# How should the US Constitution be amended? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 25, 2020, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408 "2020-05-25T00:11:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/81 "2020-05-26T16:21:34Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > LOL sure. There is no treason against WV on the statutes or WV Consitution. Good luck with that. Sure there is. They just copied the parts about treason against Virginia from their original constitution and squeezed the word West in. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/82 "2020-05-26T17:07:52Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > 1. proportional representation for each state’s congressional delegation (This would get rid of congressional districts and the gerrymandering thereof And it also would get rid of the “minority-majority district” concept created in the aftermath of the Voting Rights Act, so you’d get pushback from the Black and Hispanic caucus. > [@dtilque](#): > > (Missed the edit window) Realized that the corporate tax laws wouldn’t quite work for churches. But some provision that requires donations to them and any other earnings to be taxed in the same manner as income is for companies. I could get behind a proposal to the effect of “Benefits and concessions granted in regards to the activities and goods of nonprofit service entities shall be uniform and there shall be no privileged condition accruing to being of a religious nature”, if you are going to make the churches pay taxes, or deny deductions for donations to them, you’d better make it so for any secular NPOs in a similar fiscal situation, too. > [@zamboniracer](#): > > I forgot to put this in my OP, but I would make it clear that only flesh and blood people constitute persons, and that corporate entities have no rights under the Constitution. Too broad. So corporations have _ **no** _ constitutional rights? So, the state can seize a corporate entity’s goods without compensation, then? What if the corporate person is the SEIU or NARAL, are they forbidden from supporting a candidate? The issue is not really legal personhood, that notion dates back to Roman Law and was part of the Common Law. The Legal Person had the right in its own name to private property (and to trade in it), making and signing contracts, to sue and be sued (with the concommicant procedural protections), engage agents and assigns, and make internal rules consistent with law. People’s problems are with its extension under case law to political and even to religious exercise rights of “the corporation” (meaning really the management). I don’t believe you need to abolish legal personhood to address that. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/83 "2020-05-26T18:23:40Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I don’t know about other countries with election day holidays, but that’s not the experience we have had. > > Sometimes 4 hours is not enough. > > And are those 4 hours paid? “we”?😕 Generally, the polls are open 12 hours, so that would give you 8 hours, and I have never needed more than 15 minutes. Yes. And again, how about police, firefighters, medical personel? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/84 "2020-05-26T18:27:49Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > I forgot to put this in my OP, but I would make it clear that only flesh and blood people constitute persons, and that corporate entities have no rights under the Constitution. So, we cant sue Corporations? Cant fine them, cant hold them legally responsible? They have no rights at all, then? States can simply confiscate all their assets at a whim? Corps having personhood goes back to the time of the Romans, and in the uSA has been at least since 1886. Yes, I know the fact that they can donate to Politicians is annoying, and Citizens United gets peoples danders up (it was a very bad law) , but that is not a solution. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/85 "2020-05-26T18:29:10Z")
Instead of making Election Day a national holiday, can we just move elections to the first Saturday and Sunday after the first Monday, along with mail-in ballots? Two (weekend) days to vote gets past most of the need to specify time off, and with any luck some of the breathless TV coverage (yeah, I know that isn’t going to happen). And sidesteps most religious objections, since I’m unaware of any religion that has two consecutive days of rest. And that is just a change to the current law, not an amendment. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/86 "2020-05-26T18:29:25Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Treason against the State of West Virginia. And yes, we will have a hearing on your motion to quash within 5 business days as required by statute. Meanwhile, Mr. President, what is your shirt size? We need to fit you for this orange jumpsuit for your jail cell until the hearing. That’s great. So a radical district simply arrests the President every five days. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/87 "2020-05-26T18:32:30Z")
> [@Folacin](#): > > Instead of making Election Day a national holiday, can we just move elections to the first Saturday and Sunday after the first Monday, along with mail-in ballots? T… Again, less voting, more vacationing. Where are people getting the idea that people arent voting due to work? Require vote by mail as a option for all would cover this. ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/88 "2020-05-26T19:06:17Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Sure there is. They just copied the parts about treason against Virginia from their original constitution and squeezed the word West in. I stand corrected. Anyone who thinks any US President should fear being prosecuted by this provision should have his head examined though. ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/89 "2020-05-26T19:08:44Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > So, we cant sue Corporations? Cant fine them, cant hold them legally responsible? They have no rights at all, then? States can simply confiscate all their assets at a whim? > > Corps having personhood goes back to the time of the Romans, and in the uSA has been at least since 1886. > > Yes, I know the fact that they can donate to Politicians is annoying, and Citizens United gets peoples danders up (it was a very bad law) , but that is not a solution. Your statements are all pretty far down the slippery slope. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/90 "2020-05-26T19:11:04Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > Your statements are all pretty far down the slippery slope. Have you studied the principle of corporate personhood? Do you know why it is part of common law in every free nation? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/91 "2020-05-26T19:20:19Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > Your statements are all pretty far down the slippery slope. His first paragraph is a pretty accurate description of what English common law has been for centuries, and then passed on to its colonies and former colonies. What part do you see as a slippery slope? Cause if it is, we’ve been at the bottom of it for a few hundred years. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/92 "2020-05-26T19:30:17Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > 1. The President’s power to pardon shall be limited in that the President may not pardon himself, the vice-president or any member of his administration. I would add that the president should only be allowed to pardon people for crimes they’ve been convicted of. Ford’s blanket pardon of Nixon still bothers me. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/93 "2020-05-26T19:41:07Z")
> [@Toxgoddess](#): > > Abolish the Electoral College. The President and Vice President should be chosen by direct vote. > > **The Electoral College was a compromise between those who wanted Congress to chose the President and those who wanted a direct election. The former thought the general population was too uninformed to make good choices for high office,** so that duty should only be entrusted to those knowledgeable enough to do so. Well, nice idea, but with states passing laws that electors have to vote for the winner of the state’s general election, and the Supreme Court apparently poised to uphold those laws, what is the freaking point of the EC now? By amplifying the voting power of states with small populations, it means votes of people in places like Wyoming count for more than votes from people in New York or California, which is fundamentally unfair. And it failed utterly in 2016 to protect us from our bad choices, possibly the first time it was ever needed to function in this capacity. It’s a failed experiment. Get rid of it. [That group may have had a pretty good point.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOndq19YkpE) ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/94 "2020-05-26T19:46:01Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > And it also would get rid of the “minority-majority district” concept created in the aftermath of the Voting Rights Act, so you’d get pushback from the Black and Hispanic caucus. Negative on this. The FRA requires single transferable voting, which generally requires far less than a majority of votes cast. In a five-member district, for example, a candidate can win a seat with about 16.7% of the votes cast. A boon for minorities and third party voters. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/95 "2020-05-26T19:51:49Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > This is a really bad idea that for some reason keeps coming up in these types of threads. > > It seems to assume that laws are bad and we should get rid of them. But laws are what hold our civil society together. > > Do you want the title to your house, your car, and your bank accounts to be subject to legislative review every ten years? Because property law is largely statutory in the States, having been codified from the common law. > > Do you want any contracts that you are a party to, to suddenly disappear every ten years? Because contract law is largely statutory. > > If you hold stocks in a corporation, do you want to run the risk that those stocks go “poof” if the corporate law doesn’t get re-enacted in time? > > If you’re happily married, do you want to risk having your marriage dissolved every ten years, unless the legislature re-passes the marriage laws? > > If you’re divorced with kids, do you want to risk having your custody and access rights disappear on the sunset of the divorce act? And to have all your property, alimony and child support settlement, and rights to enforce it in court, disappear? > > If you’re in the middle of probating one of your parent’s estates, do you want to risk all the probate rules disappearing because the sunset came on the probate law and the legislature couldn’t get the new law passed, so you and your crazy siblings have to come to an agreement on your own over who gets what? > > Do you want your rights as a consumer to be subject to legislative review every ten years? Just when you’ve bought a lemon car, for instance, and the dealer is being uncooperative in fixing it? Especially since the warranty may have gone poof (see entry on contract law, above). > > And do you want the risk that the criminal law may potentially all disappear every ten years, both the substantive offences, and the laws holding convicted felons in jail? No valid criminal law means Jake the Snake can drive off with your car without committing any criminal offence. And it may not be your car any more anyway (see entry on property law, above). And if there’s no statutory law authorising the state corrections system to hold convicted felons, constitutional law says they have to be released. > > And of course, a lot of courts could disappear every ten years if the statutes creating them aren’t re-enacted in time. So even if you have some sort of common law or constitutional right that you want to enforce, there may not be a court that can hear your claim. > > And the thing is, re-enacting all of those laws will take a lot of time and effort by the legislatures, meaning that they may not be able to address significant new issues, because they have to get the entire law book law re-enacted before the sunset. > > This proposal also assumes that the legislatures are functional, not dysfunctional. As a hypothetical, what would happen if the sunset is coming for a lot of Washington state laws this spring? :smack: “Oh no, the rules might change!” Bad laws should be changed and governments evaluated by their results in making laws that are optimal. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/96 "2020-05-26T20:06:49Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > We should copy the constitutions of other countries that have more successfully managed democratic outcomes than we have. > > I would not be sad to see the institution of the presidency just disappear and instead move to a parliamentary government with the speaker of the house effectively being the prime minister of government. > > I would also outlaw gerrymandering and make districting more standardized. > > I’m sure I could think of more but this is a good start. Actually, that sounds like a pretty good idea. I’m sure that there are quite a few Western-style democracies with constitutions that, while modeled on the US Constitution, have been constructed so as to avoid unforeseen flaws in the 1789 version. In cases where this avoidance has proven successful, we could probably do worse than to emulate. Oh, and: Amendment 28: _The Republican Party is hereby banned, and its fiscal assets (as calculated on January 19, 2017) are awarded to **Kaylasdad99**. Its fiscal liabilities as of that date are assigned to the father-in-law of Jared Kushner._ ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/97 "2020-05-26T20:18:55Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > 1. proportional representation for each state’s congressional delegation (This would get rid of congressional districts and the gerrymandering thereof > [@JRDelirious](#): > > And it also would get rid of the “minority-majority district” concept created in the aftermath of the Voting Rights Act, so you’d get pushback from the Black and Hispanic caucus. That kind of gerrymandering would be pushed to a different place. As I understand it, in Proportional Representation, each party puts up a list of candidates before the election. Ater it’s determined that a certain party gets N seats, the top N people on its list get those seats. There’s nothing that says these lists can’t be gerrymandered. A party that wants to appeal to a certain minority group can guarantee a minimum number of positions on its list to members of that minority. For example, say a party usually gets about 8 seats from a state and roughly 25% of that party’s voters are black. So the party guarantees at least 1 of the first 3 and 2 of the first 7 positions on its list go to blacks. This can be extended to other groups that don’t currently have minority-majority districts, such as women. The main thing is to make sure everyone understands that these are minimums and not maximums. ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/98 "2020-05-26T21:03:04Z")
Make invasion of privacy by any means unconstitutional. If evidence is needed a warrant needs to be issued and it needs to be proven in court that the warrant was necessary. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/99 "2020-05-26T21:11:57Z")
> [@Red\_Wiggler](#): > > “Oh no, the rules might change!” > > Bad laws should be changed and governments evaluated by their results in making laws that are optimal. Hey, the law against murder falls off the books tonite, but the legislature is deadlocked. Time to go on a spree! ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/100 "2020-05-26T21:25:30Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > “we”?😕 South Africa > [@](#): > > Generally, the polls are open 12 hours, so that would give you 8 hours, and I have never needed more than 15 minutes. People here sometimes queue all day. > [@](#): > > Yes. > > And again, how about police, firefighters, medical personel? What about them? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408.md?page=6)