This article "Will: The Continuing Fall of Federalism", written by George F. Will of the Washington Post and appearing on TheState.com is addressing the American public. He is criticizing the 17th Amendment to the Constitution. He is explaining that the current process of filling Senate vacancies allows for a replacement to be appointed by the state executive authority until an election by the people is convenient.
The change proposed by Feingold-McCain would mandate that the state in question hold an immediate popular election to fill the seat. Will goes on to argue that this would be a further corruption of Federalism. He points out the fact that the Framers intended to divide the power to elect among different powers,"the people, the state legislators and the Electoral College". The 17th Amendment allows the people the right to choose the Senator, but the position can be filled by the executive authority of a state until a popular vote can occur. The proposed change would make it necessary to hold an immediate election to fill the vacancy because it would not allow the executive authority to make "temporary" appointments. If this were the case, all the nonsense that just occured with Blagojevich would have been nonexistent.
Feinfold-McCain, in my opinion, are right on target for keeping the government as it should be: by the people, for the people, of the people. The author of this article is clearly confused as to what makes America function as it should: The power of the popular opinion. This force is what grounds Senators to those to which they owe their position. Would we rather they owe their position of power to the state legislature's "special interests", or to the general population of the state?
