U.S. Rep. Andy Harris is backing a resolution that would eliminate the 17th Amendment — making it so that U.S. senators are decided by the state legislature and not the voters.

A Maryland congressman, Harris is one of nine Republicans cosponsoring the two-sentence resolution, which was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday.

The effort, led by Texas Rep. Keith Self, is the latest to try to ax the 113-year-old amendment, arguing that a Senate chosen by the public puts the passions of the public ahead of the states’ interests.

In a statement to The Baltimore Sun, Harris said he cosponsored the resolution because the “Founding Fathers designed the House to represent the people and the Senate to represent the states.” The amendment, he said, disrupted that balance.

“Returning the selection of senators to state legislatures would restore the Senate’s original role and strengthen the voice of the states in our federal system,” Harris wrote.

Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, a democrat, is staunchly opposed to the idea.

“Our democracy needs to be more responsive to the American people, not less. Too many Americans already face barriers when participating and engaging in our democracy — this would be a step in the total wrong direction,” Van Hollen said in a statement. “Let me be clear: even if this resolution stood a chance of passing in the House, it would be dead on arrival in the Senate.”

The Republicans’ resolution, which itself would require a constitutional amendment, has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

Some legal experts, however, doubt it will go much further than that.

Mark Graber, a constitutional law professor at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, said that the words “slim” and “none” considerably overestimate the chance of the 17th Amendment being repealed.

“Most people, Democrats and Republicans, do not like taking the vote away from themselves and giving that vote to often badly gerrymandering state legislatures,” he wrote in an email to The Sun.

“Politicians hope to gain support by saying good things,” he added, “even when no good things will happen.”

U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a Democrat serving her first term as one of Maryland’s two senators, said in a statement Tuesday that she would oppose “this misguided resolution” in honor of John Lewis, the civil rights leader and congressman who died in 2020.

Referencing other efforts “silencing American voters,” such as a challenge to mail-in ballots rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court this week, Alsobrooks described the resolution as an attempt “to undermine democracy.”

When the Constitution was ratified, its first article gave state legislatures the power to select senators. Calls for reform sprung up throughout the 19th century, but it wasn’t until the early 1900s, when publisher William Randolph Hearst ran a series of articles depicting state lawmakers as pawns to big businesses, that the idea gained serious traction.

Guha Krishnamurthi, another University of Maryland law professor, said Tuesday that the assertion that the 17th Amendment wasn’t envisioned by the Founders was obvious. That’s why it’s an amendment.

Stepping back from it, he said, would “take a long time.”

“Maybe there’s a long game here,” Krishnamurthi said. “But this is a long shot.”

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