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America’s Fragile Constitution

theatlantic.com

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Re: America’s Fragile Constitution

#71

Post by eli_gottlieb »

dragontamer wrote: post #61
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is nothing wrong with the US that cannot be fixed with what is right with the US. Ok. If you really believe in America and the American people, then why shouldn't we do as the article suggests, and call a Constitutional Convention, or use an Amendment to shift to a more parliamentary system that better represents the will of the American people, with less waste and gridlock and greater efficiency and coherence…

Because your ideas suck. If you have an actual idea that will stop the gridlock in Congress, I'm all ears. But all you've done is complain and then throw out unreasonable assertions. Second, I listen to CSpan virtually every day. The number of issues the typical Congressman goes through each day is huge. Whether you recognize it or not, Congress is a policy machine , with dozens of committees discussing many dozens o…

>If you have an actual idea that will stop the gridlock in Congress, I'm all ears.

There was a whole article of ideas. One of the most effective is also the most obvious: the majority vote. Congress is gridlocked because it's too hard to get an up-or-down vote on bills.

From there, we can shift to a mixed-member proportional representation system, which will fix even more of the gridlock - especially pork - by ensuring that votes for local issues and votes for national-scale ideologies go through separate channels.

Re: America’s Fragile Constitution

#72

Post by eli_gottlieb »

crusso wrote: post #60
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, sure, right. The Constitution can never fail us, we can only fail it. That surely doesn't sound like you're talking about a god /s.

I didn't say that the Constitution couldn't fail us. It could definitely use some tweaks here and there, like with term limits for all government officials, disambiguation of some of the language, strengthening of states' rights, addressing some more modern concepts like "privacy", etc. But what I am saying is that our current problems are mostly in spite of the Constitution, not because of it.

So what you're saying is that what the Constitution needs is even less democracy and even more oligarchy?

Re: America’s Fragile Constitution

#73

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

WalterBright wrote: post #6
dynomight wrote: post #3

The separation of powers seems to be our only saving grace at the moment. The notion that one style of government is appropriate for all peoples in all places seems absurd. The US constitution was written up by and for people in a particular place and situation and the tensions that existed then look to have escalated to the civil war and these tensions look to remain today. It's interesting to read the anti-federali…

What we have is a triumvirate with hammer-paper-scissors powers. Triumvirates in history have tended to be stable governments over longer periods. I think the article makes a mistake in not mentioning the 3rd branch - the Judiciary.

Direct election of senators was a huge mistake that has dramatically restructured the balance of power. There were originally four branches. The state governments were way more powerful.

Re: America’s Fragile Constitution

#74

Post by ckozlowski »

vacri wrote: post #65
ckozlowski wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My apologies. I thought the "stale" comment was directed at the third amendment in particular. Most of what I was offering my rebuttal on was this: >all suggest that there are things wrong with the American constitution. Depending on your interpretation of "Wrong", I'd either agree or disagree. But the general point I was trying to make was that I don't find too many flaws with the examples you provided, and with reg…

The thing is, you can appreciate a thing and admire it, and still see room for improvement. To claim there is nothing wrong with the US constitution (as the OP did) is to take a religiose view of it. One other flaw I just put to wtbob below is that the way the document structures elections, the result is a two-party system that simply cannot adequately represent hundreds of millions of people of diverse backgrounds.…

I agree with that. If there's one persistently leveled "flaw" in the structure of things, it was the failure to take into account the impact of political parties. There was far more concern about varying regional interests than political orientation.

Re: Germany, (I live abroad in Germany right now, it's fascinating to watch) The fascinating thing was in this latest election, her party very nearly won an outright majority, meaning it would have required no partners at all. I think the CSU/CDU felt just short of the 51% required. There's never been such a sweeping victory of that scale since the party's inception in the 50's.

Re: America’s Fragile Constitution

#75

Post by ckozlowski »

mvymvy wrote: post #68
ckozlowski wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a product of it's time. And there were real reasons at the time for a number of those elements. - The electoral college was mean to provide a bit of separation between the population and election to the Presidential office. Remember, in the 1790s, direct election of what was envisioned as a powerful post worried many. While it is largely a formality now, the electoral college provided a degree of separation to…

A majority of the states appointed their presidential electors in the nation's first presidential election in 1789 by appointment by the legislature or by the governor and his cabinet. Presidential electors were appointed by state legislatures for almost a century. The Founding Fathers in the Constitution did not require states to allow their citizens to vote for president, much less award all their electoral votes b…

I looked back over that bit I wrote and felt it could have been a lot better. You're right, there's rarely been deviation between the popular vote and the electoral. It was envisioned that the electoral college would rarely produce a clear result, and when this system was implemented, many of those state laws you mentioned did not exist. (If I recall correctly, many of them came about after the Gore vs. Bush contest.

I do recall direct representation being a cited concern, though I agree that yes, it's original function doesn't seem to have been needed. But I couldn't tell you if that's because it's never been tested, or if it's because of the structure thereof that's prevented a test.

Re: America’s Fragile Constitution

#76

Post by mvymvy »

tsotha wrote: post #70
mvymvy wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country. The national popular vote winner would receive all of the 270+ electoral votes of the enacting states. The bill ensures that every vote, in every state, will matter equally in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in…

It will also probably be thrown out by the courts, too. Compacts between the states have to be approved by congress.

Congressional consent is not required for the National Popular Vote compact under prevailing U.S. Supreme Court rulings. However, because there would undoubtedly be time-consuming litigation about this aspect of the compact, National Popular Vote is working to introduce a bill in Congress for congressional consent.

The U.S. Constitution provides: "No state shall, without the consent of Congress,… enter into any agreement or compact with another state…."

Although this language may seem straight forward, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, in 1893 and again in 1978, that the Compacts Clause can "not be read literally." In deciding the 1978 case of U.S. Steel Corporation v. Multistate Tax Commission, the Court wrote: "Read literally, the Compact Clause would require the States to obtain congressional approval before entering into any agreement among themselves, irrespective of form, subject, duration, or interest to the United States.

"The difficulties with such an interpretation were identified by Mr. Justice Field in his opinion for the Court in [the 1893 case] Virginia v. Tennessee. His conclusion [was] that the Clause could not be read literally [and this 1893 conclusion has been] approved in subsequent dicta."

Specifically, the Court's 1893 ruling in Virginia v. Tennessee stated: "Looking at the clause in which the terms 'compact' or 'agreement' appear, it is evident that the prohibition is directed to the formation of any combination tending to the increase of political power in the states, which may encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States."

The state power involved in the National Popular Vote compact is specified in Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 the U.S. Constitution: "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors…."

In the 1892 case of McPherson v. Blacker (146 U.S. 1), the Court wrote: "The appointment and mode of appointment of electors belong exclusively to the states under the constitution of the United States"

The National Popular Vote compact would not "encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States" because there is simply no federal power -- much less federal supremacy -- in the area of awarding of electoral votes in the first place.

Re: America’s Fragile Constitution

#77

Post by tsotha »

mvymvy wrote: post #76
tsotha wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will also probably be thrown out by the courts, too. Compacts between the states have to be approved by congress.

Congressional consent is not required for the National Popular Vote compact under prevailing U.S. Supreme Court rulings. However, because there would undoubtedly be time-consuming litigation about this aspect of the compact, National Popular Vote is working to introduce a bill in Congress for congressional consent. The U.S. Constitution provides: "No state shall, without the consent of Congress,… enter into any agree…

In other words, it's unconstitutional but the court is willing to ignore the constitution. Lovely.

Re: America’s Fragile Constitution

#78

Post by tsotha »

ubernostrum wrote: post #30
InclinedPlane wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fallacy here is that deadlocks are a bad thing, usually they are not. You don't want a slim majority being able to drive the government at a breakneck pace. When society is deadlocked, government should be too. You want action only when there is fairly broad agreement.

"Deadlock is good" works in a system where the disagreeing sides are reasonable and willing to debate and compromise to produce a solution with broader support. That is not the system we have: we have a fully-polarized system in which each major party's agenda consists primarily of ensuring that the maximum number of items from the other party's agenda to be enacted will be zero (I say "maximum", because rolling back…

Actually, deadlock should be the normal state of affairs. The world doesn't change that much from year to year that the federal legislature has to do a whole lot.

People who complain about "deadlock" are really complaining Congress isn't implementing their legal and budgetary priorities. But that isn't because there's something wrong; that's because not enough of their countrymen agree.

Re: America’s Fragile Constitution

#79

Post by mvymvy »

tsotha wrote: post #77
mvymvy wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congressional consent is not required for the National Popular Vote compact under prevailing U.S. Supreme Court rulings. However, because there would undoubtedly be time-consuming litigation about this aspect of the compact, National Popular Vote is working to introduce a bill in Congress for congressional consent. The U.S. Constitution provides: "No state shall, without the consent of Congress,… enter into any agree…

In other words, it's unconstitutional but the court is willing to ignore the constitution. Lovely.

No. It's not unconstitutional.

In the 1978 case of U.S. Steel Corporation v. Multistate Tax Commission, the compact at issue specified that it would come into force when seven or more states enacted it. The compact was silent as to the role of Congress. The compact was submitted to Congress for its consent. After encountering fierce political opposition from various business interests concerned about the more stringent tax audits anticipated under the compact, the compacting states proceeded with the implementation of the compact without congressional consent. U.S. Steel challenged the states' action. In upholding the constitutionality of the implementation of the compact by the states without congressional consent, the U.S. Supreme Court applied the interpretation of the Compacts Clause from its 1893 holding in Virginia v. Tennessee, writing that: "the test is whether the Compact enhances state power quaod [with regard to] the National Government."

The Court also noted that the compact did not "authorize the member states to exercise any powers they could not exercise in its absence."

Re: America’s Fragile Constitution

#80

Post by crusso »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #72
crusso wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say that the Constitution couldn't fail us. It could definitely use some tweaks here and there, like with term limits for all government officials, disambiguation of some of the language, strengthening of states' rights, addressing some more modern concepts like "privacy", etc. But what I am saying is that our current problems are mostly in spite of the Constitution, not because of it.

So what you're saying is that what the Constitution needs is even less democracy and even more oligarchy?

So what you're saying is that you hate America and the idea of individual freedom?

See what I did there? When we twist each other's words and don't even try to understand each other, a medium such as this becomes less than useless.

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