7 ms·

I strongly disagree. A check and balance has been on great display in recent weeks. A President has stated, "the election was a fraud, I should get another ter

by ISL 6y ago

I strongly disagree. A check and balance has been on great display in recent weeks. A President has stated, "the election was a fraud, I should get another term". Congress has stated, "the election was correct. Moreover, we may choose to prevent you from holding office ever again." The judiciary agrees. That Congress is likely to deadlock is arguably a feature, not a bug. (That voters don't demand better from their congresspeople is, perhaps, a correctable bug.). There is only one exception to the amendability of the Constitution -- states cannot be deprived of equal suffrage in the Senate. See Article V. The disproportionate representation is by design. Without it, the country literally would not have formed. I am pleased to see states hacking around it without an amendment, thus, should the prior function be required, the states themselves can revert. Is adding states too easy? There are three million US citizens in Puerto Rico without representation in Congress. I am hopeful that we will find ways forward on gerrymandering. The only true beneficiaries of the existing system are the political parties. Impeachment is not just hypothetical. Though it was not fully realized against Nixon, it would have been had he not resigned. Regarding the endless accretion of laws: we get the government for which we vote. Speaking up, as you have done here, is the first step toward making it better.

emn13 6y ago
On nixon: might well be. But it's never happened so far, and that's because congress is hyper deadlocked by design and a ridiculously high bar of non-proportionally-represented senators need to agree to convict. Just compare that to other democracies that can switch their executive with a simple majority in one house, yet remain stable. As to congresses deadlock being a feature: it may well have been intentional; but it's pretty plausibly a long term fatal blow. Countries need to be able to evolve, and when small minorities can prevent that (and we're not their yet, but it's moving that way), you're creating really perverse incentives for horse trading, leading to really low quality law making, and thus low respect for congress. It's not out of the question that this might lead to the nation's dissolution in our lifetimes - what happens when elections are legally stolen? On impeachment: we'll see what happens with trump who happens to be a perfect case to check whether this feature of the constitution is more than hot air; but given how stacked the deck is against conviction, I'm not holding my breath - and if it's not going to happen now, it never will - not only was he utterly shameless in undermining the election (knowing full well that democracy is worth fighting for, i.e. raising tensions dangerously) and addition literally using combative language and calling for as close to a stormin of the capitol as possible while trying to retain plausible deniability, we're also just post election that shifted the balance of the senate against him. This is pretty much the best case scenario for an impeachment, and it's far from a sure thing. Additionally, the current election was upheld largely because of states still sticking to extra-legal solid traditions. Those however, are not constitutionally protected; i.e. what worked was american culture & tradition (sometimes backed by state law), not really the american constitution. I mean, for scale: it's easier to throw out an election than a president, which is absolutely Not Ok. Some of your other objections relate to tradition, e.g. such as puerto rico not being a state. This has nothing to do with the constitution; this is purely a political tradition. And indeed; many traditions are fine - while I think there's no question on the specific instance of puerto rico deserving statehood, the point is that the constitutional bar is very low despite the fact that it allows senate packing. A malicious populist could easily abuse that, if convenient, were it not for the real protection: tradition&culture, not the constitution. The US has a solid set of traditions and an extremely civic culture; and that's why it works - not because of the constitution.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  > The US has a solid set of traditions and an extremely civic culture; and that's why it works IMO this is something that I wish more citizens understood. They put way too much faith in the Constitution and don't realize that it's the tradition, the mythology of America that really holds this country together. If we lose that, we lose everything, and the Constitution won't save us.
  - naniwaduni 6y ago
    I mean, it would help if people didn't confuse the federal-level instantiations of social norms with restrictions on the power of said government specifically, too...
freewilly1040 6y ago
> Is adding states too easy? There are three million US citizens in Puerto Rico without representation in Congress. "Statehood is too easy" is probably the wrong critique. The problem is that there is not clear enough guidelines for enforcing some criteria for what constitutes a new state. Thus we have a false positive like Wyoming, which shouldn't be a state with its minuscule population, and we a false negative in Puerto Rico, which is anachronistically governed like a colony . I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I don't think the original senate had states that had 80X the representation by population, as we have today between CA and WY.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > The problem is that there is not clear enough guidelines for enforcing some criteria for what constitutes a new state. Thus we have a false positive like Wyoming, which shouldn't be a state with its minuscule population, and we a false negative in Puerto Rico, which is anachronistically governed like a colony . Wyoming met the requirements when it was admitted, but its population hasn't grown as much as other states (e.g. no gold rush, etc). If you think this is somehow an incorrect result, what you're really arguing for is the abolishment of established states or periodically "redistricting" them in a way that would do more harm than good (given that states are more than just subdivisions for representative purposes). > and we a false negative in Puerto Rico, which is anachronistically governed like a colony. They've had many referendums on that question, and I think they voted against statehood until recently.
  - emn13 6y ago
    Apparently Puerto rico overwhelmingly voted in favor of statehood, but turnout was low. In any case - your points against redistricting are good. But even a "temporary" solution might have centuries of value, so I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to make a pragmatic push for limited redistricting, specifically only splitting large states - fusing states is much harder (because which laws apply?), and given population growth, it's pretty reasonable to have more states. Judging by the size of the house - which is probably too small, not too large - the senate has a lot of room to grow. We could certainly afford splitting all of the large states without causing huge issues - if people actually want that. But a more long term solution without redistricting is to give up on the notion that states are equal. Just give more senators to larger states, and fewer to small states, and the current system mostly works; certainly better than now, and without the need for as radical an imposition as state-level redistricting.
cataphract 6y ago
> A check and balance has been on great display in recent weeks. A President has stated, "the election was a fraud, I should get another term". Congress has stated, "the election was correct. Moreover, we may choose to prevent you from holding office ever again." The judiciary agrees. It surely worked, but with the majority of the Republicans in Congress objecting. And one can't help but wonder what would have happened if the election had been closer (you'd just need to ramp up the voter suppression a bit more). We had a taste of it in Bush v. Gore, where the judiciary decided to stop a recount with a very poor justification. Now imagine it in the much more polarized environment of today. Or with someone actually competent, who managed to solidify power over 4 years rather than doing opposition to his own government half the time.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

by ISL 6y ago

emn13 6y ago

On nixon: might well be. But it's never happened so far, and that's because congress is hyper deadlocked by design and a ridiculously high bar of non-proportionally-represented senators need to agree to convict. Just compare that to other democracies that can switch their executive with a simple majority in one house, yet remain stable. As to congresses deadlock being a feature: it may well have been intentional; but it's pretty plausibly a long term fatal blow. Countries need to be able to evolve, and when small minorities can prevent that (and we're not their yet, but it's moving that way), you're creating really perverse incentives for horse trading, leading to really low quality law making, and thus low respect for congress. It's not out of the question that this might lead to the nation's dissolution in our lifetimes - what happens when elections are legally stolen? On impeachment: we'll see what happens with trump who happens to be a perfect case to check whether this feature of the constitution is more than hot air; but given how stacked the deck is against conviction, I'm not holding my breath - and if it's not going to happen now, it never will - not only was he utterly shameless in undermining the election (knowing full well that democracy is worth fighting for, i.e. raising tensions dangerously) and addition literally using combative language and calling for as close to a stormin of the capitol as possible while trying to retain plausible deniability, we're also just post election that shifted the balance of the senate against him. This is pretty much the best case scenario for an impeachment, and it's far from a sure thing. Additionally, the current election was upheld largely because of states still sticking to extra-legal solid traditions. Those however, are not constitutionally protected; i.e. what worked was american culture & tradition (sometimes backed by state law), not really the american constitution. I mean, for scale: it's easier to throw out an election than a president, which is absolutely Not Ok. Some of your other objections relate to tradition, e.g. such as puerto rico not being a state. This has nothing to do with the constitution; this is purely a political tradition. And indeed; many traditions are fine - while I think there's no question on the specific instance of puerto rico deserving statehood, the point is that the constitutional bar is very low despite the fact that it allows senate packing. A malicious populist could easily abuse that, if convenient, were it not for the real protection: tradition&culture, not the constitution. The US has a solid set of traditions and an extremely civic culture; and that's why it works - not because of the constitution.

rootusrootus 6y ago
> The US has a solid set of traditions and an extremely civic culture; and that's why it works IMO this is something that I wish more citizens understood. They put way too much faith in the Constitution and don't realize that it's the tradition, the mythology of America that really holds this country together. If we lose that, we lose everything, and the Constitution won't save us.
- naniwaduni 6y ago
  I mean, it would help if people didn't confuse the federal-level instantiations of social norms with restrictions on the power of said government specifically, too...

freewilly1040 6y ago

> Is adding states too easy? There are three million US citizens in Puerto Rico without representation in Congress. "Statehood is too easy" is probably the wrong critique. The problem is that there is not clear enough guidelines for enforcing some criteria for what constitutes a new state. Thus we have a false positive like Wyoming, which shouldn't be a state with its minuscule population, and we a false negative in Puerto Rico, which is anachronistically governed like a colony . I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I don't think the original senate had states that had 80X the representation by population, as we have today between CA and WY.

ardy42 6y ago
> The problem is that there is not clear enough guidelines for enforcing some criteria for what constitutes a new state. Thus we have a false positive like Wyoming, which shouldn't be a state with its minuscule population, and we a false negative in Puerto Rico, which is anachronistically governed like a colony . Wyoming met the requirements when it was admitted, but its population hasn't grown as much as other states (e.g. no gold rush, etc). If you think this is somehow an incorrect result, what you're really arguing for is the abolishment of established states or periodically "redistricting" them in a way that would do more harm than good (given that states are more than just subdivisions for representative purposes). > and we a false negative in Puerto Rico, which is anachronistically governed like a colony. They've had many referendums on that question, and I think they voted against statehood until recently.
- emn13 6y ago
  Apparently Puerto rico overwhelmingly voted in favor of statehood, but turnout was low. In any case - your points against redistricting are good. But even a "temporary" solution might have centuries of value, so I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to make a pragmatic push for limited redistricting, specifically only splitting large states - fusing states is much harder (because which laws apply?), and given population growth, it's pretty reasonable to have more states. Judging by the size of the house - which is probably too small, not too large - the senate has a lot of room to grow. We could certainly afford splitting all of the large states without causing huge issues - if people actually want that. But a more long term solution without redistricting is to give up on the notion that states are equal. Just give more senators to larger states, and fewer to small states, and the current system mostly works; certainly better than now, and without the need for as radical an imposition as state-level redistricting.

cataphract 6y ago

> A check and balance has been on great display in recent weeks. A President has stated, "the election was a fraud, I should get another term". Congress has stated, "the election was correct. Moreover, we may choose to prevent you from holding office ever again." The judiciary agrees. It surely worked, but with the majority of the Republicans in Congress objecting. And one can't help but wonder what would have happened if the election had been closer (you'd just need to ramp up the voter suppression a bit more). We had a taste of it in Bush v. Gore, where the judiciary decided to stop a recount with a very poor justification. Now imagine it in the much more polarized environment of today. Or with someone actually competent, who managed to solidify power over 4 years rather than doing opposition to his own government half the time.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]