3 ms·

A veto is not the same as a majority. It takes 40 Senators to ensure something doesn't pass Congress. It takes a single President to ensure something doesn't b

• bhupy 7y ago
  Much like the United Nations or the European Union, the United States is a Union of States. The consensus necessary to pass something that broadly applies to all 330 Million people across 50 disparate democratic republics (each with their own Constitutions) is what preserves this Union. The US, as a Union, is also unique in that _every single state_ agreed to join by ratifying the Constitution (same cannot be said for the European Union). The States agreed to this because part of the deal was the federative system of checks and balances that preserve their sovereignty to a large degree. That was the contract, that's what they signed up for. Unless we can come up with a way to convince these states to voluntarily relinquish their sovereignty, States will just walk away from the deal if they think that the contract they signed up for is violated after the fact. The 10th Amendment is our tool for ensuring that change can eventually propagate through the entire system in a stable way.
• lazyjones 7y ago
  > It takes a single President to ensure something doesn't become law--a literal veto. That single president has to be elected though and by definition represents the majority of voters/electorate (modulo whatever special voting mechanisms the country has).
  • pwinnski 7y ago
    Or, currently, 46% of participating voters, which is a quite a modulo.