One of Rick Perry's issues is repealing the 17th Amendment that allows direct election of senators (instead of by the state legislators).
Of course the reason why the 17th was passed is because the system just didn't work. To become senator, you needed to convince a major of legislators to vote for you, which is a fairly small number. If you were wealthy, it was fairly common to accomplish this by bribing legislators. The flip side though, was that your political opponents also only needed to bribe a small number of legislators in order to block your candidacy.
This lead some states being unable to fill a senate position for long periods, sometimes even years. At one point, both of Delaware's senate seats were vacant for two years. Imagine that. Your state just doesn't get represented while power brokers in smoke filled rooms hash out who gets to be senator.
That's Rick Perry's Amerika.
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