Constitutional Convention - what should be proposed?

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is a break-off from something mentioned in the late 2023 Speaker of the House thread. I have been maintaining a list of “things that people have mentioned should be brought up as amendments in the Constitutional Convention everyone thinks we should call,” and would like to know what you would recommend be changed in the Constitution.

A few examples from my list (note that these are not necessarily things that I want changed):

The President and Vice-President of the United States shall be elected by plurality vote of the people. Congress shall have the right to make and enforce legislation as to how an election for President or Vice-President is conducted.

The power of the President to grant pardons does not extend to granting a pardon to themself.

Congress shall have the power to restrict patents when it is in the public interest (e.g. remove any patents on insulin that prevent cheaper generic versions from being marketed).

No person shall be eligible to hold the office of President or Vice-President, or serve as Acting President or Acting Vice-President, who was not eligible to be elected President at the beginning of the term in which they take office. (This gets rid of the “the 22nd Amendment only prevents, say, Obama from being elected President again; it says nothing about his becoming President through other methods” loophole.)

The first sentence of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment (which grants automatic citizenship to anyone born in the USA) is repealed; however, no person who is a citizen shall have their citizenship revoked because of this amendment, and all persons born to two people, both of whom are citizens at the time of the person’s birth, are considered natural born citizens.

The Congress shall have the right to impose a tax on a person’s wealth. (Right now, the only federal taxes allowed are (a) on income, and (b) a “per capita” tax that has to be the same for each person.)

Note that there is one thing that cannot be changed by amendment, but would require a complete rewriting of the Constitution: the right of every state to have at least as many Senators as every other state.

2

Doesn’t Congress already have that power? The Constitution says Congress can set a time period when an inventor has exclusive rights to a discovery. If Congress decided that insulin should enter the public domain, they could enact a law setting the time period to one hour.

3

First thing: get rid of the electoral college. I would want election of pres and vp by majority, using a runoff if needed. Or maybe an instant runoff, like in Alaska.

If that proves impossible, at least get rid of the time-bomb inherent in the current constitution. Imagine a third party candidate wins enough states to deprive the major party candidates a majority. Imagine, also that the congressional vote is sufficiently close that there are 24 states with a Republican delegation, 24 with a Democratic delegation and 2 states whose delegation are split. Then no one can be elected. If you don’t believe me, read the 12th amendment that requires a majority of the states to choose the president. Not a majority of the states voting, but of all the states. This bomb just failed to go off in 1948, but it easily could have.

I would not abandon birthright citizenship. I don’t see what harm it has done.

Ban taxation of non-resident citizens (that is my own desire; it is not that important). It is one of two countries in the world that does it (Ethiopia is the other).

Ban gerrymandering for congressional districts.

Ban most voting restrictions. If necessary, issue national ID cards that must be acceptable for voting and make them free like SS cards.

Restrict the terms of Supreme Court justices to 18 years with 2 expiring in every congressional term.

Impose rules on congress to prevent filibusters.

I could go on forever, but I will stop here.

4

Adopt the Canadian constitution with a few tweaks like ranked choice voting for MPs and leaving out special clauses regarding Francophones.

I do admit to a little worry about who a Republican PM would advise King Charles to appoint as governor general. Maybe the sovereign needs to be given the clear power to ask for another name if sent a partisan choice.

5

Is this really a problem that needs fixing? It doesn’t bother me that everyone born here is a citizen.

6

I’m trying to wrap my head around this one.

If Mom and Dad are US citizens living in a foreign country, their child born there is a U.S. citizen; but if Mom and Dad are in the US, and only one of them is a US citizen, and their child is born in the US, then their child isn’t an American citizen? Could the child be deported?

7

Good thing you said “most.” Given my druthers, I’d add one: that anyone wishing to vote or hold office must pass the same test given to citizenship applicants.

(Yes, I’m well aware that Jim Crow-era “literacy tests” have poisoned the idea of voting qualifications beyond redemption. But I’d still like to see those who would exercise the power of the franchise demonstrate at least a rudimentary knowledge of civics.)

8

I don’t think they can do it one by one, though. They can set how long a patent lasts, but they have to set it for all patents. They can’t just do the patent for insulin, and leave the patent for iPhones alone.

I’d go in completely the opposite direction, and include something that guarantees citizenship to people who came here as children, and have spent basically their whole lives here. Resolve the whole Dreamer thing once and for all.

9

The problem with a constitutional convention is that unlike the amendment process, a convention theoretically puts the entire system up for revision. It could in principle abolish democracy, impose a theocracy, institute military rule, revive slavery, establish a caste system, annihilate the states and redraw the country as districts of the central government, or in general alter the country beyond recognition.

The last time we had a constitutional convention, the one that replaced the Articles of Confederation, was at a time when the central government had effectively no power to impose anything the states didn’t approve, and each state had little or no power to impose its particular vision of what the country ought to be on another state. This would be far from the case today.

My fear is that the entire Enlightenment philosophy of human rights and government by consent of the people would be replaced by a system in which in exchange for certain entitlements called “rights” the system as a whole, claiming in a Soviet sense to be the incarnation of the masses, would have near-absolute authority over individuals, supposedly in the name of the greater good. This has historically not worked out well at all. Whatever shining ideals it laid claim to, this would more or less be a return to a Hobbesian view of government and society.

10

add sexual and gender orientation to the list of non-discrimitory amendments

and add the line saying there’s a legal freedom of religion and a legal freedom from religion

11

Careful. What if a nutjob Congress votes to require elections to be held in a fashion that’ll keep themselves in power?

I disagree vehemently. Refusing birthright citizenship creates a permanent class of people who effectively have no country. And requiring that the child of a citizen and a non-citizen can’t be a citizen would be horrendous for a whole lot of families.

That’s better than by plurality. Do we really want to potentially wind up with an executive branch elected by, say, 32% of the country?

But yeah. The electoral college doesn’t work. The one useful thing it could potentially have accomplished it in practice in modern times didn’t and won’t do.

There’s a good idea – if it’s possible to come up with a clear definition.

What if Mom doesn’t know who Dad is? Maybe he’s a citizen, maybe he’s not.

Why just children? What about somebody who came here at 27 and has been here 30 years without causing trouble, pillar of the community?

I’d make it something more like 10 years (though you could probably argue me into 5) – if you’ve been here 10 years and haven’t caused any significant trouble and want to be a citizen and can pass the test, go ahead. Probably fewer years if you were younger than, say, 16 when you arrived.

Oh, and we need to rewrite the 2nd Amendment so that it says something coherent. Preferably not that anybody and everybody has to have access to firearms without any restrictions.

Yup. That’s why we shouldn’t have one. But it’s fun to discuss what we’d put in if we did have one.
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ETA:

Both good ideas; though the second one might need some careful wording. And we never got the ERA in there, either.

Oh! and Corporations are not persons, and therefore not citizens, and do not have the rights of citizens.

However, ecosystems and their nonhuman residents, while not citizens, do have rights. (Figuring out how to word them is more than I’m up to right now.)

12

You’ve got my vote.

13

The problem with everyone voting for President like a local election - can you imagine every county in the US doing recounts with a 0.5% difference in the popular vote?

14

I’m mainly interested in fixing Congress.

  • Speaker of the House and President Pro Tempore of the Senate are now non-partisan appointed offices selected from amongst the civil service and are responsible for bringing any legislation to the floor, regardless of party affiliation, if it appears to have sufficient support to pass
  • If one house refuses to hold a vote on a bill passed by the other house, it proceeds to the president’s desk for signature as if it had been passed by them (same for appointments that require Senate confirmation)
  • Both houses shall be apportioned equally among states based on population; states with too small a population to support one senator or representative get to share with a neighboring state; Senate is still at-large within the state/states, while the House district one votes in is now assigned randomly after each reapportioning or upon re-registering to vote in a new state
  • If Congress fails to pass a budget, all currently authorized spending is automatically reauthorized for another year at the current rate + inflation
  • Abolish filibuster, debt limit, and the requirement for unanimous consent for procedural motions
  • All votes to be by secret ballot
  • Noone convicted of a felony is eligible to be elected; any member indicted for a felony is suspended from office until found not guilty or charges are dropped; suspended members may be replaced by a Senator/Representative Pro Tempore selected according to state law but may not be a family member or a current or former employee of said congressman’s office or campaign
  • All members are to be considered under oath and subject to penalty of perjury at all times while in office
15

Amendment TC01: E. R. f’ing A. And let’s add in LGBTQ folks while we’re at it. And bodily autonomy.

Amendment TC02: The right of Eminent Domain shall be used ONLY for conversion to public land and full and free public use. It may not be used on behalf of any commercial venture or profit making enterprise (including, but not limited to toll roads).

Amendment TC03: No non-governmental, local or private entity (including, but not limited to HOAs) shall have the right to restrict pro-environment actions taken by a landowner. (e.g. planting alternate groundcovers or installing solar panels.)

Amendment TC04: All electrical utilities, upon receiving excess electricity from homes and small businesses with solar panels, wind mills, hydroelectric or other renewable electrical generators shall credit the account at the same rate concurrently charged for electricity. Balances to be settled at east annually, or when the positive balance reaches five figures, whichever happens first.

16

You have identified a weakness of National Popular Vote proposals, regardless of whether part of a constitutional change. And it is a reason why the proposed convention should jettison the perils of presidentialism and adopt a parliamentary system. Not only would recounts be limited to a few ridings, but, also, the results of the recount, for the nation, are less likely to be earthshaking.

17

Many of the proposals in this thread are tweaks to the existing constitution designed to push things in a slightly more progressive direction. It will not be easier to pass that stuff in a convention than as regular amendments, since you still need 3/4 of the states to ratify.

Currently, the U.S. Constitution is a civic religion in the U.S., conceivably, in part, because of the decline in supernatural religion. Few Americans think the constitution gives us an inferior form of democracy, so there is no reason for a convention that could change the whole system. However, as recently as the 1940’s, when the U.S. imposed parliamentary democracy on Japan, we didn’t have such excessive reverence for an outdated form of democracy. There would have to be a less sentimental attachment to the current presidential system before a convention would make sense.

18

Except that a Constitutional Convention in and of itself has no power. Any amendments it proposes still have to be ratified by 3/4 of the states (Article V of the Constitution). Even the original Constitution was not in effect until 9 of the 13 original states ratified it.

Meanwhile, here are a couple of others from my current list:

The Congress, and the States, shall have the power to set restrictions on the number of terms that a person may serve as a member of Congress from that state.

When a state conducts an election of all of its House of Representatives members, each voter shall cast a vote for one political party, as defined by that state, and the state’s Representatives shall be apportioned among the parties in direct proportion to the number of votes received for that party in the state. (That’s one way to get rid of gerrymandering; the only problem is, you still need districts in order to prevent all of a state’s Representatives from coming from a particular area, thus leaving the rest of the state without an effective voice in Congress.)

19

If we’re re-doing the document then we can leave out the 22nd amendment altogether. It was just effort by the Republicans to rob us of our voting rights.

And while we’re at it, every citizen of majority age gets to vote unless that right has been removed by due process of law on an individual basis.

And anyone born in the United States is an American citizen. If a newborn baby is lucky enough to be born here they are due the rights granted by the Constitution no matter the status of their parents.

20

Why have any reduction in voting rights?