Senate, Electing

For more than half of its first two centuries of existence, the United States chose senators indirectly, through the state legislatures. Since 1914, however, the people have filled Senate seats by direct election.

U.S. Senate Historical Office

The change came about through the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1913 following years of dissatisfaction with the original method of Senate elections. The amendment left the president and vice president as the only indirectly elected officials of the federal government, chosen by the electoral college rather than direct popular vote.

Senators serve six-year terms, and one-third of them come up for election every other year. Members of the House of Representatives serve two-year terms, and all must stand for election every even-numbered year. They have always been elected by direct vote of the people. (See House of Representatives, electing.)

[Page p436]The original, indirect method of Senate elections arose from a fundamental disagreement about the nature of Congress, which was settled by the so-called Great Compromise at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Delegates from the small states wanted equal representation in Congress, while the larger states argued for a legislature based on population, where their strength would prevail.

As a compromise the framers split the basis for representation between the two legislative chambers—population for the House and equal representation for the Senate, with two senators for each state regardless of its size. House members were to be representatives of the people, elected by the voters. Senators were to be, in effect, ambassadors representing the sovereign states to the federal government. As such, the framers felt, senators should be chosen by the states through their legislatures, rather than directly by the voters.

The argument was that legislatures would be able to give more sober and reflective thought to the kind of persons needed to represent the states' interests. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention also thought the state legislatures, and therefore the states, would take a greater interest in the fledgling national government if they were involved in its operations this way. The delegates already were familiar with the procedure: they themselves had been chosen by the state legislatures, as had members of the Continental Congress (the Congress under the Articles of Confederation).

Before settling on the legislatures, however, delegates to the Constitutional Convention considered and abandoned several alternatives. One was that senators be elected by the House. Another was that they be nominated by the state legislatures and appointed by the president. The delegates discarded both ideas as making the Senate too dependent on another part of the federal government. They also turned down a system of senatorial electors, similar to presidential electors. And they rejected direct election as too radical and inconvenient.

Another problem was the length of the senatorial term. In settling on staggered six-year terms the framers tried to balance the belief that relatively frequent elections were necessary to promote good behavior against the need for steadiness and continuity in government.

In the early decades of legislative appointment, the notion of senators' being ambassadors was deeply entrenched. Some state legislatures even told senators how to vote. Occasionally the affected senators balked and resigned rather than vote against their consciences.

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