September 24, 2010 in Idaho

Idaho voters against repeal of 17th Amendment

Poll also shows support for tea party agenda

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BOISE – Idahoans are dead-set against handing over selection of U.S. senators to the state Legislature, and Idaho Republicans are even more against the idea than Democrats or the state as a whole, according to a new poll.

Yet that move is a plank in the Idaho Republican Party platform, raising questions about how closely the leadership of the state’s largest political party reflects its members.

Meanwhile, two-thirds of Idaho Republicans, and nearly half of the state as a whole, say they generally support the agenda of the tea party movement, with the numbers in North Idaho rising to a 56 percent majority, compared to 47 percent support in southeastern Idaho and 43 percent in the Treasure Valley.

“I lean Republican real hard,” said Tom Duman, of Craigmont, who was among the 625 Idahoans polled. But as for repealing the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – direct election of senators – “they need to rethink that,” said Duman, a 55-year-old agricultural co-op manager. “I think you should be able to choose your official, somebody else shouldn’t pick’em. That way, if the bum’s not performing, we can throw him out – like we’re trying to do now.”

The Idaho Newspaper poll, commissioned by The Spokesman-Review and six other Idaho newspapers, showed a divided state when it comes to political party affiliation, even though Republicans overwhelmingly dominate state elective offices and the Legislature. Among poll respondents, 47 percent said they consider themselves Republicans, 22 percent consider themselves Democrats, and 31 percent chose “independent or other.”

“I used to say I’m a Democrat in my heart and a Republican in my pocket, but I kind of don’t say that any more,” said Paula Tucker of Nampa, a 47-year-old stay-at-home mom. “The Republican Party I think has lost its way with their fiscal perspective – they’ve said one thing and done another.”

When compared to past Boise State University public policy surveys, which have measured party affiliation in Idaho for the past two decades, the new poll “would seem to indicate the Republicans gaining a little ground,” said Jim Weatherby, BSU political scientist emeritus. “They have before when the Democrats have been in the White House. But it is also interesting to me how stable these numbers are over time, and how this is such a Republican state when it comes to elective office, but never have I seen a poll that indicated that a majority of Idahoans identified themselves as being Republicans.”

The 47 percent tally for Republicans matches the highest mark the party got in the BSU survey over the last decade and a half, in 2005, though it’s up from the 2008 survey’s 40 percent. The 22 percent figure for Democrats is down from 25 percent in 2008, but equal to marks set several times in the past decade.

Jonathan Parker, Idaho Republican Party executive director, said, “A lot of people that are conservative, who agree with many things in the Republican Party platform, don’t necessarily consider themselves Republican. … I think you’re seeing a shift of those conservatives who are coming back.”

Idaho’s election results show many of those who say they’re independents vote Republican, Parker said.

But independents differed from Republicans in the new poll on the question about generally supporting the agenda of the tea party movement, with Republicans overwhelmingly in support – 69 percent supporting to 13 percent opposed – and independents with 38 percent supportive and 45 percent opposed. Among Democrats, just 18 percent supported the movement, and 75 percent were opposed; the statewide figure was 48 percent in favor, 37 percent opposed.

“We’ve certainly speculated a lot over the years about who these independents are,” Weatherby said. “That gives you an idea they’re a little more moderate than Republican voters.”

Jim Hansen, executive director of the Idaho Democratic Party, said people are frustrated over everything from a severe economic downturn to concerns about affording health care. “The frustrations and the feelings and sentiments are very real.” But, he said, “When you say what is the solution, you get a long list of different ideas. Is repealing the 17th Amendment a solution?”

Parker said the Idaho Republican Party is strongly supportive of states’ rights, and that’s what delegates had in mind when they pushed for the platform plank on 17th Amendment repeal.

“I think you would see a strong majority of Republicans supportive of granting more rights to the states, less to the federal government,” he said.

The 17th Amendment was enacted in 1913 during the nation’s progressive era, after problems with legislative selection that included Senate seats going unfilled for years at a time because state legislatures couldn’t agree on candidates, and senators ejected from office for bribing state legislators to win their seats. Backers of repeal say it would restore a formal role for states in the operation of the federal government that the amendment eliminated.

Chris Roeper, of Emmett, a 47-year-old paint store operations manager and self-described conservative, said, “I think it’s just a step in taking some of the power and the responsibility away from the people, and I think the power needs to lie with the people.”

Six comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  fortboise on September 24 at 9:01 a.m.

  The Tea Party banner provides cover for anyone unhappy with anything about Government, whether it’s city, county, state, federal, or world. It has the virtue of having no actual politicians in it, no platform, no history of decisions, and no plan going forward other than all the things it’s supposedly against.

  The An-tea Party. It’s rather comical to see Republicans scrambling to stay in front of it, especially here in Idaho where being anti-government means being anti-Republican in almost all locales. The solution to that problem is to project all ills outward, to the Federal government. States rights!

  The revival of interest in the 17th Amendment is a fascinating footnote to history, but an issue with no legs whatsoever. There really is no way to explain how having state legislatures pick U.S. Senators would improve anything, because there is neither a real nor an imaginary universe in which it could. It makes for great entertainment watching some politicians try, however. Let’s bring back the 19th century!

• 

  oneanddone on September 24 at 11:34 a.m.

  From it’s inception the tea party has been about being a social moderate but fiscal conservative. It’s about being scared of and fed up with government’s uncontrolled spending. Somewhere down the road it will destroy America, as will the liberal agenda of “if it feels good, do it.” Other factions have hijacked the original purpose and replaced with their own, with the media’s glee in helping them do it. But there is no doubt that the VAST majority of Americans share the original philosophy. And it’s the only hope we have.

• 

  PlanB on September 24 at 11:36 a.m.

  How anyone could think repealing the 17th amendment would increase state’s rights defies all logic.

  I speculate that some people just hear the word “repeal” and in some bizarre, twisted thought process somehow associate it with increased autonomy.

• 

  fortboise on September 24 at 12:34 p.m.

  Not sure how you sort out the “original purpose” from all the factions, oneanddone. I’m a social moderate and fiscal conservative, so I guess I “share the original philosophy.”

  Except that I have nothing in common with anything I’ve seen labeled as “Tea Party” from any time or place.

  Your caricature of “the liberal agenda” is a straw man who is so weak that he can’t even stand up to scare crows away any more.

• 

  PhiltheBibliophil on September 24 at 6:14 p.m.

  These people will eventually stop at nothing until all forms of elected government will be eliminated and a Nazi/Fascist state is installed by a madman like Hitler!.

• 

  B_Johnson on October 05 at 9:46 p.m.

  Regarding major constitutional problems with the 17th Amendment, please consider the following.

  The Founding States had established the federal government, making the federal Constitution to deliberately cripple Congress’s powers. In fact, not only did the Founders make the 10th Amendment to clarify that the states reserved the lion’s share of government power to serve the people to the states, not the Oval Office and Congress, but the Founders had established the federal Senate to be the voice of the constitutionally-powerful state legislatures in the constitutionally-humbled federal government. This is evidenced by Article I, Section 3, Clause 1, which gave the power to elect federal senators solely to state lawmakers. So part of the job of the federal Senate was to protect states interests, including state revenues, from Congress. (Are you listening bankrupt California?)

  In fact, bearing the greater constitutional powers of the states in mind, Justice John Marshall had appropriately established the following case precedent, now wrongly ignored by both federal and state lawmakers, that Congress cannot lay taxes in the name of state power issues.

  “Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Chief Justice Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824. http://supreme.justia.com/us/22/1/case.html

  Therefore, not only is federal Obamacare, for example, constitutionally unauthorized, the 10th Amendment automatically making healthcare a state power issue because of the Constitution’s silence about healthcare, but Congress never had the power to lay taxes to fund Obamacare.

  So why didn’t the Senate didn’t kill constitutionally indefensible Obamacare since this legislation not only wrongly usurps state powers, but as Justice Marshall had officially noted, also steals state revenues associated with unique state powers?

  The problem is that the state legislatures foolishly ratified the 17th Amendment under pressure from constitutionally-challenged voters spooked by Progressive Movement propaganda. Remember, Congress never had significant constitutional power for the people to be concerned with controlling the Senate.

  And by unthinkingly ratifying the 17th Amendment, state lawmakers foolishly gave up control of the federal Senate, destroying the Founder’s primary firewall to protect the republic from big federal government.

  After all, voters go home after elections and watch football instead of keeping an eye on their senators. Doing so gives corrupt progressive senators the opportunity to turn around and backstab voters by helping to pass constitutionally unauthorized legislation which establishes illegal federal taxes. Again, watchdogging the Senate was originally one of the jobs of state lawmakers.

  Also, if Congress wanted to tax and spend for healthcare purposes, given the states have never expressly delegated to Congress via the Constitution the specific power to regulate healthcare, Article V requires Congress to petition the states for a specific grant of power to regulate healthcare. (And if Congress had complied with Article V and been granted the power to regulate healthcare, then I wouldn’t be making this post.)

  Instead, what corrupt Congress has been doing since the time of misguided socialist FDR is this. Congress has been illegally overstepping its constitutional limits based on an adage in military circles that, “it is easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission.”

  Remember in November! The 17th Amendment is the “sacred cow” of the anti-republic Progressive Movement and needs to be slaughtered after November.