Legislators think they should decide who can run for the U.S. Senate (can you imagine?)

Here’s a thoughtful idea for all you Arizona voters who feel overwhelmed by elections, burdened by that constitutional right that allows you to decide who would best represent you in the United States Senate.

Just let the Arizona Legislature do it for you.

Or at least, to narrow down your choices.

A group of conservative Republican legislators is proposing that legislators decide who can run for the U.S. Senate in Arizona.

Seventeenth Amendment, Schmeventeenth Amendment.

It's about making U.S. senators accountable?

For those of who haven’t read it in a while, that’s the one that allows we the people to directly elect our senators.

We’ve had that right for more than a century now, having taken it away from state legislatures who previously selected our senators.

Now some Arizona legislators want to grab back at least a piece of that power they held prior to 1913.

House Concurrent Resolution 2011 would give the Legislature the power to decide who could run in the primary election for the Senate.

Democratic and Republican legislators would each choose two nominees to run on their parties’ respective ballots.

Sen. John Fillmore, the bill’s primary sponsor, says it’s all about making senators accountable.

“I personally believe over the last 30 or 50 years, the state’s senators on the federal level have lost a sense of allegiance to our state,” the Apache Junction Republican told me. “They seem to be playing more on the international level, concerned with international issues rather than being of assistance to the great state of Arizona.”

Apparently, voters aren't as good at these decisions

One would think that we voters could express our displeasure at the polls, should we be unhappy with our senators.

But Fillmore seems to think it would be a better idea to make them beholden to state lawmakers, who would then decide who could – and, I suspect, as importantly – who could not run for the Senate.

If that were the rule today, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema would be shaking in her thigh-high boots right about now. There’s no chance she’d be allowed to run for a second term after refusing to toe the Democratic Party line and end the filibuster.

As for Republicans, I shudder to think who in their party would get permission to run for the Senate from a Legislature dominated by the far right.

And any guesses on how many of the nominees from both parties would come from the ranks for the Legislature?

Lawmakers have made similar efforts before

This is not the first time our esteemed leaders have tried to limit our right to select senators of our own choosing.

In 2018, Rep. Travis Grantham, R-Gilbert, proposed scrapping the Senate primary altogether, allowing legislators to decide who would appear on the general election ballot.

At the time, certain Republicans said then-Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake weren’t sufficiently responsive to them.

“I’ve called a number of times to try and get help,” Rep. Mark Finchem, R-Oro Valley, said during a hearing on the bill. “I don’t even get a secretary. I get a voicemail that says, ‘We are currently not taking any more messages.’ ”

And so Finchem urged his fellow lawmakers to strip Arizona voters of the power to decide who would be on the ballot.

Now he’s running for secretary of state, to oversee our elections, and isn’t that a comforting thought?

But I digress. Fortunately, Grantham’s bill flamed out.

This year's version would solidify their power

Now a version of it is back, proving that bad ideas never really die at the state Capitol. That’s why the time to start paying attention to goings-on at the state Capitol is always now.

“It’ll make the senators pay more respect to the state’s issues,” Fillmore said of his bill.

Or it’ll just solidify a sizable amount of power in the always grasping hands of the Legislature.

The same people who have for years refused to unmask the “dark money” interests that increasingly are buying Arizona’s elections.

The same ones who have made it more difficult for citizens to exercise their constitutional right to make laws at the ballot box.

The same ones who have undermined voters’ confidence in our elections and now are preparing to make yet another raft of changes to state election laws because Donald Trump lost.

If it passes, voters will likely kill it. Dead

Fortunately, though legislators can make it harder to vote, they can’t strip us of the power to select senators of our choosing.

Not unless we let them, that is.

Should Fillmore’s bill pass, it would go on the November ballot where I suspect voters wouldn’t just kill it. They’d knock the thing down, run over it, then stomp on what’s left of its bloody carcass.

Thank you for trying to limit my rights, Mr. Fillmore.

But no thanks.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Should Arizona Legislature choose who runs for U.S. Senate? (Um, no)