectively they were the national component while the states were the federal component hence the shared and equal concept known as federalism.

Think of this relationship as a marriage, neither the servant of the other and each with different duties.  How would one know who had the power and when? Article I, Sec. 8 listed the powers of the national government and Amendment 10 noted that all other powers are “reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”  Who would keep the Feds in their place, considering the natural tendency of governing bodies to expand their power?  The clarity of the Constitution enabled the states to protect the interests of their people by refusing to comply when their ‘spouse’ overstepped enumerated boundaries.   But one other step was critical: the creation of a bicameral legislature, one representing the people (the House of Representatives), the other the states (the Senate).

The Senate was not created to represent us as individuals.  Why would the founders create two legislative bodies for the same function?  The US Senate was intended to serve the interest of each state, allowing the people of a state to be represented as a unified body.  All law was to be reviewed from both perspectives and only signed by the president after both were satisfied.  James Madison explained, “No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence, first, of a majority of the people, and then of a majority of the states.”

Today the states have no voice in the making of law, resulting in the death of federalism and our freedom proportionally.  Today a U.S. Senator can appeal to solely popular perspectives and know nothing of the state legislature’s concerns of an overpowering national government.  For example, the national government has no constitutional jurisdiction over water use, or environmental issues within a state.  Part of California’s recourse in the Delta Smelt situation should have included a Senator from the Golden State arguing such in Washington D.C.  Without this voice, the National government moves into State areas of power pretty much at will and no other government  entity is powerful enough to stop them.

The 17^th Amendment undid the benefits of a bicameral legislature by mandating that the people rather than the state legislatures select U.S. Senators. The result, whether intended or not, did great damage to federalism and the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.  One way to get the Tenth Amendment off life support is to rescind the 17^thAmendment.   Although it may have enhanced democracy it also removed from the states their voice in the U.S. Senate and hence the ever-increasing growth of government at liberty’s expense.

Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 10th, 2010 at 5:22 pm. It is filed under Federal Government, US Constitution, california, history and tagged with 17th Amendment, Federalism, US Senate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.