Okay, Reading This I'm Sure that Zell has gone senile

[liberalpragmatist]

Ok, it isn't just his calling Kerry a "national-security threat" but now, it appears he's supporting two constitutional amendments - one that would allow Congress to override the Supreme Court (that's actually old news) so that Congress could declare gay marriage and other gay rights illegal despite the Court.

Now, I just happened to find on wikipedia, this gem:

"Even more recently, he has become known for his comments including calling rap music "crap" on the Senate floor, and advocating the abolition of the 17th Amendment, which would revoke the right of the people of each state to elect their senators, and give the choice back to the state legislatures as it was prior to the amendment."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zell_Miller

Here's the whole story:

Senator Zell Miller, the embarrassment of the Georgia Democratic Party, has finally made himself a total laughingstock. Today he introduced a bill that would rescind the 17th Amendment, the one that allows Senators to be elected, God forbid, by people in their state, instead of appointed by their state leglislature. Zell had this to say:


The election of U.S. senators by the state legislatures was the linchpin that guaranteed the interests of the states would be protected. Today, state governments have to stand in line because they are just another one of the many, many special interests that try to get senators to listen to them. And they are at an extreme disadvantage because they have no PAC.

You can read his whole speech here.

Zell seems to think that it's all the special interest groups' fault, like a good conservative would: "It is the special interest groups and their fundraising power that elect U.S. senators and then hold them in bondage forever." And naturally, the way to stop the power of special interests is to have the State Legislators pick a person to represent the whole state. Because, ya know, Legislators are all honest people. None of them are beholden to special interests. Certainly not to industry in their areas, or to a certain kind of political constituency, or to the one bank in their country whose president gives them money. Nope. State Legislators -- they're the honest politicians this country needs. I certainly trust the legislature of the State of Georgia, which just got done writing discrimination against gays and lesbians into the State Constitution, to pick a better candidate than a public campaign yields. Because people in the State Legislature are, by some freakish coincidence, just more honest than anyone else in the State. What's that? You want evidence? What are you, some sort of atheist?


http://hereswhatsleft.typepad.com/home/2004/04/zell_miller_has.html

[xray s]

1. Seems to me he has the same brain disorder Dennis Miller has.

sounds like a good research project for some ambitious med student.

[JI7]

2. i watched when he brought it up in the senate

i was thinking "what the fuck" ? but all these things just show what a joke zell miller is.

[coloradodem2005]

3. Zell.

Fuck you you fucking treacherous piece of shit!!!!

Go to hell Zell!!!!

[BootinUp]

4. yep

You took the words right out of my mouth. :)

[LandOLincoln]

9. Well there it is, there's the button/poster/bumper sticker:

GO TO HELL, ZELL!

I like it. I love it.

Note to Terry Mac: please have buttons/posters/bumper stickers made up with this slogan, and sell 'em on the DNC site. I'll buy a bunch for sure.

[Paradise]

11. :) lol thank you, cd, for being my voice lol :)

[Zorra]

5. He's a fundie pseudo-christian nutbag if he doesn't have dementia.

"In doing so, I stand shoulder to shoulder not only with my Senate co-sponsors and Chief Justice Roy Moore of Alabama but, more importantly, with our Founding Fathers in the conception of religious liberty and the terribly wrong direction our modern judiciary has taken us in."

http://miller.senate.gov/press/2004/02-12-04decency.html

[Rationality]

6. Well Zell...

A look at your State's election commission and any state assemblyperson/representative/senator's campaign contributions would quickly disprove Zell's argument. Development interests, church groups, labor unions, pharmaceutical companies... they fuel their campaigns just as they fuel their federal counterparts. Removing the 17th amenement will only further corrupt the state congresses and hence the US Senate... but as I read your post further down I realize you already hit on this note. I'm glad you realize this!

[jfxgillis]

7. Tee Hee. One out of three ain't bad

I actually agree with Zell on the 17th Amendment, although the other two things are indeed proof positive of senility.

If this softens the blow, I've been against the 17th Amendment for LONG before Zell came out against it.

[Rationality]

8. Do you follow his reasoning or do you have your own case? ((n/t))

[jfxgillis]

10. I agree with his reasoning IN PART and I think ...

.... there's a lib/left version of it.

I haven't thought about this for a long time, so my thinking may be fuzzy.

Here's what happens. When the states AS STATES have no institutional influence in DC, which the previous system of electing Senators gave them, they wind up competeing with each other and with Washington to sustain their own institutions. Zell's right to a point, but he has a truly idiotic sense of "special interests" .... if the National Conference of Governors is lobbying Congress on a Bill and the telephone companies are lobbying Congress on a bill, who's got the clout? ALL THE PROGRESSIVE REFORMS OF THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY HAVE BEEN CO-OPTED BY CORPORATE POWER. Instance one, Arnold Schwarzenegger. I would rather see the states get a little more clout because that would lessen by an incremental degree the power of the multi-nationals.

The other issue which Zell doesn't raise is the habits of the electorate. People vote for Congress, Senate and President on a wide range of issues. But they vote for state rep based on two things: taxes and services (with a random indictment for corruption tossed in every now and then). That means we have two different and disconnected issues streams. It took a couple of generations for those streams to divide, but they have. Hence we have the sense of big bad far away "Washington" being disconnected from the guy who fixes the pothole down the block. That's bad for liberals in the long run.

[Doomsayer13]

12. he's turned into a loon

hopefully he'll discredit Bush and the conservatives more than help them.