How Much Do You Know about Politics?

            The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is the political knowledge of Americans. I am taking a class on American government this semester, so I will share some of the information with my readers from time to time. One of the facts that I learned in my first lesson is that most Americans know little about how politics works or what current issues are under debate.

            After studying about the Constitution and the American government for more than a dozen years, I am still learning a lot and connecting many bits of knowledge. For example, I learned that there were two founding of America. The first founding happened when the Articles of Confederation were written. The Articles did not work with the biggest problem being giving not enough power to Congress. Under the Articles, Congress could create laws, but it had no power to enforce the laws. Congress also had no power to collect taxes to pay for the Revolutionary War.

            Many Americans know that the power of the federal government is divided between three branches, the Legislative, the Executive. Federalism is a word to describe the power of government being divided between the federal government and the state governments. Strong governors in conservative states are currently protecting Americans from the problems in the federal government, at least as much as they can. America does well when the government is in the hands of strong federal government and strong state governments. Under weak leaders, America has problems like we say now.

            The framers of the Constitution understood the importance of strong leaders. In fact, they designed the legislative branch to be the most powerful. After months of debate, the framers designed Congress with two houses, an upper and a lower chamber.

The name for the lower chamber is the House of Representatives. Members of this chamber are required to run for office every other year. Representatives are closest to the people because they are forced to campaign constantly, and they are elected directly by the people in a popular vote.

The name for the upper chamber of Congress is the Senate. The framers assigned the task of appointing senators to state legislatures because they were meant to be representatives for their individual state. Because they were appointed by the state legislature, they could also be recalled by the state legislature if they became mavericks and went off on their own tangent.

The plan put forth by the framers to appoint senators worked for the first 125 years after the Constitution was adopted in 1788. The first attempt to change the system to elect senators by popular vote was made in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1826. However, the idea did not have much support until the late 19^th century. In the 1890s, the House of Representatives tried several times to amend the Constitution, but the Senate would never pass a bill.

Several states asked Congress to pass a bill to change the appointment of senators by state legislatures to election by popular vote. Congress did not act until states started to call for an Article V convention of the states. In May 1911, both chambers of Congress passed bills to make the change. After both Houses worked on the bills, they became a Joint Resolution, which was sent to the states for ratification. On April 8, 1913, three-quarters of the states had ratified the proposed amendment, and it became the Seventeenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.