This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
I've mentioned before about the time I met Elmer Fudd.
I was walking up the steps at the E-Center for the Republican State Convention in 2000 when a man wearing a flannel hunting jacket and a hunting cap with ear flaps shoved a clipboard in my face and told me to sign a petition asking for repeal of the 17th Amendment — which switched the method of choosing U.S. senators from state legislatures to the voting population.
When I told him I was with the press and did not sign petitions, he followed me up the stairs screaming that I was a coward.
I recall this story because, once again, right-wing elements in the Legislature are attempting a subtle assault on the 17th Amendment. They have given up — for now — trying for an outright repeal, but there have been resolutions trying to bring electoral power, in baby steps, back to the state legislatures.
This legislative session, HJR11, sponsored by Sen. Casey Anderson, R-Cedar City, would have state senators, in a secret ballot, conduct a straw poll that would be released to the public showing their preference among the U.S. Senate candidates.
During a Senate Government Operations and Political Subdivisions Committee hearing, Senate Rules Committee chair Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, advocated the resolution, as did Sen. Daniel Thatcher, R-West Valley City, a 2010 tea party creation, who said, "The 17th Amendment is directly responsible for every single federal overreach that's happened in the past 90 years." Anderson, the resolution's sponsor, said "1913 is widely considered to be one of the worst years in American history" because the amendment passed. Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, routinely derides the effects of the amendment.
All that rhetoric coincides with the states-rights, anti-government mantra so prevalent in tea party politics.
But how bad has the 17th Amendment been, really? Is there demonstrable evidence that the popularly elected senators from Utah were worse than those elected by legislatures? Six were elected by the Legislature between statehood in 1896 and when the amendment took effect.
One died in Washington, D.C., after being shot in a hotel room by his mistress. Another was ousted by a clique in the Utah Legislature, which then couldn't come up with a consensus candidate. So that U.S. Senate seat remained vacant for two years. Another senator is widely credited by historians with having helped destroy the U.S. economy.
Arthur Brown was elected by the Utah Legislature in January 1896 but only served until March of 1897. Nine years later, he was shot by his longtime mistress, who claimed to be the mother of his children. Brown later died from his wounds and the mistress was charged with murder. But at trial it was claimed that she had discovered Brown had been cheating on her. The jury acquitted her, concluding that Brown had deserved what he got.
Frank J. Cannon, elected by the Legislature in 1896, was ousted by that same body in 1899 after he lost favor with the LDS Church for opposing a tariff on sugar that would benefit the local sugar industry controlled by the church. But the Legislature deadlocked on his successor and the seat remained vacant for two years until the election of Thomas Kearns, a Catholic, in 1901. But Kearns later was defeated after a coup led by fellow Republican Sen. Reed Smoot, a Mormon apostle.
Smoot, who served for 39 years and was subsequently re-elected by popular vote after first being elected by the Legislature, later co-sponsored the Smoot-Hawley Act, signed into law in 1930. The law raised tariffs on more than 20,000 import items to record levels, stifling trade. Historians blame that law for exacerbating the Great Depression.
So, to the would-be 17th-Amendment repealers: Be careful what you wish for. —