Don’t rob voters of their rights
The bill in the state Senate that would rob Tennessee voters of the right to choose party nominees for the U.S. Senate needs be buried at the bottom of “File 13” so that it can never see the light of day again.
Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, put it best Monday when he reproached the proposed legislation as “anti-democratic” and said it “smelled of elitism and it would open up a system that was and would be in the future rife with corruption.” We couldn’t agree more. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Frank Nicely, R-Strawberry Plains, would remove the nomination of U.S. Senate candidates from open primaries and give the power to the party caucuses in the state legislature. The senators still would be elected by popular vote.
State Democrats said they want nothing to do with the legislation.
The bill, which is supported by Senate Speaker and Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, was scheduled for a Senate floor vote Monday, but, thankfully, was delayed to the last day of the General Assembly’s 2013 session later this month.
Ramsey said, among other reasons, he thinks the legislation would get the U.S. Senate to focus more on what state officials want.
Apparently, though, he has not been paying much attention to the roles of U.S. senators like Tennessee’s Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander, two Republicans who have had a significant presence on many issues facing the nation and the United States’ role in the world, while advocating for federal legislation beneficial to Tennesseans.
Ramsey, Nicely and other GOP lawmakers supporting the bill must have forgotten why the 17th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1913. The amendment moved the selection of U.S. senators from legislatures to popular election. The idea was to give voters a voice in the elections of U.S. senators and to mitigate the cronyism, corruption, deal making and patronage that existed when legislators selected senators.
Surely Ramsey and other members of the GOPcontrolled legislature can see the potential pitfalls if they push this bill to passage.
They not only will rob voters of the basic right to choose who they want to represent their party in the general election, but lawmakers also will risk losing the trust and confidence of voters.