Seventeenth Amendment Definition & Meaning

American

Examples

Seventeenth Amendment American

noun

1. an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1913, providing for the election of two U.S. senators from each state by popular vote and for a term of six years.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Until the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, in 1913, senators were chosen by state legislatures, or, in many cases, not chosen, since legislatures frequently deadlocked and left the seats vacant.

From The New Yorker

Under this seventeenth amendment the senators of each state are elected by vote of such persons as are entitled to vote for members of the lower house of the legislature.

From Project Gutenberg

The seventeenth amendment provides that whenever a vacancy occurs in the senate the governor of the state in which the vacancy occurs shall issue a writ of election for the filling of such vacancy, but that the legislature may authorize the governor to fill the vacancy by a temporary appointment, the appointee to hold until a senator may be chosen by popular election.

From Project Gutenberg

However, they’ve reached deep into their tricorner hats to pull out a real doozy: the Seventeenth Amendment, which some of them would like to repeal.

From Salon

If it’s been a while since you’ve taken high school civics, the Seventeenth Amendment, enacted in 1913, provides for direct election of U.S. senators.

From Salon

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.