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The appeal of repealing the 17th amendment is making state's units more powerful/influential?

The framers of the Constitution wanted equal representation for both the people and the states. While the people directly elect their Representatives to the House, the States power laid with the Senate. Therefore, the State Legislatures would appoint Senators to the US Senate to represent that state in the Federal Government.

The 17th Amendment took that responsibility from the State Legislature and placed it with the people effectively removing the states voice in the Fed Government and giving the people yet another voice. Once that happened, that is when Senators figured out that if they would vote to give the people money from the treasury, they could help to secure their position in the Congress. Since the passage of the 17th, the states have ceded more and more authority to the Federal Government.

This change has also helped to solidify the two party system in that individual Senators are beholden to their political parties for campaign funds. If a Senator becomes rouge from the party, the party leaders can withhold party funding in his/her next political campaign. 

"widely suspected", uh huh.

You're not saying very much nice about black men here, and claiming that 25% of black PEOPLE can't vote because of this law is, well, interesting.

How would Merrick Garland have guaranteed 4 years of GOP control of Congress under an H. Clinton presidency?

Knowing they got away with it, Merrick Garland is how I would assume the GOP would conduct themselves on Capitol Hill. The GOP would treat all of Hillary's nominees the same way they did Garland (refuse to even take the nomination up and let Cabinet-level agencies flounder), then turn around and blame her for the incompetence of the government. Add in a horrible 2018 Senate map for Democrats, and it's not unreasonable to think the Republican caucus would control 58-59 seats (WI, PA, WV, OH, MT, NV all went the way they did due to the blue wave ).

All the while they'd still be re-litigating, re-investigating, and probably impeaching her for Benghazi. 

Perhaps I'm being overly pessimistic, and I'd love to be wrong, but expecting the worst has yet to let me down. 

Knowing they got away with it, Merrick Garland is how I would assume the GOP would conduct themselves on Capitol Hill. The GOP would treat all of Hillary's nominees the same way they did Garland (refuse to even take the nomination up and let Cabinet-level agencies flounder), then turn around and blame her for the incompetence of the government. Add in a horrible 2018 Senate map for Democrats, and it's not unreasonable to think the Republican caucus would control 58-59 seats (WI, PA, WV, OH, MT, NV all went the way they did due to the blue wave ).

All the while they'd still be re-litigating, re-investigating, and probably impeaching her for Benghazi.

Perhaps I'm being overly pessimistic, and I'd love to be wrong, but expecting the worst has yet to let me down.

Sounds familiar. I think that's all the house has done for 20 months now.

Feels like reality here. It's like a daily read, these house investigations.

a lot to investigate

nothing gets resolved

not many get thrown out of office

fewer get jail time

just playing patty cake, while doing nothing substantial