The Seventeenth Amendment: Direct Election of Senators

Another reform of the Progressive Era was allowing the people to select U.S. senators, rather than having state legislatures choose them, as originally provided in Article I. Advocates of the Seventeenth Amendment hoped to avoid the corrupt practice in which political machines, backed by corporate wealth, hand-picked senatorial candidates. Because of such practices, the Senate was often referred to as a “millionaire’s club.”

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.

The Seventeenth Amendment changes Section 3 of Article I to allow direct election of senators by the people. It also allows states to determine what the qualifications of voters for senator shall be-subject of course to any further constitutional amendments. Therefore, women in some states, such as Wyoming, were allowed to vote for U.S. senator even before the Nineteenth Amendment gave women suffrage nationwide.

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That 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 governor of a state may make a temporary appointment for senator if the office becomes vacant. Article I does not contain similar provisions for the House of Representatives. As a result of the Cold War and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, some scholars have proposed a constitutional amendment that would allow governors to make emergency appointments of House members if Congress was attacked and representatives were killed or disabled.

This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.

One obstacle to enacting the Seventeenth Amendment was Article V’s requirement that before an amendment can be submitted to the states for ratification, it must be approved by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress (or a special convention called by two-thirds of the states). Not surprisingly, the incumbent U.S. senators did not want to vote themselves out of a job. However, by 1911 a majority of states had already enacted some provisions requiring their state legislatures to consider the results of voter primaries when selecting senators.

Consequently, the Seventeenth Amendment was proposed in 1912 and ratified in 1913, although the House of Representatives had first passed it in the 1890s.