This has been a primary part of my agenda for years. It is good to see others finally catching on:

To Save America, Repeal the 17th Amendment

… Prior to its ratification in 1913, the same year as the 16th and a spectacularly disastrous year for our real democracy, senators were chosen by the various state legislatures, in order to keep them tethered and answerable to their state governments: they were senators from the Great State of Whatever, not interchangeable “United States senators.” …

The cure, however, has proven to be worse than the disease. In trying to solve a problem of “special interests,” rather than the states having two powerful advocates for their interests in Washington, Washington got two powerful advocates of its interests in each of the states, greatly assisting what we now call the Swamp in cementing its control over the nation. The sinister Left, currently fretting about losing “our democracy” remains hell-bent on finishing off republicanism in both its senses; for them, only a government by national plebiscite will do. As any student of early-20th century “reform” knows, the cure for “reform” gone awry was and is always more “reform” rather than a return to first principles. …

The focus then turns to how this altered Senate became little more than the bullpen for the Oval Office…and a rather pathetic cultivator of republican leadership at that:

Prior to the adoption of the 17th amendment, presidential candidates were generally drawn from the ranks of statesmen, victorious generals, diplomats, jurists, state governors, and other prominent public figures. …

Many of these senators hailed from dynastic-wealth families, in some part thanks to the income tax. Some married their money … some … were born into it, the fruits of his criminal father’s shenanigans as a bootlegger and Wall Street executive; … the son [of] a wealthy automobile executive, former governor of Michigan, and failed presidential candidate in 1968. More recently, some have achieved great wealth simply by being elected to office and then cashing in either after or even during their terms of of high office. Lunch Bucket Joe, the current occupant, has never held an honest job in his life, but somehow has become obscenely wealthy from a lifetime of “government service” —including 36 years in the senate, eight years as vice president and (so far) nearly two years as president.

Today, therefore, the Senate is no longer regarded as the equally apportioned voices of the states in the upper house of Congress, but rather a way station for ambitious individual senators eyeing the road to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. As the Washington saying goes, every morning one hundred senators wake up, look in the mirror, and see a future president looking back at them.

A repeal of the 17th would largely remove mediocrities of no accomplishment like these from the scramble up the greasy pole. Men are not angels; no doubt corruption in their choice at the state level was very great, as it is in all human enterprise. But by returning the selection of senators to their now-nominal home states would elevate the importance of state legislatures and state elections, returning the power of republican democracy in D.C. back to the states and their residents, where it started and where it still belongs.

[Emphasis added]

While I cannot argue with the points about improving the character of those who attain the office of Senator, my point has always been more on the “elevating the importance of state legislatures”…as in that “character” will be much more accountable to the sense and sensibilities of his home state politicians (currently seated as well as those up and coming). I suspect there would be a trend toward natural term limits. But even more important, on the functional/operational side, I suspect that legislation at the Federal level would stop using state budget sheets as a piggy bank (ala unfunded mandates) and a way to cheat the CBO scorecards…”bends the cost curve down” – give me a break. The system would necessarily begin to clean itself up…for the betterment of We the People.