"With the Seventeenth Amendment back in the news, Schiller and Stewart reexamine how state legislatures elected U.S. senators, to determine whether indirect elections were as unsavory and ineffective as charged, and whether popular elections have worked as well as reformers predicted. Their findings may surprise those on both sides of the ongoing debate."--Donald A. Ritchie, author of The U.S. Congress: A Very Short Introduction

"This eye-opening book examines some of the most important questions in the development of representative government in the United States. It explores the often disastrous consequences of the original Constitutional scheme, the ways in which party politics and corruption can overtake deliberative processes, the unfulfilled promises of reformers, and the institutional conditions that foster government responsiveness and accountability. Everyone interested in American politics must read this book."--Steven S. Smith, Washington University in St. Louis

"This is a fine book by two of the most accomplished and able scholars studying the U.S. Congress. Their findings will undoubtedly become the definitive work on how the indirect election of U.S. senators by individual state legislatures influenced the upper chamber of Congress and American politics."--Richard Bensel, Cornell University

"The U.S. Senate is front and center in determining policy in America, and given its importance, it is critical to understand the relationship of its members to constituents. Based on a careful and massive collection of original data, this excellent book provides a clear picture of indirect Senate elections and their consequences." --John Lapinski, University of Pennsylvania

Wendy J. Schiller is associate professor of political science and public policy at Brown University. Charles Stewart III is the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.