Welsh+Period+2+Amendment+17

17th Amendment Alyssa, Eric E., and Gabrielle The senate is elected by the people's popular vote. Q: What year was this amendment ratified? A: The 17th amendment was ratified on April 8, 1913 Q: What were some reasons for the creation of this amendment? A: The original system for picking the senators had many problems. In this system, the state legislatures chose the senators. Many problems occured before the amendment such as bribery.
 * How did the issues which prompted the creation of the 17th amendment compare with the issues they are applied to today?

Q: How long did it take for this amendment to be ratified? A:The limit time for ratification of an amendment is 7 years. Some amendments take that long; luckily, ratifying this amendment took barely a year. The exact time for the ratification of this amendment was 10 months 26 days or 330 days.



http://www.regent.edu/general/library/about_the_library/news_publications/images/ConstitutionDayPic.PNG

Q: How is this amendment important today? A: This amendment is extremely important to our nation today. The choice of the U.S. Senators is a very important one. The decision needs to be made fairly and not from bribes or persuation. One recent problem we have with this amendment is the problem with Governer Blagojevich.

Q: Why is Governer Blagojevich in big trouble? A: Governer Blagojevich has been charged with taking bribes to fill the seat of former Illinois state senator Barrack Obama. He also tried to sell the seat for money or a better job.

Q: Is there a penalty for going against this amendment? A: Going against this amendment in a way such as Governer Blagojevich did with taking bribes can result in arrest. This can probably lead to court and jail time. http://www.iviipo.org/blagojevich.jpghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/17th_Amendment_Pg1of1_AC.jpg/190px-17th_Amendment_Pg1of1_AC.jpg Q: Before this amendment was ratified, who chose senators? A: The state legislatures chose sentators before this amendment was ratified, which usually took a mass amount of time.

Q: What event took place to make the switch from state legislatures to the popular vote? A: There was no real big event that caused this switch, it was mostly many different problems such as the amount of time.

Q: Who proposed this amendment? A: Kansas Senator Joseph L. Bristow proposed the 17th amendment.

Q: Was this the original amendment that was proposed? A: Yes, this was the original amendment.

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   Alyssa: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081209/ap_on_re_us/blagojevich_corruption_probe (mr. welsh, This is the link but the story has expired. You can no longer veiw the article.-Alyssa) By: Don Babwin Date: December 9, 2008 This article is about how Illinois Governor Rod   Blagojevich tried to accept bribes for Obama's vacant senate seat. He wanted to sell or trade the seat to the highest bidder. After these actions, Blagojevich was arrested. Although his seat was trying to be sold, Barack Obama was not part of this scheme. Even after being charged, Blagojevich still refused to resign. As well as being arrested, Rod was also charged for attempting to fire writers who had criticized him. To pick a person to fill Obama's seat, the other Senator of Illinois thinks a speacial election should be held. Blagojevich should not pick someone to be the next senator; his choice would not be reliable. Rod even spoke of landing a Cabinet job for himself by selling this seat! As well as this possibility, Rod almost took the position himself.(this would help him to try and become president later on) The whole reason for his scam was "to make money." I agree that Blagojevich should be arrested. What he did was wrong and isn't the way to pick a new senator. But the question remains: How do you pick a new senator after one leaves or resigns? Eric  http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/30/burris.transcript/ Burris: Illinois governer "problems are not mine" This article is about a man names Rollland Burris. Burris has been chosen to fill the seat for Barrack Obama as Illinois state senator. Although Rolland has been nominated, not everybody is on his side. All the big Democrats will not work with him, Barrack Obama does not want him in the seat and the leading senate demorcrat in Illinois does not want him there. There is one reason that all of these people think what they think. That reason is SENATOR BLAGOJECIVH. You probably know from Alyssa's article what senator blagojevich did. Because of this people do not belive it was fair for him to get elected. Burris says that he is a good choice and he states that he has nothing to do with the senator and his problems. Rolland Burris believes that after 20 years of serving the government his heart is in the right place and he is ready for Illinois state senator.

Gabrielle- http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/burris-cleared-to-take-senate-seat/?hp This article is about how there has been bribes on the seat for the next senater of Illinios. Governor Rod Blagojevich has been accused of putting the Senater seat up for sale in a “pay-to-play” scheme. After this aligation the House of Repersentatives requested maybe impeaching the governor. He ended up not being impeached. Also, he was not stripped of being able to choose the next senator. The chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, Andy McKenna, criticized the Senate leaders for signing off on Mr. Burris’s appointment. In a statement, he said: “By failing to strip Rod Blagojevich of his senate appointment power, Democrats chose to trust a madman over the people of Illinois." The people felt very strongly about this situation. Although this was Barack Obama's old seat as senator, he was not part of the Governor Rod Blagojevich's "pay-to-play" scheme. This article was about the situation of Governor Rod Blagojevich being accused of bribing people for the seat of Illinois Senator.