....worry about the converse?

Or do they just not think? Maybe that's it.

Big business would only have to bribe the state legislators to get their person in office. That's cheap compared to trying to buy a statewide seat from the electorate.

would pick up Senate seats. It's just another form of gerrymandering. Think about it, Senators are elected at large. With the gerrymandered districts, you get a Republican majority in the state houses. Those Republicans then elect a Republican for Senator, by-passing the majority of voters rule and will of the people. This isn't by accident folks, and don't think for a second they aren't going to use these majority state houses to try and change the electoral votes process. Virginia and North Carolina will probably do it. Virginia's plan is to have one electoral vote per congressional district, then I think two go with majority vote and one or two others is selected by the state houses. Due to gerrymandered districts, it ends up that the candidate with the majority popular votes ends up with something like 23% of the electoral votes.

so urban areas (more liberal) have a stronger voice in the election process. They try to avoid every person having a vote in any way they can.

Because of the gerrymandering in 2010, our Congressional delegation changed
from 7 Dems/6 Repubs to 9 Repubs/4 Dems EVEN THOUGH MORE PEOPLE statewide
VOTED FOR A DEM representative in 2012!

Because of gerrymandering, the Repubs also control the NC State house. Obviously
they'd prefer to appoint two Repub Senators rather than let the people vote.

Republicans will do anything they can to alter the outcome of one person/one vote.

to get R Senators out of than the electorate.

And they also have this big deal in their minds about states, and states' rights. Traditionally Senators represented the state, not the people therein. It was an expression of how the union is made up of states that have their own power. So that old fashioned mindset likely appeals to them in the sense they think it would give the states greater power.

The Senators would concern themselves with the state's influence, rather than the people of the state. Sort of a very intellectual distinction - I think that's how the right likes things to be, because the think the intellectual position influences the day to day decisions. The Senate would moderate the positions of the more boisterous House, which is answerable directly to the electorate. Promoting conservatism and lack of change.

Do you think Scott Walker and the Wisconsin legislature would pick Tammy Baldwin? 'Cause the People did.

Could be said for any number of states.

Because the corporate overlords bought every newspaper, TV and radio station in the State, bussed in astroturfers, tried to intimidate our activists and spent a gazillion dollars convincing the uninformed that recalls were a bad idea and Walker was a savior anyway. All this long before we even finished the primary to determine who would represent our side.

Despite that edge, the recall election was close. And despite a well-organized State-wide effort to recount the vote manually, we still don't know how close because only 71 of the State's 72 Counties have provided the legally mandated access to the ballots. One large, red County remains a holdout. Can you guess which one?

It's said that some ideas look good on paper, but don't work out too well in practice. I'm sure we've all seen such things, and I have no desire to list all those I've seen. The original Constitution set it up where the winner of the election would be President, and the loser would be Vice-President. The idea being that Patriotism would lead to men serving honorably. On paper, the idea looked good, in practice, not so much. Imagine if George HW Bush had become Vice President to Bill Clinton. Could anyone leave the number one slot and serve someone who had defeated them? Also imagine all the nuts in history who were defeated, thank you whatever Deity that may actually exist, in favor of a good individual. Imagine if Dewey had been Vice President when Roosevelt died.

So we have a Constitutional amendment changing that, because in practice, it didn't work out too well.

Now the Senate. The idea being that the Federal Government was one of the Several States, serving the people and the states equally. The House of Representatives was intended to serve the people, and was apportioned by the census to represent the people as equally as possible. Then there was the Senate. The Senate was supposed to represent the States to the Federal Government. The people may have an objection, but the States may not agree. That was the idea, to give each of the various factions if not an equal voice, than at least some voice. The Senators were intended to be somewhat analogous to the Ambassadors of the US to the various nations around the world. Someone to represent us, and our views, to them.

But as was pointed out in the OP, you had a lot of problems there. Some states couldn't agree on who to send. Some states sent someone, only to recall them and then send someone else, who would be recalled too. They just couldn't make up their minds. Is Direct Election a better system? Perhaps, but how many times have we seen Senators voting against the interests of their states in favor of their own political interests? There is no remedy except to wait until the next time the person is up for re-election, and then try to remove them, an occasionally successful activity.

You mention Bill Nelson. How about this, Cruz is acting like an Ass, and once his approval in Texas falls, imagine being able to recall him and send someone else to represent Texas in the Senate. Imagine if you were able to take the State of Georgia's Governor's mansion, you could send two Democratic Senators to represent the State, and the party, in Washington. Then the State House elections would be far more important, and the Democratic party would take them more seriously.

The downside is that the make up of the Senate would change far more frequently. The upside is that when we have a majority of the Governor's Mansions, we would have a majority in the Senate. Which has been the case before. There are pro's and cons to the issue. It isn't one so easily dismissed. Because I'd love to see some of those Senators recalled because they had once again, betrayed their state and the nation. State Governor's tend to be a bit more responsive to the attitudes of the people, because those people aren't a thousand, or several thousand miles away, they're right outside. Proximity does create it's own pressure as you know.

Principle, and practice, one sounded good, one is working out, if only just. But again this is the briefest possible overview of the history of how we got HERE. Not supporting, just elucidating.

It is unconstitutional for any state to remove any US Senator or member of the House.

United States Constitution

Article I.

Section 5.

Paragraph 2.

Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member.

that the Constitution was ratified in 1787 but the Bill of Rights, with their favorite Amendment, the 2nd, wasn't ratified until 1791 they'd back off? You want original - well, ok then - here you are, now hand over your guns.

Honestly, sometimes I think they get the 17th Amendment mixed up with the 13th or the 15th. Maybe even the 19th.

Presumably it is easier to monkey around with the process or results of elections for positions on the state level than national. State elections are less expensive, don't receive the same level of media attention, voters may be less informed about state-level candidates and their positions, state elections can be managed more on local issues than national issues, etc. They would have to worry about fewer elections overall. I could see various reasons that they might want this kind of thing, I guess.

. . . when you look at how much success they've had with gerrymandering. As it stands, Senators are elected by statewide ballots, rather than by Congressional District. That means that despite all their gerrymandering, and even though they have made it, in many states, so Republicans can hold House seats even though a Democrat might win the majority of votes statewide, Republicans still win the majority of seats because the can command majorities within heavily gerrymandered Congressional districts.

It has nothing to do with gerrymandering or what party controls what. States rights people think that this amendment broke one of the important checks on the national government. They make no secret that this is the reason why they are against the 17th amendment.

Senators stopped being beholden to back room deals made by unelected people who held extreme amounts of power over the process of choosing a Senator.

Under the 17th, each Senator is beholden to their state and should they fail to look after the interests of their state, that state will remove that Senator in a statewide election.

in many cases, they are harder to defeat that House members, because the districts, being the whole state - are so much bigger. http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/reelect.php Their re-election rates are well over 80%, especially in the last twenty years.

Lower than House rate of re-election, but with only 35 Senators running in each election it only takes 7 incumbent losses to get to 80%. Whereas with 435 House races, it takes 87 losses to get to 80%.

And the chart I linked to seems to be using a category for "seat changing party" rather than "incumbent losing re-election" because I only find 3 incumbents defeated in 2010 - Blanche Lincoln, Arlen Specter (who switched parties), and Russ Feingold were the only 3 out of 25 incumbents running who lost - an 88% re-election rate. Whereas that graph seems to show only an 82% rate.

so if Specter is counted as failing to be re-elected, Bennett should be also.

And thank goodness for that. Hopefully the majority of Americans can finally see them for what they are.

Hitler do?

rather, why is was SUPPOSED to exist... go learn something and come back.

sP

Senators did not represent their states before the 17th. They represented the interests of a small gaggle of political power brokers and nobody else.

The 17th amendment corrected that. Now, each Senator is beholden to the interests of their state and can be held accountable for their actions by the entire state every six years.

there were problems with the way the Senator selection process was handled, but the Senate is nowhere NEAR what it was intended to be and is not in anyway closer to its original intent with the application of the 17th.

sP

The Senate failed to be what it was intended to be when the first Congress was seated.

of what was intended?

sP

"Their" bible tells them they are chosen by God to rule. However, they realize demographics are against them. Therefore, any amount of voter suppression, gerrymandering, election-stealing, lying, cheating, vote-buying, etc is acceptable in carrying out "God's will".
Yes, appointment of Senators by gerrymandered State Legislatures is a path for them to achieve minority rule. They have given up on popular vote for POTUS, and now want the electoral votes assigned to each individual Congressional District (also gerrymandered, natch).
They KNOW they are doomed in a democracy....they are preparing for minority-rule.

They'e been working on this for a long time now; if they can lock up control of the states by whatever means possible and are able to insert US Senators, they'll control Congress. We already know they don't want a democracy and the voting that goes along with it.

Not inexplicable at all.