8 thoughts on “Democrats Demand A New Constitution”

  1. 1) I’d extend the Sunset Amendment to all Departments of the Executive Branch. But if you assume it’s Federal Law that establishes these branches, then your proposal as stands would cover that as well. A sunset amendment would obviate the need for a House of Repeal. Yet another government entity/debate-society I don’t wish to fund with my taxes.

    2) Then Term Limits for all elected offices to the Federal Government, Legislative and Executive. Including term limits for Supreme Court Justices as well. A people-oriented sunset amendment.

    3) Finally a balanced budget amendment.

    These three things are desperately needed.

    The late, great Mortimer Adler proposed a few more. Basically what he described as an Economic Bill of Rights. A feel for such is discussed somewhat here. A youngish middle-aged academic during the Great Depression, that experience had a lasting effect on him. I think he had a point when it comes to living under slave wages in a “company town”. Today I’m not sure how such amendments would look like outside of simple platitudes. Given the mobility of the workforce and given the speed at which our capitalist economy changes. Maybe something to protect us from foreign “investment” that cedes ownership of certain types of non-fungible capital to foreign ownership. Like farmland, oil, gas, mineral and water rights, etc.

    I would not be in favor of repeal of the 17th amendment. Most state legislatures are completely corrupt uni-party establishments at this point.

    I would favor repeal of the 16th Amendment only if it is replaced with something more reasonable and on better legal ground. The federal government cannot function without revenue. But we need a rational mechanism for that.

    I am not in favor generally speaking of Constitutional Conventions aka the “Convention of the States”. This would only attract the worst possible people to participate. Plus it opens up the entire Constitution to revision not just parts of it. As a conservative with libertarian leanings I consider this far, far, far too dangerous. I wish we could just muster the political will to use the amendment process as it stands. I should become more involved in the primary process I guess in order to help elect people at both state and national level that have this ability.

    1. Another thought. Should the Supreme Court be allowed to police itself? Something like the 25th Amendment but specifically geared to the Supreme Court. In case a Justice becomes incapacitated or goes insane a super majority vote of 7/8ths of the other Justices are enough to remove a member of the Court and automatically trigger a nomination by the President for a replacement. Thus if a member can get allies out of just two of the other Justices they can remain. (In the amended Constitution also until their term is up, see above.) As it stands it’s removal only by death or voluntary retirement. We’ve been somewhat lucky in that regard. Although one wonders if the tendency someday will be a “Bidenation” of the court.

      1. Well excluding impeachment of course. According to ChatGPT only tried once and no conviction in the Senate. (Samuel Chase 1804, acquitted 1805).

        But would incapacity be grounds of “High crimes and misdemeanors?” Or not eligible to hold office because of demonstrable lack of “good behavior”?

        1. I think the “good behavior” requirement is sufficient to weed out bad judges and justices. “Good” behavior would consist of adjudication of legal questions, i.e. doing the job of a judge; “bad” behavior would include legislation. The very first legal words in the Constitution grant all legislative powers to Congress. It should be considered the height of bad behavior for a judge or justice to usurp the powers of another Branch.

    2. Instead of term limits we could just not let anyone in any elected office or position of public trust run for any office.
      Make everyone go home after one term.
      Congress could run half on even years and half on odd years.

  2. The worst form of government is a monopoly, because they can do serious harm with no accountability (see California, Illinois, New York). The second worst is a large number of parties, because power is pushed out to the fringes. A 1% position can become part of the majority coalition and have extremely outsized influence (see Europe). What works the best appears to be two parties. Most of the United States has that.

    Gerrymandering causes one party rule, and is very difficult to prevent. So don’t try to fix gerrymandering, just make it irrelevant.

    So here is my proposal for this new constitution: When voting for any government body with more than 1 person in it, after the votes are tallied all of the candidates of the 2nd place party are given “balancing votes” until any more balancing votes added will cause the government body’s party percentages to become less close to the voter’s voted party percentages.

    So if a state has 20 representatives and 40% of the voters vote republican, the state will always elect 8 republicans and 12 democrats. (ignoring 3rd parties) And the people elected will always be the ones that have the most votes from the party that needs balancing votes.

  3. I’m in favor of Sortition in a Republic with a strong Constitution limiting government power. *
    Screw this “democracy” of which you speak.

    *When Australia was formed in 1901 the Founding fathers thought that Parliament would always have sensible people so saw no need to limit its powers with a real Constitution (we have one but it just divides essentially unlimited powers between the States and Feds).
    You can stop laughing now.

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