A Modest Proposal

I am not a fan of the 17th Amendment. I have read the history of its passage and I understand why it was done.

I cannot but help but think that what we got undermined the founder's intent with a bicameral congress. They intended the senate to be selected in a radically different manner than the house.

I have a modest proposal.

For the Senate, primaries pick the candidates as they do now; but the vote is national. For example: Hillary Clinton lives in New York. The people of New York decide in their primary to put her up for election then the voters from the entire nation get to say yes or no.

The unintended consequences are huge. We'd get nationally known people moving around to vacant or vulnerable seats. The states would feel like they'd been disenfranchised...

OK. Tie this in with a "Must have been a resident of the state in question for at least 10 years." Then someone from New York, or had at least lived there long enough to have a stake in things, would be presented to the nation as the person who might represent New York.

With these two rule changes in place, I don't think we would have gotten Hillary as a senator. I also think that we'd have been rid of McCain by now. He's only really popular in Arizona... Or was...

Edit
I would like to proudly point out that Florida never ratified the 17th and never took up the proposed 16th amendment.