re: #168 Targetpractice

First guess? It actually makes Senate seats competitive, which means even in red states you can have Democrats holding one or both Senate seats. By doing away with direct elections, majority GOP state legislatures can just put whichever nutbar they want into the seats without any input from the voters.

Of course, that goes both ways: Without the 17th Amendment, Scott Brown and Mark Kirk would never have been Senators at all, since the Dems control the legislatures in Massachusetts and Illinois.