Seventeenth Amendment--Popular Election of Senators

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                      POPULAR ELECTION OF SENATORS

                               __________

                          SEVENTEENTH AMENDMENT


  Clause 1. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two
Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years;
and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall
have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous
branch of the State legislatures.
  Clause 2. When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in
the Senate, the executive authority of each 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.
  Clause 3. This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the
election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part
of the Constitution.

                      POPULAR ELECTION OF SENATORS

        The ratification of this Amendment was the outcome of increasing
popular dissatisfaction with the operation of the originally established
method of electing Senators. As the franchise became exercisable by
greater numbers of people, the belief became widespread that Senators
ought to be popularly elected in the same manner as Representatives.
Acceptance of this idea was fostered by the mounting accumulation of
evidence of the practical disadvantages and malpractices attendant upon
legislative selection, such as deadlocks within legislatures resulting
in vacancies remaining unfilled for substantial intervals, the
influencing of legislative selection by corrupt political organizations
and special interest groups through purchase of legislative seats, and
the neglect of duties by legislators as a consequence of protracted
electoral contests. Prior to ratification, however, many States had
perfected arrangements

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calculated to afford the voters more effective control over the
selection of Senators. State laws were amended so as to enable voters
participating in primary elections to designate their preference for one
of several party candidates for a senatorial seat, and nominations
unofficially effected thereby were transmitted to the legislature.
Although their action rested upon no stronger foundation that common
understanding, the legislatures generally elected the winning candidate
of the majority, and, indeed, in two States, candidates for legislative
seats were required to promise to support, without regard to party ties,
the senatorial candidate polling the most votes. As a result of such
developments, at least 29 States by 1912, one year before ratification,
were nominating Senators on a popular basis, and, as a consequence, the
constitutional discretion of the legislatures had been reduced to little
more than that retained by presidential electors.\1\

        \1\1 G. Haynes, The Senate of the United States 79-117 (1938).
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        Very shortly after ratification it was established that if a
person possessed the qualifications requisite for voting for a Senator,
his right to vote for such an officer was not derived merely from the
constitution and laws of the State in which they are chosen but had its
foundation in the Constitution of the United States.\2\ Consistent with
this view, federal courts declared that when local party authorities,
acting pursuant to regulations prescribed by a party's state executive
committee, refused to permit an African American, on account of his
race, to vote in a primary to select candidates for the office of U.S.
Senator, they deprived him of a right secured to him by the Constitution
and laws, in violation of this Amendment.\3\ An Illinois statute, on the
other hand, which required that a petition to form, and to nominate
candidates for, a new political party be signed by at least 25,000
voters from at least 50 counties was held not to impair any right under
the Seventeenth Amendment, notwithstanding that 52 percent of the
State's voters were residents of one county, 87 percent were residents
of 49 counties, and only 13 percent resided in the 53 least populous
counties.\4\

        \2\United States v. Aczel, 219 F. 917 (D. Ind. 1915) (citing Ex
parte Yarbrough, 110 U.S. 651 (1884)).
        \3\Chapman v. King, 154 F.2d 460 (5th Cir. 1946), cert. denied,
327 U.S. 800 (1946).
        \4\MacDougall v. Green, 355 U.S. 281 (1948), overruled on equal
protection grounds in Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U.S. 814 (1969). See
Forssenius v. Harman, 235 F. Supp. 66 (E.D.Va. 1964) aff'd on other
grounds, 380 U.S. 529 (1965), where a three-judge District Court held
that the certificate of residence requirement established by the
Virginia legislature as an alternative to payment of a poll tax in
federal elections was an additional qualification to voting in violation
of the Seventeenth Amendment and Art. I, Sec. 2.