Government by Auction

In the later half of the 1800s, as more and more money gathered in fewer and fewer pockets, bribery became an accepted political practice and the Free-Marketplace of Ideas became the Convenience-Store of Accumulation.

Seats in the federal senate formed the pinnacle of this political aggregation.

Those interested in national legislation toured the country buying senatorships for like-minded statesmen. Local legislative candidates, after pledging to support the “correct” senatorial aspirant, received financing for the graft, ballot-stuffing and intimidation essential to the successful late 1800's campaign.

Americans tired of this government by auction. From 1872 to 1913, there were two-hundred-thirty-nine (239) formal calls “for direct election of the Senate, including 220 state party platforms and 19 national party platforms.”

In 1892, California voters endorsed direct election by a vote of fourteen (14) to (1); Nevada voters weighed in a year later, approving the idea eight (8) to one (1); And, in 1902, Illinois voters sent the same message by a vote of nearly six (6) to one (1). Thirty-one (31) state legislatures - more than the two-thirds (2/3s) needed to amend the federal Constitution - petitioned Congress for direct election. By 1912, almost as many states, including Oregon, demanded a constitutional convention to write direct election of federal senators into the nation’s organic document.

The federal House of Representatives voted five (5) times to send the desired amendment to the states. But the U.S. Senate never concurred, and, warned Oregon Governor T.T. Geer in 1901, “for obvious reasons probably never will.”

The populist spirit, however, would not be denied. The 1899 and 1901 Oregon Legislatures approved the Initiative Amendment, (in those days, two successive sessions of the legislature had to approve constitutional amendments before they went on the ballot), and, in 1902 the voters approved it by a vote of eleven (11) to one (1). The 1901 Legislature also passed the “Mays Act,” whereby a straw ballot would be held so the people could express their choice for U.S. Senator, with the “election” to be canvassed immediately before the 1903 Legislature appointed Oregon’s next senator.

At the 1902 “election,” Republican Gov. Geer received 44,697 votes, Democrat C.E.S. Woods received 32,618, Republican state senator C.W. Fulton received 96, with the remaining smattering of votes spread among the other twenty-six (26) candidates. The 1903 Legislature, sitting in joint session, cast forty-two (42) ballots over twenty-four (24) days before finally settling on Fulton, despite his paltry showing at the much-vaunted election.

A precursor of the People’s Power League responded by initiating an imaginary end-run on the federal Constitution – and, the back room politics of Salem – that allowed Oregonians to “elect” their federal senators in 1907.

With one state “electing” its senators, the old appointment system had no chance elsewhere. In 1913, the 17th Amendment spread direct election nation-wide.

Greg Wasson researches the Oregon Revised Statutes, and materials stored at the Oregon State Archives. For the last 20 years, he has studied the history of the evolution of popular rule in America.

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