While scoring political points against disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his appointment of Sen. Roland Burris may be tempting, conservatives should be wary of signing on to this amendment. Instead, they should make the case for preserving and strengthening Madison’s federal structure—perhaps with the ultimate goal of repealing the 17th Amendment altogether.

The 17th Amendment, enacted in 1913, dealt the first blow against the Founders’ structure by maintaining that all Senators be chosen in direct popular elections instead of by the state legislators. But it also holds that in case of vacancy, “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.” The New York Times carries water for Sen. Feingold’s unhelpful proposal by suggesting that allowing state governments to appoint replacement Senators without voter approval amounts to a “loophole” in the amendment.

Feingold further argues that the appointment of any Senator denies citizens their fundamental rights. “I think of it as a right-to-vote issue,” he tells the New York Times. Of course, the right to vote is nowhere abridged in any appointment scheme, since voters choose the state lawmakers who make the appointment. Now it’s true that voters are only indirectly choosing an appointed Senator, but there’s no reason to believe direct elections necessarily make for superior government.

George Will explains the strengths of the Founders’ design and how the direct election of Senators harms it:

The Senate, indirectly elected and with six-year terms, was to be more deliberative than responsive.

Furthermore, grounding the Senate in state legislatures served the structure of federalism. Giving the states an important role in determining the composition of the federal government gave the states power to resist what has happened since 1913 — the progressive (in two senses) reduction of the states to administrative extensions of the federal government…

The Framers gave the three political components of the federal government (the House, Senate and presidency) different electors (the people, the state legislatures and the electoral college as originally intended) to reinforce the principle of separation of powers, by which government is checked and balanced.

In The Federalist, Publius makes a similar argument. He maintains that the appointment of Senators by the states promotes federalism by strengthening the power of states against the federal government:  “giving to the State governments such an agency in the formation of the federal government … must secure the authority of the former, and may form a convenient link between the two systems.”

Those who favor limited government ought to think twice about Feingold’s proposed amendment, which would further enervate the federal structure and strengthen the national government, thereby hurting the cause of limited government.