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Notes -
Why would handing Senators back to state legislators, which are often more partisan than their constituencies, help?
Because the ways in which they would be partisan, and their institutional incentives, would be different. Additionally, it is unclear the degree to which the incumbent effect would effect appointments from small legislative bodies, particularly the seventeen states whose legislatures turn over frequently due to term limit restrictions.
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I share your concerns about the caliber of political leadership we have in state legislatures, but I think the exposure to and reliance on special interest lobbying groups mandated by public campaigning is uniquely bad. You would hope that it would be similar to the federal versus state judiciary, where federal judges are generally lower variance (at least in my view) even though direct selection by the sitting President is hardly unpartisan. And then at a bit more of a stretch, parties might be more willing to replace the gerontocracy without the safe bet that voters will rubber stamp re-election of the familiar name.
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