What should the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution address?

[Big Boss]

Given the many problems that face our nation today, and just assuming you had the authority to ratify the 28th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution all by yourself, what issue(s) would you have the amendment address?

Some general issues to consider:

• The issue of corporate personhood.
• What powers are available to the executive branch and how it is organized.
• Equal rights across lines such as gender, sexual orientation, etc.

 

[Puppycow]

You presuppose that there should be a 28th amendment.
I haven't given it too much thought, but I'm not sure that there is such a need.

 

[Big Boss]

For the sake of this discussion, I did presuppose that, but I do acknowledge your position is entirely valid. I think there are certain strengths and unique qualities to amendment remedies that I guess I should make explicit.

First of all, the benefits of a Constitutional Amendment are 1. it is particularly difficult to repeal—the value of this is contingent upon the amendment enshrining a good law—and 2. to an extent, it uniquely defines what it means to be an American. I’m not really that patriotic, but when it comes to winning narrative battles in politics, I think a Constitutional Amendment is met with less hostility than laws passed through Congress. It's right there in the Constitution and hence is usually treated with more reverence. So I think channeling the highest priority issues through Article V remedies has merit in this regard.

Also, while not all issues require an Article V remedy, Congress doesn’t have unlimited power. For example, somebody could propose an explicit enumeration of powers and limits for the executive branch, which is similar to what Article I, Sections 8 & 9 did for Congressional powers and limits respectively. I’m pretty sure that requires a Constitutional Amendment. Any significant change in government structure of that nature probably does.

I personally support a unicameral legislature (specifically, I support abolishing the Senate) and I’m pretty sure Congress can’t, uh, pass a law that says one of the houses has got to go, haha.

Anyway, I guess I should have added from the beginning "Assuming you agree a Constitutional Amendment is an appropriate remedy for certain issues..." Again, your position is entirely valid.

 

[Philip]

I wish a balanced budget amendment had been passed thirty years ago.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Proportional representation and/or abolishing the Senate and Electoral College.

 

[T.A.M.]

Aborting your Senate would upset the balance of power, the checks and balances. How about removing the 60 seat filibuster rule. As for the Electoral College, sounds good.

But It isn't my country.

TAM

 

[quadraginta]

Aborting your Senate would upset the balance of power, the checks and balances. How about removing the 60 seat filibuster rule. As for the Electoral College, sounds good.

But It isn't my country.

TAM

Our Senate's filibuster rule is an idiosyncratic parliamentary procedure enacted by its members solely for that group and just as easily discontinued by the same mechanisms.

Setting aside reflections on the competence of Senators as a group or individually, I have to think that they are more experienced in the parliamentary minutiae of that body than most of us, and if a pressing need to divest themselves of this one rule should become apparent then they will do so. The fact is that it has the potential to be useful to all the various members at different times in their careers, and is generally decried when convenient by the parties suffering from its use at any given instance. Less so by parties aligned with the side employing it. Often these are the same people, just at different junctures in their careers. "A foolish consistency ..." and all that.

More generally, the Senate is intended by its very design to be the more deliberative of the two legislative bodies. Artifacts such as the filibuster reflect this philosophy. In short, it isn't supposed to be too easy to get a law through the Senate.

High on my list of "Things not to pass a constitutional amendment for." is any effort aimed at addressing particular, single issue complaints of relatively short term import. Amendments should provide guidelines for a philosophy of government, not enshrine disputed and potentially ephemeral opinions. We get enough legislation that does that already.

If people want to get rid of the filibuster all they have to do is get 60 (or maybe 67) senators into office who are committed to doing it. That would require a hell of a lot less votes than a constitutional amendment, and it really wouldn't matter what party they were.

 

[Dancing David]

I personally support a unicameral legislature (specifically, I support abolishing the Senate) and I’m pretty sure Congress can’t, uh, pass a law that says one of the houses has got to go, haha.

Sorry, it isn't going to happen any time soon, while originally established to allow the aristocracy a check on the masses, it was also established to force consensus through giving minorities the power to align and derail the majority. So the Senate functions exactly the way it is supposed to. While often frustrating to the executive and the House, that is its function, states like Rhode Island, Delaware and Massachusetts were concerned about Pennsylvania and Georgia when the COTUS was created, while frustrating it is a good balance on the majority.

The Senate is a very nice check on the House and on the President. The loss of the Senate would lead to the House and President to make sweeping changes without consensus. The abolition of the Senate is useful to the majority as long as it aligns with your views, and a detriment when it doesn’t.

At this point I do not feel there is a burning issue that will lead to an amendment to the COTUS, the point of the COTUS is that it is very hard to amend, the representative nature of the House and president are to allow the government some flexibility in response, the Senate and SCOTUS are to limit that change. The COTUS itself is meant to be stable and the flexibility is to come from the elected people.

 

[Dancing David]

Our Senate's filibuster rule is an idiosyncratic parliamentary procedure enacted by its members solely for that group and just as easily discontinued by the same mechanisms.

While often frustrating to the group in power the Senate filibuster rule exactly reflects the power the Senate is supposed to exert. One that allows the minorities to align to stall the majority. Now the two party system as it stands is a bigger issue as it leads to strange dominance in party politics, especially in the modern era.

 

[Dancing David]

Proportional representation and/or abolishing the Senate and Electoral College.

Well the Electoral College I understand, as it represents one of the stranger aspects of the representative system, envisioned by the founding people. They felt that there were times that the representatives would act for the best interests of the nation, even though it violated the will of the electorate, or that they could respond to some sort of take over bid by voting for someone else.

The idea is much like the Senate in that small states were to have the power to align to thwart the will of the majority. The COTUS is not meant to be a strict majority rule, there is a winner take all at the local level (and as determined by the States which could use a proportional representational system), but after the winner take all, there is supposed to be the consensus after that.

I think that the issue with proportional representation is that it allows for the parliamentary issue of people who are not really elected by the will of the electorate but by the party. But it might be possible for a state to somehow implement it.

 

[leftysergeant]

The idea that corporations have human rights is an absurdity that must be addressed directly and permanantly and irrevokably. That will take a constituional ammendment.

And we need to do it now or the carcinoma that corporations have become will kill us as a nation.

 

[Big Boss]

The Senate is a very nice check on the House and on the President. The loss of the Senate would lead to the House and President to make sweeping changes without consensus.

I'm not even sure what you mean here. What lack of consensus are you talking about? The consensus isn't being eliminated, it's being redefined to mean a majority of votes in the House and a signing by the President. The reason I don't view the Senate as a useful organ anymore though is because people are more divided across ideological lines than they are state lines, really. In the infancy of our nation, divisions across state lines meant a lot more than they do now.

And while the Senate was intended as a deliberative body meant to check the whims of the citizenry, I argue that the House can simply take on deliberative aspects of its own. The Senate just seems like an unnecessary means of adding a deliberative aspect to the legislature, and furthermore:

While often frustrating to the group in power the Senate filibuster rule exactly reflects the power the Senate is supposed to exert.

There is a big difference between a deliberative body and one frequently prone to unjustified obstructionism that pretty much halts governance. I think you'll be hard pressed to find proof that the filibuster has been recently and frequently invoked to facilitate useful deliberation of any sort. By the way, you know the threshold that needed to be crossed in order to avoid a filibuster was originally 67 votes, right? Not 60? Would you want us to return to the former threshold? Or is your sense of what "exactly reflects the power the Senate is supposed to exert" actually more arbitrary than you're leading on?

By the way, to everyone talking about filibuster reform, that doesn't need a Constitutional Amendment remedy, nor a remedy that involves getting a two-thirds majority in the Senate; I can't post the link (since I'm a newb), but there's a paper written by Gold & Gupta that says the filibuster rule can be undone when the next session of Congress begins and when the rules of the Senate are being written. And it can be undone by a simple majority vote (i.e. 51 votes), which the Democrats do have. Whether they all agree to act on that is anyone's guess.

 

[Beerina]

Aborting your Senate would upset the balance of power, the checks and balances. How about removing the 60 seat filibuster rule. As for the Electoral College, sounds good.

But It isn't my country.

TAM

60 seat filibuster is working as intended. Huge changes should not be made on small and transient majorities. That's utterly asinine.

In fact, I'd require all laws to:

1. Have a 2/3 supermajority
2. Automatically expire after 5 years unless explicitly renewed. This process repeats indefinitely.

...in addition to a balanced budget amendment.

 

[Big Boss]

My proposed amendment is pretty simple, though I'm sure not everyone's going to be a fan (and it will never happen in my lifetime):

1. The United States government shall take all the necessary steps to bring its laws, and the laws of the states, in keeping with Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

My proposed amendment is pretty simple, though I'm sure not everyone's going to be a fan (and it will never happen in my lifetime):

1. The United States government shall take all the necessary steps to bring its laws, and the laws of the states, in keeping with Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Absolutely not!

Such an Amendment would, in effect, turn the running of this country over to outside powers, not accountable to the American people. Under no circumstances should we ever even think of allowing that. We did not get to be the greatest country in the world by letting lesser countries tell us how to run our country.

 

[leftysergeant]

Absolutely not!

Such an Amendment would, in effect, turn the running of this country over to outside powers, not accountable to the American people. Under no circumstances should we ever even think of allowing that. We did not get to be the greatest country in the world by letting lesser countries tell us how to run our country.

Hypocritical. We just destroyed a country because we called them in violation of human rights as recognized througfhout most of the world.

We get to determine which nationsa are violating human rights, but the community of civilized nations world-wide don't get to set some minimal standards? I don't get it.

 

[Thunder]

edit the 14th Amendment to stipulate that the children of illegal immigrants are not instant citizens.

 

[Alferd_Packer]

edit the 14th Amendment to stipulate that the children of illegal immigrants are not instant citizens.

A slippery slope. One that defeats the original purpose of the amendment, that being to protect the citizens from the capricious will of local party politics.

 

[Big Boss]

Absolutely not!

Such an Amendment would, in effect, turn the running of this country over to outside powers, not accountable to the American people. Under no circumstances should we ever even think of allowing that.

What the—

The amendment merely states that our government should be up to a particular standard as far as how our law tackles human rights abuses. Your interpretation of my text is utterly absurd. This isn't a slippery slope to a New World Order or anything.

We did not get to be the greatest country in the world by letting lesser countries tell us how to run our country.

Haha, of course we can't have a discussion about the U.S. without someone reminding us that we're the best country ever, as well as implicitly or explicitly suggesting our moral superiority. And "lesser countries"? lol

 

[Alt+F4]

edit the 14th Amendment to stipulate that the children of illegal immigrants are not instant citizens.

You can't edit an amendment to the Constitution.