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The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

newyorker.com

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Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#241

Post by epicureanideal »

m-p-3 wrote: post #228
cm2187 wrote: post #222

Author complains these amendments cannot be passed because of political polarisation. That polarisation is the very reason why those amendments shouldn't pass. You can only change the constitution if there is a consensus, by design. If you want to make a change that half the country is dead against, all the systems of balance of power will work against it (two chambers - one by headcount the other by states, filibust…

So one way or another, the population will reach its breaking point, and the Constitution will change.

If a population not significantly a majority of the country “reaches a breaking point”, that sounds like it would not go well.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#242

Post by epicureanideal »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #220
trelane wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, interesting. How many have they tried experimentally?

Parliamentary systems are generally considered more stable than presidential systems and tend to more naturally express multiparty politics (Australia and UK not withstanding). Even while many people in the US might like the things a parliamentary system has to offer, there is no viable way to transition to one culturally. As much Americans hate how politics works presently, they hate the idea of replacing it even mo…

> Australia and UK not withstanding

..cites two of the most important examples

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#243

Post by jquery »

ern wrote: post #206
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Could you imagine if it were easy to amend? There would be a thousand amendments where every party in power amends to undo the last party's amendments. It's the supreme law of the entire country. Amendments shouldn't come easy.

No less a jurist than Antonin Scalia (one of the most conservative and intellectually formidable Supreme Court justices, whatever your opinion of his positions) thought that the US Constitution was too hard to amend: "Scalia said fewer than 2 percent of the population could prevent enactment of a constitutional amendment. “It ought to be hard, but not that hard" https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/how_scalia_and_…

Yeah. I agree that amending should be hard, it shouldn’t be subject to a simple 50%+1 vote count. But a supermajority should be enough. What we have is ridiculous. A supermajority of support is nowhere near enough to pass an amendment. It’s leading to the Supreme Court accruing more and more power in what’s becoming an unaccountable superlegislature. Ironically de facto giving the power to amend the Constitution to a *minority* of voters.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#244

Post by Arainach »

kcplate wrote: post #168
Arainach wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_system_of... The list is far longer than that.

How many of those countries on that list would you put forth as good examples of a stable political system? I counted five, and that’s being fairly generous since two of the five has had some political upheaval in the last 50 years.

I'd say that the election system for most of them inspires more confidence than the US at that point. At least they have the decency to train their vote-rigging poll watchers in private rather than in public.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/07/politics/michigan-gop-poll-wo...

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#245

Post by epicureanideal »

kritiko wrote: post #237
lupire wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congress passing laws saps power from the Supreme Court, and is easier than Amending the Constitution.

The Supreme Court can then strike down those laws via judicial review, a power not enumerated in the constitution.

> a power not enumerated in the constitution.

But at least with two hundred years of general acceptance, so clearly there was something to it.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#247

Post by Arainach »

midoridensha wrote: post #196
Arainach wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_system_of... The list is far longer than that.

Yeah, I just picked some representative examples out of that list. Check out the others: Brazil, Ecuador, Kenya, Liberia, Mexico, Paraguay, Venezuela, Zimbabwe for a few. None of these are what I'd consider stable, prosperous, well-run nations.

France, Portugal, South Korea, Ukraine, Romania, Costa Rica, Taiwan.....it's almost like you're intentionally ignoring all of the presidencies that meet your criteria.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#248

Post by Dracophoenix »

prottog wrote: post #66
nonethewiser wrote: post #51

Controversial policy cannot and should not become amendments. There is very little that everyone agrees that the government should do and the government is already very powerful. That's why constitutional amendments are so rare.

Absolutely! The constitution by its nature should dictate things that the overwhelming majority of people agree on, not the usual fifty percent plus one person slim margin that a lot of controversial policies end up being.

> Absolutely! The constitution by its nature should dictate things that the overwhelming majority of people agree on, not the usual fifty percent plus one person slim margin that a lot of controversial policies end up being.

You'd be surprised with how little people agreed with the Bill of Rights then and even now.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#249

Post by Dracophoenix »

gen220 wrote: post #158

In the US, we used to amend constitutions fairly regularly (at the Federal, State levels, but I’m most familiar with Federal and New York), especially through WWII. With a few exceptions (the prohibition is the biggest one that springs to mind), the trend line has generally been progressive. We stopped making meaningful changes around the 1960s, read into that what we may. Regardless, our governmental institutions ha…

The 11th and 16th amendments are ones that I argue shouldn't exist. They were ratified in reaction to Supreme court cases that respectively denied state immunity and federal powers.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#250

Post by jquery »

lupire wrote: post #224
johnnyanmac wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The fact is that our Constitution reduces voting rights for those that live in populous urban areas and gives outsized voting rights to those that live in rural/sparsely populated area yup, that was by intention. That's also exactly why the senate was erected; they didn't want smaller states to be ignored by campaigns that could ultimately just focus on enough electoral votes to win the election. >This rationale/com…

No, it was because the slave states didn't want to lose slavery in a Senate vote. If you think CA is too populous for it's people deserve an equal vote, CA should be 6 states. But the slavers fought that too (Missouri Compromise). State boundaries are legal constructs inherited from obsolete aristocracy, not meaningful cultural boundaries. It makes no sense to solve a hypothetical tyranny of large states by replacing…

Well said. Thank you. As a disenfranchised Californian I will bang this gavel until I die. The loss of the SALT deduction hit our finances tremendously. 1. Direct impact via higher taxes. 2. People fleeing the state for lower tax states because without the SALT deduction, we have a race to the bottom infrastructure-wise (not that we didn’t already, but the SALT deduction dampened the effect somewhat).

This is the kind of BS law that can only pass when small states get to run roughshod over large ones.

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