Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, April 9, 1913, the Constitution gets its 17th Amendment.

The amendment was ratified on April 8th, and it signaled a big change for how we get our

senators.

They were previously appointed by state legislatures. The

17th amendment made it so that each state senators would be elected directly by the

people of that state. A push towards more direct democracy, but as always

one with some unforeseen ripple effects.

To discuss it all we're joined as always by Nicole Hammer of Columbia.

Hello Nicky.

Hey Jody.

And our first ever special guest is here.

He will be with us for the next few episodes, Jamel columnist for the New York Times and serial reviewer for Serious Eats I

think those are the two most important things on your resume right

yeah pretty much that covers it all. Okay, good.

Everything you need to know.

So I was thinking we could spend some time just ranking all of the amendments,

one through 27 and seeing, you know, we're thinking, no, we don't have time for that,

but I will start there, Jamel.

Where does the 17th stand in the consciousness?

I can use that old podcast framing of

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