The Seventeenth Amendment

The original Constitution provided that senators would be chosen by state legislatures, a design meant to give state governments a voice in the national government and to make the Senate a more deliberative body. By the late nineteenth century the system had drawn heavy criticism. Legislatures sometimes deadlocked for months, leaving Senate seats empty, and several elections were tainted by bribery, culminating in the Senate's 1912 decision to invalidate the election of Illinois Senator William Lorimer. Critics called the Senate a millionaires' club beholden to business interests.

Progressive reformers pressed for change, and many states adopted workarounds, such as the Oregon system, in which legislators pledged to choose the winner of a popular vote. By 1912 a majority of states effectively let voters choose. The House had repeatedly passed amendments for direct election, and the Senate finally agreed in 1912 as states neared the number needed to call a constitutional convention. Congress proposed the Seventeenth Amendment on May 13, 1912, and it was ratified on April 8, 1913.

The amendment provides that each state's senators are elected by its people for six-year terms, with the same voter qualifications as for the larger branch of the state legislature. When a vacancy occurs, the governor issues a writ of election, and the legislature may authorize the governor to make a temporary appointment until the election. The first general popular elections for the Senate under the amendment were held in 1914. Some conservatives have proposed repealing it to restore the states' influence in Washington, while defenders say direct election is a basic democratic right.