17th and 23rd Amendments

17^th Amendment

·         The 17^th Amendment states that each state shall have 2 senators chosen by the people. Each senator will get one vote for six years. It allowed the senators to be freely elected.

·         The purpose of this amendment was to make the process of getting a senator fair instead of being able to be bought out by the person with the most money.

·         It was created during the Progressive Era when reformers were trying to improve America’s health, education, and moral standards, and fight corruption in state and local governments. Today it provides a process for filling the vacancy when a senator dies or leaves office.

·         The most recent example was when Barack Obama was the Illinois Senator and got elected President of the United States, so then his seat was vacated. The governor Illinois at the time, Rod Blagojevich, now needed to fill his seat. Soon an FBI investigation found that Blagojevich attempted to sell the seat to the person who offered him the biggest contribution to his reelection into office. Blagojevich was impeached and removed from office.

23^rd Amendment

·         The 23^rd amendment was passed on March 29^th, 1961. It gives the residents of the people of the District of Columbia the right to vote for the countries President and Vice president. The number of qualified electors for the District of Columbia is the same as the state with the least population.

·         The purpose of the Amendment was because the residents of District of Columbia felt they were being treated unfairly not being allowed to vote.

·         Because the District of Columbia is not technically considered a state, the residents are not permitted to vote. The citizens of D.C. eventually campaigned for their voting rights, resulting in the 23^rd amendment.

·         Today, although the residents can vote for the President and Vice president there is still an existing issue in terms of the other voting rights of all the District of Columbia residents. This concern has also remained as a political issue among all citizens of the District. The most recent controversy was in 1978, the U.S. Congress passed the Voting Rights Amendment for the District of Columbia. It intended to give all the residents their full voting rights, however, the amendment failed to be passed by several states in the country.