The Coin Return Foundational Fundraiser is here! Please donate!
[Constitutional Amendments] vote for yours now!
Jebus314
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So there’s been a lot of discussion lately about how broken the American federal government is, *cough*mcconnellisadick*cough*. In a normal world we would get together and make some changes to better reflect the needs and desires of the vast majority of Americans. That means constitutional amendments y’all! Anyways I thought it would be fun to discuss what everyone would like to see enshrined in the most misrepresented of American documents.
Before I begin I just wanted to lay some ground rules. This thread is for proposing constitutional amendments and discussing their content, likelihood of passage, and necessity for a better America. What it is not for is relitigating all sub-topics. If you disagree with say the idea of a gun control amendment, limit your response to a single post stating your point and then let it go. ONE POST. Please don’t get my thread locked.
So to start I wanted to give an overview of how constitutional amendments can happen. According to the National Archives:
So it would appear you need 2/3 of both federal houses of Congress and a majority in 3/4 of state legislatures, or simply 3/4 of state legislatures by bypassing congress with a constitutional convention.
Thee are several proposed amendments currently in common circulation, but let’s start with a a simple one, the equal rights amendment. The amendment was initially ratified by 35 of 38 requires states and has since had some states try and withdraw (which may or may not be legal) and some states ratify nearly 40 years later (which may or may not be legal). It would likely have to start from the beginning to be passed. I find it to be somewhat unnecessary given sex as a protected class, but it’s simple, straight forward and a nice inclusion in light of #metoo.
Another point of contention has been McConnell’s flagrant disregard for the sanctity of checks and balances. I’m too lazy to suggest my own amendment but thankfully @spool32 has taken a stab a while back, in regards to SCOTUS appointments:
Personally I would go a bit further. Specifically I think there must be a better way to staff SCOTUS than waiting for judges to die or retire and then letting whoever happens to be in power name the successor.
And finally one submission of my own in regards to voting rights/access:
I will attempt to keep a list of proposed amendments under discussion until I lose interest or become lazy. Also, the title is a lie, there is no voting here. I make all OP decisions as a petty tyrant would, in honor of our current administration. Discuss!
Before I begin I just wanted to lay some ground rules. This thread is for proposing constitutional amendments and discussing their content, likelihood of passage, and necessity for a better America. What it is not for is relitigating all sub-topics. If you disagree with say the idea of a gun control amendment, limit your response to a single post stating your point and then let it go. ONE POST. Please don’t get my thread locked.
So to start I wanted to give an overview of how constitutional amendments can happen. According to the National Archives:
The Constitution provides that an amendment may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures. ...
The Congress proposes an amendment in the form of a joint resolution. Since the President does not have a constitutional role in the amendment process, the joint resolution does not go to the White House for signature or approval. ...
The Governors [of individual states] then formally submit the amendment to their State legislatures or the state calls for a convention. ...
A proposed amendment becomes part of the Constitution as soon as it is ratified by three-fourths of the States (38 of 50 States).
So it would appear you need 2/3 of both federal houses of Congress and a majority in 3/4 of state legislatures, or simply 3/4 of state legislatures by bypassing congress with a constitutional convention.
Thee are several proposed amendments currently in common circulation, but let’s start with a a simple one, the equal rights amendment. The amendment was initially ratified by 35 of 38 requires states and has since had some states try and withdraw (which may or may not be legal) and some states ratify nearly 40 years later (which may or may not be legal). It would likely have to start from the beginning to be passed. I find it to be somewhat unnecessary given sex as a protected class, but it’s simple, straight forward and a nice inclusion in light of #metoo.
Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification
Another point of contention has been McConnell’s flagrant disregard for the sanctity of checks and balances. I’m too lazy to suggest my own amendment but thankfully @spool32 has taken a stab a while back, in regards to SCOTUS appointments:
28th Amendment
Section 1:
Article 3, Section 1, sentence 1 is amended to the following:
The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court consisting of not more than nine members, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.
Section 2:
Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 is amended to the following:
He (the President) shall have the Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, nominate Judges of the supreme Court, provided three-fifths of the Senators present concur in a vote to be held no later than 100 days after nomination; and he shall, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
Section 1:
Article 3, Section 1, sentence 1 is amended to the following:
The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court consisting of not more than nine members, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.
Section 2:
Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 is amended to the following:
He (the President) shall have the Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, nominate Judges of the supreme Court, provided three-fifths of the Senators present concur in a vote to be held no later than 100 days after nomination; and he shall, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
Personally I would go a bit further. Specifically I think there must be a better way to staff SCOTUS than waiting for judges to die or retire and then letting whoever happens to be in power name the successor.
And finally one submission of my own in regards to voting rights/access:
Section 1. No citizen of the United States shall have their right to vote denied or abridged for any reason. This includes unreasonable restrictions on voting enrollment such as (but not limited to) voter ID requirements that cannot be completed in less than 1 days time.
Section 2. To prevent disenfranchisement, all citizens shall be provided polling locations, or some other means of voting, with a maximum of 4 hours time needed (including travel) to submit their vote.
Also, voting stations shall be open no shorter than 5 days (including at least one weekend/federal holiday).
Section 2. To prevent disenfranchisement, all citizens shall be provided polling locations, or some other means of voting, with a maximum of 4 hours time needed (including travel) to submit their vote.
Also, voting stations shall be open no shorter than 5 days (including at least one weekend/federal holiday).
I will attempt to keep a list of proposed amendments under discussion until I lose interest or become lazy. Also, the title is a lie, there is no voting here. I make all OP decisions as a petty tyrant would, in honor of our current administration. Discuss!
"The world is a mess, and I just need to rule it" - Dr Horrible
Jebus314 on
0
Posts
(likelihood of passage seems low)
Setting the SCOTUS's size and giving them fixed long terms sounds good. Ideally staggered so that a given President can expect to appoint around a judge or two per term.
Because there were costs and training and blahblahblah whatevers, probably.
The only thing I’m not sure about with scotus is how to deal with retired folks or early deaths. I think you likely need a clause that states that judges can’t work for profit after retiring to prevent the Congress issue of companies buying votes now by promising cushy jobs later.
Also, if a judge dies early is it an immediate replacement or does the empty slot get filled in the next allotted time and whoever was up for retirement gets pushed back?
Assuming the rotation I mentioned above: No reason we can't have an order of succession for judges. Or hell something like this:
In the event a judge dies in office or otherwise leaves the post early, the seat shall remain vacant until after next Presidential inauguration day, at which point the President shall nominate a candidate to fill the reminder of the term.
No person that has previously been a Supreme Court justice may be nominated to a seat on the Court at any time. Nor shall they serve as a judge in any Federal case, including the Supreme Court.
(The last bit is purely to avoid "the nomination was illegal but the confirmation wasn't nener nener" bullshit)
Just a little thing to stamp out "enhanced interrogation" and junk.
And I'm not sure how to word it, but abolish midterms. Congress is renewed with each president. Each congressfolk gets four years, each senator gets eight, taking turns which senator gets elected with alternating elections.
Also comita collegiate delenda est. Single National AV vote for presidents pls
No, this has no chance of passing, especially the Senate (obv), but fuck the Senate. It was a bad idea.
If you want to go even further, repeal Article II and the executive branch becomes the responsibility of the Speaker of the House.
1. Expenditure of money does not constitute speech.
2. Congress shall have the power to regulate the financing of federal elections.
Why wait for the next president? That is potentially 4 years of a vacancy, and I don’t really see the upside. I think every president should get 1 nomination. Which, for 9 justices is 36 year appointments. Seems reasonable, where appointees around 50 retire around 86.
If someone dies the order is reshuffled and they are nominated by whoever is next up (could be current president if they haven’t nominated yet, or next). Make nominations happen in year 2, unless someone has died, and then they happen right after inauguration. Makes maximum vacancy time only 2 years.
The first one might have some weird consequences. Would it be legal for the government to make it illegal to buy something (say a book that is anti-republican)? If your money isn’t speech, and they aren’t banning the book, just your ability to buy it, does that pass muster?
I think the second part is fine on its own.
Nah, that's still free speech (and free association). The money = speech thing is a pernicious thing that affects a lot of other dumb SCOTUS rulings (like Janus) and is the foundation of neo-Lochnerism. Wanted to hit both at once.
I'm not sure about 1 being necessary or even true. If you eliminate the concept of corporate speech rights (which is a reasonable assumption in the thread context) its not unreasonable to say that giving 20 bucks to a candidate you support is an expression of that support and should be generally protected.
It only becomes a real problem when someone has 20 million to give but at that point we'd be better served with a provision in the 1st amendment that allows for minimal restrictions when the exercise of speech might be considered a credible bribery risk or damaging to the appearance of honest governance.
Why get rid of midterms? I mean I think having longer terms is fine, and these are all pipe dreams anyway, but it seems a weird place to change if you have gone so far as get an amendment proposed in the first place.
The other two points seem like good ideas though. The senate exists to give power to rural minorities. I see no reason why they should need that and the electoral college. I also feel like it may not be that hard to pass, because everyone seems to think they get screwed by it.
I.E. changing the 2nd amendment to a general right to self defense and letting each generation work out what that means for them rather than having an absolute right to firearms or none at all.
1)The use of fission or fusion weapons, or any weapon with an explosive power of greater than 0.5 kilotons of TNT equivalent, is prohibited except as a response to the launch or use of similar weapons by a hostile power.
2) Any order to use such weapons absent that condition is illegal, and the order giver shall be removed from office and punished by such laws Congress shall prescribe. This offense may not be pardoned for any reason beyond proof of unfair trial or actual innocence.
And this one:
1) Any official of the United States may be prosecuted for any violation of the law except as otherwise provided in the Constitution.
2) The President may not pardon himself for any reason.
My gunning for Midterms is an attempt to cut down on electoral fatigue and consolidate as many decisions into single days as possible. The constrant drip drip of things to vote for makes voter participation mentally taxing and more likely they will only turn up for the big stuff, making it easier for more committed hard liners of all flavours to dominate the less scrutinised ones, and all that matters. I'd also try and bring State elections into line with that, but that's a big can of worms in itself.
Add "or any persons nominated for federal office by him" to that pardon amendment.
The presidency should be depowered in general
It already is. The ruling people use to say its not does not actually say that
Specifically called such in thw 15th:
An explicit "this is a right and you have to have a very very clear and specific reason to make it harder to exercise it", while of course not a silver bullet, is very useful for civil liberty advocates. For instance it would make ex-felon re-enfranchisement an easier fight.
restructure the house so that they aren't campaigning for money all the time (fewer elections / election finance reform) and the number of representatives is more proportional to actual population
actually just scrap most of the constitution and start over
You're allowed to suspend it for any reason other than those few specifically prohibited.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
This seems clear from my reading of the Constitution, but I want to put it in there explicitly so idiots like John Roberts get the bloody point.
I am with you on voter attention spans, but I sort of feel like there is utility to having a midterm election. 4 years is a long time to go without having input on the direction things are going. So midterms give the public a chance to express their feelings towards current legislative and executive decisions.
It also means each presidency isn’t tied to a single congress, which is nice because it gives each president at least two chances of having a congress that will work with them.
I feel like this is a bit extreme. I mean we have a country that has excelled at many things. I don’t feel like it is beyond saving yet. Current frustrations aside I feel like you don’t need to abolish America and start over to address the issues you brought up, of campaign finance reform, and more proportional representation.
I agree that this is the better way to reverse citizens united, but I think it would require more thought since the reasonable person metric can be abused a lot. Plus it most certainly needs some sort of way of identifying what counts towards elections and what is just normal speech. Which is ironically at the heart of citizens united case, since they were trying to argue it was just a documentary company and thus outside the scope of campaign finance law.
The thing about the Constitution is that systems like it almost always descend into dictatorship. And we in fact don't export this dumb model anymore when we set up democratic governments in other countries. And the reason for that is that there are so many veto points it is hard to respond to crises. America has sort of made it because parties have not been ideologically aligned so there was plenty of room for compromise. Except that whole Civil War thing. And the current difficulties.
The Bill of Rights (minus the second, which speaking of I would repeal the second amendment in its entirety) is great, the governmental structure the founders set up kind of blows. In their defense, they were trying to build a coalition out of a diverse collection of mostly autonomous political bodies, which had never really been done before, and the EU is currently struggling to do successfully.
I'm pretty tired of mostly super old fucks who wont live to see the resulting shitstorm of decisions they're making. All of the emissions standards and environmental harm reduction stuff kicks in well after any of the senior office holders will be long beyond caring. Yeah, so it sucks that it's ageist. I guess if you want to stay in office, improve our healthcare and shit so that the life expectancy goes up.
Edit: All crimes committed while holding an office in the federal government also come with the charge of a felony disregard for the american people.
I'm not sure how you might avoid all such questions without unfairly binding future generations.
It also appears that my dream of abolishing the Senate would require unanimous consent from the states. So that's sad. But the convention could do whatever, would need 3/4 of the legislatures to ratify still though.
1 amendment to strip that last clause, then another to dump the Senate. :P
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Other Amendments:
29th Amendment
Lawful residents of the District of Columbia, who by virtue of their citizenship in the United States possess the inalienable Right to Representation, shall be granted the right to vote in all State and Federal elections as though they were residents of the several States from which the District was formed, according to the place of their residency and in accordance with all appropriate Laws in those respective States.
30th Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting the regulation of information transmission by any means, unless that law be neutral with respect to the content of the information; except in in time of War, or when such content is deemed vital to the National Security.
[net neutrality is more important than the current net, and securing the flow of information to the People is critical to our success as a democracy over the next century]
31st Amendment
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable intrusions of their individual privacy, shall not be violated.
[we desperately need a privacy amendment]