6 ms·

I’ve long been in favor of rewriting the constitution. Everyone hates how the government operates—courts are politicized and at risk of being captured, the legi

I’ve long been in favor of rewriting the constitution. Everyone hates how the government operates—courts are politicized and at risk of being captured, the legislature is at a constant impasse, everything is hyper partisan, the executive is either way too powerful, or not powerful enough. The only things people can point to that they like about the constitution are the first amendment, and sometimes the second and fourteenth amendments. Other countries have tried out different forms of representative government in the last 231 years. There’s a lot we can learn from them.

thayne 6y ago
I remember one of my teachers proudly saying how great the constitution was since it has hardly changed in 200 years. I now realize that while the constitution was great for it's time, the fact that we haven't changed it to apply what we've learned from both our own experience, and that of other democracie, or account for changes in technology and society, is not a good thing.
- nradov 6y ago
  The Constitution has been amended 27 times. That seems like enough.
- claytongulick 6y ago
  Do you belive that people have fundamentally changed in the past 200 years?
stmfreak 6y ago
With the way our legislature and senators are captives of lobbyists, global dictators and billionaires today, what makes you think a rewrite would be in your best interests? Or do you imagine the little people like us would have a say in such a rewrite?
Areading314 6y ago
There is a mechanism to amend the constitution, which has been used numerous times over the years, as the country and culture have shifted. I think it's somewhat naive to think, especially in the current climate, that a rewriting of the constitution would do anything to serve the people.
- baron816 6y ago
  I made no mention of how likely it is. As far as I know, I’m the only one who wants to do it. Movements have to start somewhere though.
  - Areading314 6y ago
    That may be. But if you want to start a successful movement, think about how it would look as a constitutional amendment. How would you define the amendment in such a way that it accomplishes the desired change, but in a way that 2/3 of congress could still get behind it?
- akvadrako 6y ago
  There is also the possibility of a constitution convention, where many amendments could be proposed and adopted in a short period. I think most people consider this a very risky move.
sky_rw 6y ago
And given all of these screwed up things, you would put it to these people to write a better framework? You say "The only things people can point to that they like about the constitution are..." and then proceed to point out things that are not even in the constitution. Here is something to like about the constitution: a system of government that has seen the peaceful transition of power every 4 years for 244 consecutive years.
- HideousKojima 6y ago
  >a system of government that has seen the peaceful transition of power every 4 years for 244 consecutive years. If you don't count that little incident in the 1860's
  - sky_rw 6y ago
    Yeah those pesky southern Democrats keep trying to make things difficult.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  Um, amendments are in fact in the constitution. That's what an amendment is - a change from the original text.
  - sky_rw 6y ago
    Referring to the bill of rights, which is a separate document from the US constitution. Functionally it serves a different purpose, whereas the constitution details how the government is structured and what it can do, the bill of rights enumerates what it cannot do. The bill of rights (1-10) does not change anything in the constitution. I'm sure you could get pedantic on this matter, but the subject of OP was related to structure and function of the US government. This is the purview of the constitution and not the first 10 amendments.
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      I don't know where you got the idea that the bill of rights is a separate document from the US constitution. Amendments alter the thing amended. They aren't somehow separate, the become incorporated into the thing they amend. Functionally, they may serve a different purpose. So does the preamble, but it's still a part of the constitution. As is the bill of rights.
baron816 6y ago
I think we should split the executive into three. Have one person responsible for economic matter, one person for international affairs and the military, and one person for all other domestic policy. Have 6 year terms and stagger elections (like the Senate). That way, power is more divided and elections can be focused on policy. Each position would be less susceptible to a “cult of personality,” and it would be relatively clear what would qualify a person for the job (eg. economists & businesspeople for the first, military & diplomats for the second, lawyers & activists for the third). For the legislature, I’d go for a lower house that would be a form of proportional representation. Each representative would have voting power in proportion to how many votes they receive. There could be thresholds and limits, and could allow people to split their votes for representatives (so you could get single issue candidates in). The upper house wouldn’t vote for bills at all. They’d be regional, and regions could easily design themselves (so a city could form its region and expand with expanding suburbs, or split off from its suburbs). They’d basically be glorified lobbyists to promote local issues, or delay a bill if their region would be adversely affected by it. Regions aren’t as important as they used to be (Phoenix and Atlanta are politically pretty similar), but you still want to preserve their voice.
- GeneralMayhem 6y ago
  >Have one person responsible for economic matter, one person for international affairs and the military, and one person for all other domestic policy. This is an incredibly unrealistic idea for the same reason the Commerce Clause can be used to justify anything. How do you govern international affairs without the power to oversee implementation of treaties? How do you do anything in "other domestic policy" without affecting the economy? All of those things are intrinsically linked to each other, and trying to split them apart and consider them in isolation would be catastrophic, except for the fact that it's impossible.
moksly 6y ago
I’m not sure anyone has succeeded in preventing courts from being politicised, but it’s probably one of the most important things to do to preserve democracy. Turkey was a thriving democracy turned slowly authoritarian by stacking the courts with political judges. Poland is in the midst of a similar transformation.
GeneralMayhem 6y ago
(Serious question:) What, specifically, do you see that's new in the past 233 years that we can learn from? Aren't most democracies created since 1787 also extremely flawed and/or mostly copied from the American Constitution? Hand-waving that "it's been 200 years, there must be better ways to do it" without actually providing any is not something I find particularly convincing. In any case, I think a lot of the problems you're describing are not strictly constitutional, or at least lead to contradictions if you try to fix them. * It's very hard to keep courts from becoming politicized unless either everyone acts in good faith (ha), or you figure out a way to pick judges that doesn't ultimately get its power from elected officials. The lifetime appointment idea is about the best I can think of for that - even something like a single 20-year term has the problem of kickbacks after leaving office. For a long time, the requirement of supermajority approval was also a really good moderating idea, until McConnell realized that he could win by default by just not doing his job. Maybe a combination of large supermajorities and forced votes? But all of this runs into the problem that one party simply does not want the government to function. It's relatively easy to design a system that prevents people from doing something; it's much harder to design a system that forces them to do something when they benefit from stagnation. * Executive power will always ebb and flow as laws are passed, unless you disallow Congress from delegating its own power, which would be silly. * Legislature is at an impasse - I mean, if you have disagreements on the order of 40% of the population thinking that large minorities shouldn't be considered citizens, then I'm not sure how you can get past impasses. This is a symptom of hyperpartisanism, which is itself, I think, a symptom of poor education and misinformation. People disagree. You can't force them to agree unless you a priori give some of them power over others, which kind of defeats the point. As for what's good - I think most people are also fans of the 4th and 5th amendments, and the 8th gets a reasonable number of references even in casual conversation (even if people don't know which one it is). And the 13th-15th are all pretty damn important. The Constitutional structure as a whole is pretty good. The things I can easily think of that I /don't/ like about it, and which haven't been cleaned up in amendments, are: 1. Senate apportionment. Corn shouldn't get a vote. Admittedly, this is pretty major, but it would also be very, very hard to change in a new Constitutional convention, since even if you first agree that the Constitution should be rewritten, states won't ratify a new one if they feel like they're losing power. 2. Lack of clarity on what to do when there's a criminal in a position of power. It's tough, because any procedure can quickly become a farce if you make impeachment and removal too easy, but it would be nice if at the very least there were some minimal enforced procedures with regards to witness testimony and debate. And we could maybe strengthen the bit about the House having subpoena powers with a "yes, that means you, Donald." 3. Mandate better voting systems for Congress. As it stands, states are free to, on their own, adopt proportional representation (at least in states with sizeable delegations; Wyoming can't), ranked-choice voting, or any of the other better-than-first-past-the-post ideas that political scientists and mathematicians have come up with. This doesn't /have/ to be a Constitutional change, but it might be better if it were. 4. Mandate a formula for resizing, not just reapportioning, the House after every census. 435 is not enough to capture the variance in sizes of states without severe compression, and leaving it up to Congress to make itself more representative is a bit of an oversight.

thayne 6y ago

I remember one of my teachers proudly saying how great the constitution was since it has hardly changed in 200 years. I now realize that while the constitution was great for it's time, the fact that we haven't changed it to apply what we've learned from both our own experience, and that of other democracie, or account for changes in technology and society, is not a good thing.

nradov 6y ago
The Constitution has been amended 27 times. That seems like enough.
claytongulick 6y ago
Do you belive that people have fundamentally changed in the past 200 years?

stmfreak 6y ago

With the way our legislature and senators are captives of lobbyists, global dictators and billionaires today, what makes you think a rewrite would be in your best interests? Or do you imagine the little people like us would have a say in such a rewrite?

Areading314 6y ago

There is a mechanism to amend the constitution, which has been used numerous times over the years, as the country and culture have shifted. I think it's somewhat naive to think, especially in the current climate, that a rewriting of the constitution would do anything to serve the people.

baron816 6y ago
I made no mention of how likely it is. As far as I know, I’m the only one who wants to do it. Movements have to start somewhere though.
- Areading314 6y ago
  That may be. But if you want to start a successful movement, think about how it would look as a constitutional amendment. How would you define the amendment in such a way that it accomplishes the desired change, but in a way that 2/3 of congress could still get behind it?
akvadrako 6y ago
There is also the possibility of a constitution convention, where many amendments could be proposed and adopted in a short period. I think most people consider this a very risky move.

sky_rw 6y ago

And given all of these screwed up things, you would put it to these people to write a better framework? You say "The only things people can point to that they like about the constitution are..." and then proceed to point out things that are not even in the constitution. Here is something to like about the constitution: a system of government that has seen the peaceful transition of power every 4 years for 244 consecutive years.

HideousKojima 6y ago
>a system of government that has seen the peaceful transition of power every 4 years for 244 consecutive years. If you don't count that little incident in the 1860's
- sky_rw 6y ago
  Yeah those pesky southern Democrats keep trying to make things difficult.
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
Um, amendments are in fact in the constitution. That's what an amendment is - a change from the original text.
- sky_rw 6y ago
  Referring to the bill of rights, which is a separate document from the US constitution. Functionally it serves a different purpose, whereas the constitution details how the government is structured and what it can do, the bill of rights enumerates what it cannot do. The bill of rights (1-10) does not change anything in the constitution. I'm sure you could get pedantic on this matter, but the subject of OP was related to structure and function of the US government. This is the purview of the constitution and not the first 10 amendments.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    I don't know where you got the idea that the bill of rights is a separate document from the US constitution. Amendments alter the thing amended. They aren't somehow separate, the become incorporated into the thing they amend. Functionally, they may serve a different purpose. So does the preamble, but it's still a part of the constitution. As is the bill of rights.

baron816 6y ago

I think we should split the executive into three. Have one person responsible for economic matter, one person for international affairs and the military, and one person for all other domestic policy. Have 6 year terms and stagger elections (like the Senate). That way, power is more divided and elections can be focused on policy. Each position would be less susceptible to a “cult of personality,” and it would be relatively clear what would qualify a person for the job (eg. economists & businesspeople for the first, military & diplomats for the second, lawyers & activists for the third). For the legislature, I’d go for a lower house that would be a form of proportional representation. Each representative would have voting power in proportion to how many votes they receive. There could be thresholds and limits, and could allow people to split their votes for representatives (so you could get single issue candidates in). The upper house wouldn’t vote for bills at all. They’d be regional, and regions could easily design themselves (so a city could form its region and expand with expanding suburbs, or split off from its suburbs). They’d basically be glorified lobbyists to promote local issues, or delay a bill if their region would be adversely affected by it. Regions aren’t as important as they used to be (Phoenix and Atlanta are politically pretty similar), but you still want to preserve their voice.

GeneralMayhem 6y ago
>Have one person responsible for economic matter, one person for international affairs and the military, and one person for all other domestic policy. This is an incredibly unrealistic idea for the same reason the Commerce Clause can be used to justify anything. How do you govern international affairs without the power to oversee implementation of treaties? How do you do anything in "other domestic policy" without affecting the economy? All of those things are intrinsically linked to each other, and trying to split them apart and consider them in isolation would be catastrophic, except for the fact that it's impossible.

moksly 6y ago

I’m not sure anyone has succeeded in preventing courts from being politicised, but it’s probably one of the most important things to do to preserve democracy. Turkey was a thriving democracy turned slowly authoritarian by stacking the courts with political judges. Poland is in the midst of a similar transformation.

GeneralMayhem 6y ago

(Serious question:) What, specifically, do you see that's new in the past 233 years that we can learn from? Aren't most democracies created since 1787 also extremely flawed and/or mostly copied from the American Constitution? Hand-waving that "it's been 200 years, there must be better ways to do it" without actually providing any is not something I find particularly convincing. In any case, I think a lot of the problems you're describing are not strictly constitutional, or at least lead to contradictions if you try to fix them. * It's very hard to keep courts from becoming politicized unless either everyone acts in good faith (ha), or you figure out a way to pick judges that doesn't ultimately get its power from elected officials. The lifetime appointment idea is about the best I can think of for that - even something like a single 20-year term has the problem of kickbacks after leaving office. For a long time, the requirement of supermajority approval was also a really good moderating idea, until McConnell realized that he could win by default by just not doing his job. Maybe a combination of large supermajorities and forced votes? But all of this runs into the problem that one party simply does not want the government to function. It's relatively easy to design a system that prevents people from doing something; it's much harder to design a system that forces them to do something when they benefit from stagnation. * Executive power will always ebb and flow as laws are passed, unless you disallow Congress from delegating its own power, which would be silly. * Legislature is at an impasse - I mean, if you have disagreements on the order of 40% of the population thinking that large minorities shouldn't be considered citizens, then I'm not sure how you can get past impasses. This is a symptom of hyperpartisanism, which is itself, I think, a symptom of poor education and misinformation. People disagree. You can't force them to agree unless you a priori give some of them power over others, which kind of defeats the point. As for what's good - I think most people are also fans of the 4th and 5th amendments, and the 8th gets a reasonable number of references even in casual conversation (even if people don't know which one it is). And the 13th-15th are all pretty damn important. The Constitutional structure as a whole is pretty good. The things I can easily think of that I /don't/ like about it, and which haven't been cleaned up in amendments, are: 1. Senate apportionment. Corn shouldn't get a vote. Admittedly, this is pretty major, but it would also be very, very hard to change in a new Constitutional convention, since even if you first agree that the Constitution should be rewritten, states won't ratify a new one if they feel like they're losing power. 2. Lack of clarity on what to do when there's a criminal in a position of power. It's tough, because any procedure can quickly become a farce if you make impeachment and removal too easy, but it would be nice if at the very least there were some minimal enforced procedures with regards to witness testimony and debate. And we could maybe strengthen the bit about the House having subpoena powers with a "yes, that means you, Donald." 3. Mandate better voting systems for Congress. As it stands, states are free to, on their own, adopt proportional representation (at least in states with sizeable delegations; Wyoming can't), ranked-choice voting, or any of the other better-than-first-past-the-post ideas that political scientists and mathematicians have come up with. This doesn't /have/ to be a Constitutional change, but it might be better if it were. 4. Mandate a formula for resizing, not just reapportioning, the House after every census. 435 is not enough to capture the variance in sizes of states without severe compression, and leaving it up to Congress to make itself more representative is a bit of an oversight.