3 ms·

Maybe. It used to be amended every 10-20 years, depending on how you count. It has been 25-40 years (again, depending on how you count) since the last successfu

Maybe. It used to be amended every 10-20 years, depending on how you count. It has been 25-40 years (again, depending on how you count) since the last successful amendment attempt. I think that, to some degree, the amendment process has been abandoned because people think the government can hack around it with good results. I think it's worth considering that this sort of corruption is a side effect of that approach versus the cleaner debate-and-amend process that the U.S. practiced historically. I think the U.S. government will be ultimately doomed if the U.S. can't figure out a way to amend the Constitution again. All sorts of new wrinkles have popped up since the early 90s and we have abandoned the process for democratically deciding how to deal with them. It really erodes the legitimacy of the process.

Frondo 11y ago
No less a man than Scalia himself said that, if he could wave a magic wand and change the constitution, the change he would make would be to make it easier to amend. I didn't agree with most of what he said, but I thought he was spot-on with that.
int_19h 11y ago
It has been abandoned because of a slew of SCOTUS rulings that have significantly broadened the powers implied in some clauses (most notably, the Commerce Clause, and the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment), allowing the federal government to work around the system more often than not; but also because of increasing partisanship of the political system making the 3/4 majority of states necessary to amend anything extremely unlikely on any issues where there isn't a near-unanimous consent already.
- humanrebar 11y ago
  I think nationalizing more issues also leads to more divisiveness. If you get fed up with your city government, you can move. What do you do if you get fed up with your national government? On top of that, if relatively slim majorities (55%, say) can drastically change the rules (Citizens United, ACA), then there is a loss of legitimacy in the government. This also causes divisiveness since the country becomes a nation of power (who can scrape together a majority?) and not a nation of laws.

Frondo 11y ago

No less a man than Scalia himself said that, if he could wave a magic wand and change the constitution, the change he would make would be to make it easier to amend. I didn't agree with most of what he said, but I thought he was spot-on with that.

int_19h 11y ago

It has been abandoned because of a slew of SCOTUS rulings that have significantly broadened the powers implied in some clauses (most notably, the Commerce Clause, and the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment), allowing the federal government to work around the system more often than not; but also because of increasing partisanship of the political system making the 3/4 majority of states necessary to amend anything extremely unlikely on any issues where there isn't a near-unanimous consent already.

humanrebar 11y ago
I think nationalizing more issues also leads to more divisiveness. If you get fed up with your city government, you can move. What do you do if you get fed up with your national government? On top of that, if relatively slim majorities (55%, say) can drastically change the rules (Citizens United, ACA), then there is a loss of legitimacy in the government. This also causes divisiveness since the country becomes a nation of power (who can scrape together a majority?) and not a nation of laws.