Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 10.pdf/22

 The Election of United States Senators by the People. his wishes. In such an election the United States senator must be the expressed choice at the ballot-box of more voters than shall cast their ballots for any other man, and his nomination must be made by the majority in the nominating convention of the successful party which majority represents, say, one fourth of the voters, subject to approval by a majorityof the wholepeople attheballot-box. By this method of election, a United States senator must be the choice of the State he represents as fully as the governor is. In the present mode of legislative election the voice of his own party is stifled and unrepresented in all those counties in which, being in the minority, it shall fail to elect the member of the legislature. Then again, the voters of the counties electing members to the legis lature belonging to the dominant party are also disfranchised if those members do not belong to the majority faction of the caucus. Another very serious objection to the legis lative mode of choosing senators is the fre quent " dead locks," or protracted contests, which take up a large part of the time which should be devoted to the legitimate duty of legislation. The expense to the public is no small item, and the frequent attendant scan dals are not edifying, and all this could be avoided by choosing the United States sen ator the same day and by the same method the members of the lower House of Con gress are chosen. The selection of members of the legislature, often with an eye solely to their preferences for senator and in total dis regard of their fitness for legislation or views on public questions, or their personal charac ters, frequently leads to serious inconven ience. It is no proper part of a legislator's functions or duties to be an elector for sen ator, and the two duties should not be com bined. Members of Congress are not consti tuted electors for President. Yet they might be with as much appropriateness. The present mode of electing senators does not give any approximate security of

selecting the choice of the State as its repre sentative to the Hall of Federal Embassa dors, each of whom should be able to speak for the State, and not as the agent of the corporations doing business therein, or a small manipulated fraction of its voters. The change to election by the people would greatly lessen the chances for corrup tion. The members of the party convention of the State, brought together directly from the people and so soon dispersed again among them, are not so subject to the subtle arts of the corporation lobbyists and wire pullers which are brought to bear on the member of the legislature as soon as his nomination is probable (if indeed they do not procure his nomination) and continued till after the election of senator is over, when, like a squeezed lemon, he is thrown aside. Besides, the party convention is accessible to public opinion, being conscious that its choice, if not wisely made, is liable to rejec tion at the polls. No such responsibility attaches to the deliberations of a legislative caucus. A mistake there made, or a defiant disregard of public sentiment, is subject to no ratification by the people and is without remedy for six years. There can be a further check upon delegates to State party conventions in that the popular choice for senator can be indicated by a primary election. A senator in office may be tempted to disregard the will of his State if he knows he can by use of public patronage, or other means, secure, as above shown, the control of the one sixteenth of the voters who com pose a majority in the nominating conven tions of those counties which send a majority of the legislators of the dominant party. But he will pause, when he knows that his renomination must command the approval of a majority of his party convention and that its action in turn must be ratified by a majority — or at least a plurality (if there are more than two parties) — of the voters of the entire State at the ballot-box.