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Last week, the Sublette County Republican Party held their caucus in Pinedale. During the discussions about suggestions for GOP platform revisions, an interesting discussion took place in one of the Pinedale precincts about how senators are elected. Originally, the state’s representatives elected their own senators from amongst their rank to go to Washington DC on behalf of the individual states. Because of various reasons, that got changed by the creation of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution in the 1900s so that senators were elected by direct election of popular vote rather than by the state’s legislators. Today, some people are questioning whether or not the 17th Amendment should be repealed. At the Pinedale caucus, this discussion also led into an explanation of why America was set up as a republic and not a democracy. After the caucus, a number of people lamented their own personal knowledge of the amendments of the Constitution and the difference between a republic and a democracy. Below are links to websites with more details on these subjects.

Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Direct Election of U.S. Senators (1913)
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=58

Constitution of the United States – Amendments 11-27
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_amendments_11-27.html

Democratizing the Constitution: The Failure of the Seventeenth Amendment
http://www.nhinet.org/hoebeke.htm

What is the difference between a republic and a democracy?
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_a_republic_and_a_democracy

Democracy Versus Republic
http://www.albatrus.org/english/goverment/govenrment/democracy%20versus%20repubblic.htm

Is the United States a democracy?
http://thisnation.com/question/011.html

An Important Distinction: Democracy versus Republic
http://lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/aspects/demrep.html

The Federalist No. 10 (1787, by James Madison)
http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm

The U.S. Constitution
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html

Editor’s note: For additional research and information, there are numerous websites on the internet with in-depth information and perspectives on these subjects available through search engine searches.