other political organs. The extension of direct nomination and recall to the members of our state judiciary would deprive the special interests of the power to use the courts as the means of blocking the way to popular reforms. In any democratic community the final interpreter of the constitution must be the majority. With the evolution of complete popular government, then, the judicial veto must disappear, or the court must become a democratic body. It is through our state governments that we must approach the problem of reforming the national government. Complete control of the former will open the door that leads to eventual control of the latter. Democratize the state governments, and it will be possible even to change the character of the United States Senate. With a state legislature directly nominated and subject to removal through the use of the recall, it will be possible to deprive that body of any real power in the selection of United States senators. Under these conditions the legislature would merely ratify the candidate receiving a majority of the popular vote just as the electoral college has come to ratify the popular choice of the President. In this way direct nomination and direct election of United States senators could be made really effective while at the same time preserving the form but not the substance of election by the state legislatures.[196] This would make possible that much needed separation of state and municipal from national politics. Candidates for the state legislature are now nominated and elected largely with reference to the influence of that body upon the composition of the United States Senate. This has a tendency to, and in fact does, make state legislation in no small degree a by-product of senatorial elections. By divesting the legislature of this function, it would cease to be, as it is now, one of the organs of the Federal government, and in assuming its proper role of a local legislative body, it would become in fact what it has hardly been even in theory--a body mainly interested in formulating and carrying out purely local policies. Experience has shown beyond question that its function as an electoral college for the choice of United States senators is incompatible with the satisfactory exercise of local legislative functions. The latter will be sacrificed in the interest of the former. This of itself is no small evil. For if there is any advantage in our Federal form of government, it is in the opportunity thus provided for the faithful expression of local public opinion in local legislation. But in addition to this subordination of state to national politics, which might be justified under existing conditions on the ground that local measures and local interests should be sacrificed whenever by so doing it would contribute to the success of the larger and more important matters of national policy, it has become a prolific source of corruption.