Richard Mourdock opposes direct election of senators

Repealing the 17th amendment. Do I think it will ever happen? No. Is it something that I would like to see? Yes it is. And I'll tell you the trackers in the room, my Democrat tracker friends who are here as they always are probably seeing something that you'll see in a TV commercial not too far from now.

You know the issue of the 17th amendment is so troubling to me, our founding fathers, again those geniuses, made the point that the House of Representatives was there to represent the people. The Senate was there to represent the states. In other words the government of the states.

I will tell you as someone who spends a lot of time in the statehouse obviously, and a lot of time in local government, one of the most frustrating things state government and local government deals with are called unfunded mandates. It's where the federal government will say you must do this, and we're not going to pay for it. You got to figure out a way to go get the money and you must do this.

How many unfunded mandates do you think would be coming from the United States Congress, if those same Senators had to come back every two years to help those people get reelected so they would elect them. You know I think most senators if they had to come back every two years—and by the way that would solve another problem. It would solve the idea that Senators move out of their state and never return. But it would cause those senators to have much greater contact with their states.

You know just think of this. In today's world we see millions and millions of dollars spent on Senate campaigns. Two years ago, in 2010, Sharron Angle out in Nevada spent 31 million dollars, just herself. How much money would be spent in federal senate races if the state legislators were electing those people. You just took the money out of politics. Is that a bad thing?

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdTEtqiNqFc