Nevada’s Sue Lowden — who lost her 2010 Senate bid and is now running for lieutenant governor — says she’d “absolutely support” a proposal to end direct elections of U.S. senators.
She was asked in rural Nevada about an idea, pushed by conservative radio host Mark Levin, to repeal the 17th Amendment, which was ratified in 1913 and let voters directly elect senators. Scrapping the amendment would return the U.S. to an era when state legislatures appointed senators.
Lowden’s response, as published Friday by Nevada reporter Jon Ralston:
“I would absolutely support it. I supported term limits, for instance, when I was in the State Senate. If we had term limits in the United State Senate we wouldn’t have this problem right now. I don’t know why the senators wouldn’t want it shown in good faith to the American public that this would be a good idea for our country. Instead we have Harry Reid, the Harry Reid’s of our country who are there over and over again and have a tremendous amount of money to be re-elected. Yes, I think people are really fed up with bad people in government. If that’s a way to change things up in Washington, I would be all for it and do whatever we [need] to do it., [sic] but I think term limits is an easier way to do it if there was some way to get that on.”
The former state senator and ex-chair of the Nevada GOP lost her 2010 bid for the Republican nomination to challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). Her campaign went south after she was ridiculed for favorably invoking the possibility of a health care barter system involving chickens.
