Unconstitutional Republican Gambit to Get Rid of Roy
BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
NOV 16, 2017
... The 17th is an important part of the legacy of the Progressive movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It took the election of senators out of the hands of the invariably corrupt state legislatures and gave it over to the people themselves ... And the 17th still gets up the noses of people for whom less self-government is the best self-government. There is a strong school of ultra-right thought that calls for the repeal of the 17th ...
... the 17th Amendment .. precludes the possibility of declaring an election null because you’re afraid your party might lose — or, in this case, you’re afraid your state is on the verge of sending a mall-haunting religious fanatic to the U.S. Senate. For which Kay Ivey should be eternally grateful, because she shouldn’t want any part of this.
Ivey’s done her job. She’s called the special election and now it’s only a couple of weeks away. If she were to step in now behind this clumsy—and unconstitutional—finagling, she’d be volunteering for a political suicide mission. She’d lose the most important part of her native political base instantly. Ivey and her state would be embroiled in so many lawsuits that her great-grandchildren would be giving depositions. And, even if she didn’t care about all of that, where would you set the odds that Roy Moore runs and wins again anyway? I make it no worse than 6-5, and then Ivey would have half the state and a U.S. Senator angry at her, and Moore would be beholden to absolutely nobody except the angry Bible-bangers who stuck with him ...
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a13788130/roy-moore-republicans-special-election/
