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| Aaron Vance Class of 2017 |
With regards to the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia, the powers and prerogatives have come into focus with regards to President Obama’s forthcoming appointment. Given the context, the shift in power is of paramount concern for Senate Republicans who wish to prolong the confirmation of a liberal nominee that would shift the balance of power on the court to the left. And while this process swirls with controversy, it brings into the light one of the many powers vested in the United States Senate. While the President and the Senate both develop their respective strategies and as the public watches intently, the political and academic arenas are abuzz over this power. And while all of this speculation exists in the mainstream, I want to shift away from this speculation and turn back to a couple days prior to this unfolding, to a seminar with Dr. Jasmine Farrier where we explored instances just like this in the greater scheme of the U.S. Senate in practice.
Having had Dr. Farrier for a handful of courses prior, and having attended a number of her lectures with the McConnell Center, I was excited to survey the history, powers, and operation of the United States Senate. And while we entertained the nomination and confirmation process the scope of a much different aspect of the U.S. Senate struck me. Discussing the formation and history of the Senate, Dr. Farrier called up the Seventeenth Amendment for us to read as a group. And while glazed over generally in the annals of Constitutional history, this profound change and the implications of this Populist-era notion has afforded an integral and critical piece in understanding the power structure and derived consent that now governs the conversations we have around issues much like what we are seeing with the appointment to fill Justice Scalia’s vacancy.
While many are calling for the Presidential election to serve as a mandate for the appointment of vacancy, I am still thinking over the implications of the incorporation of a mandate for the election of Senators. While this question isn’t something we generally think of as members of the electorate, accustom to our system of direct election, one can only wonder what might have been had this not had been changed. Specifically here in Kentucky the prospect of nomination by the State legislature might have slowed down the decline of the Democratic Party on the national scene and as a whole in the Commonwealth. But while we can continue to posit these scenarios, I will continue to employ the data to better understand what effect this deviation from the original system had upon the structure of our Federal system and what exactly it has done by having further engaged our electorate.
Aaron Vance is a junior McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville. He studies political science.