# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/141 "2020-05-28T02:51:41Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > If mobs of people totally unwilling to respect personal boundaries, potentially carrying a fatal disease, openly congregating, is not an affirmation that there IS a use for an AR-15, I don’t know what the fuck is. This is literally “zombie apocalypse” times. I’d rather live in a society with fewer guns and a shared sense of collective responsibility. There’s a need for people with AR-15s - that’s why we have the military. America’s not the only gun culture but it’s probably the dumbest gun culture on the planet. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/142 "2020-05-28T03:46:07Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > I’d rather live in a society with fewer guns and a shared sense of collective responsibility. Yeah, so would I. But I don’t live there. ---
**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 28, 2020, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/143 "2020-05-28T03:48:53Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > I’d rather live in a society with fewer guns and a shared sense of collective responsibility. I can see how you could achieve fewer guns by legislative means. But I don’t see how you could legislate for a shared sense of collective responsibility. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/144 "2020-05-28T04:24:36Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > That’s an interesting approach. But why not just use the House of Representatives as the body which chooses the President? It seems like you’re creating a separate body that is selected by the same means. I don’t want the Executive branch to be tied like that to the Legislative branch. (Granted, they get involved if the Electoral College doesn’t produce a majority, but at least it’s a fallback and not a necessity.) I like my government to have proper checks and balances. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/145 "2020-05-28T04:40:29Z")
The concept of one vote per representative should be abolished for the concept of one vote per representative per person voting for them in their last election. Anyone getting over X% of the vote gets a seat in the legislature, which I’m sure the major parties will make unduly high to prevent any other parties from arising, but that would be fine in general. We’d probably round off the numbers to take into consideration the statistical variation inherent in the counting process and questionably interpretable ballots, as part of the reason for making this suggestion is to prevent the possibility of statistical ties like with the Al Franken Senate election (or 2000 Presidential election) leading to a winner not being named immediately. Under this system, both of the candidates would get equal voting power. Make significant changes to the Senate: their main powers will be advice and consent on appointment of Cabinet officials, judges, ratification of treaties, and investigation into the conduct of the executive branch, including removal of officials for misconduct. The House would no longer have the same investigative power, but focus solely on passing laws. Such investigative power would be in the power of each individual serving in the Senate, and the majority could not block an investigation. The Senate would also have the power to make the House reconsider legislature, but the most they could ever do is force the House to pass the bill again after the next election. They would also have to actively exercise this power within a certain amount of time since the bill passed the House, and may need a supermajority of members to block legislation the maximum amount allowed. The details of this system are malleable, the important bits being a newly elected House could override their block by passing the bill again, and that the Senate must actively hold a vote stating their intention to block the legislation and if they failed to hold a formal vote in time, too bad. They would presumably be aware of the bill making its way through committee and would have time to express their informal displeasure before it was formally passed, but they wouldn’t be required to act on it for it to be submitted to the President. Overriding a President’s veto would work as it does now, though again the Senate’s approval of the bill (and thus override of the veto by the necessary supermajority) would be the assumption if the Senate does not act for so many days after the President rejects the bill. Similarly, any nomination of a Cabinet member, judge, or request for ratification of a treaty would automatically be passed without need of a vote after a certain time period elapsed without the Senate having acted on it. The time for each such action would likely differ and be longer than for laws since they’d have less chance to see it coming. – The Electoral College does do one thing very well: it isolates the need for recounts. If the presidential popular vote is close, every single state would have to recount. Now only those states that are close need to. Not exactly a hugely compelling argument, but something to take into consideration. ---
**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 28, 2020, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/146 "2020-05-28T06:02:34Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > I don’t want the Executive branch to be tied like that to the Legislative branch. (Granted, they get involved if the Electoral College doesn’t produce a majority, but at least it’s a fallback and not a necessity.) I like my government to have proper checks and balances. I don’t know. It seems to me that even if you have a separate body, the fact that its members are being chosen by essentially the same method means it will produce the same result. Your Board of Electors will be chosen by the same voters who choose the House of Representatives and, for that reason, will probably choose the same President that the House would have picked. ---
**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 28, 2020, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/147 "2020-05-28T06:06:29Z")
> [@glowacks](#): > > The Electoral College does do one thing very well: it isolates the need for recounts. If the presidential popular vote is close, every single state would have to recount. Now only those states that are close need to. Not exactly a hugely compelling argument, but something to take into consideration. I agree that this is a legitimate issue. If we had direct popular elections, candidates would have a reason to challenge votes all over the country rather than in just a few swing states. But I feel that this problem that would be caused by direct popular elections would be far outweighed by the problems that would be solved by direct popular elections. ---
**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 28, 2020, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/148 "2020-05-28T10:18:53Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Nothing magical about in person voting. …said the person who didn’t have to fight for his right to vote. In-person voting _is_ magical. Slipping that ballot into the box is amazing > [@](#): > > Why do i have to go back and search when all you had to type a line that was just as long as the line you had to type to NOT give me a honest answer. Firstly - because I already typed it, and I’m not your typing monkey Secondly - are you saying my answer was dishonest? > [@](#): > > No, actually it cant. Are you saying your much-vaunted Constitution is merely hypocritical and sanctimonious talk? No disagreements here. Or (reading that as “can’t”) -that it’s actually \*impossible \*to craft an amendment to declare a holiday? > [@](#): > > South Africa, with it’s extremely poor history of democracy, is not a nation we want to emulate. Says the guy posting from a country where the popular vote doesn’t even count. Tell me more about democracy, please… When \*our \*president was a corrupt thief, we (eventually) got rid of him. Seems our democracy is working just fine. Also, we know how to correctly use apostrophes here, so there’s that. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/149 "2020-05-28T10:29:43Z")
Little Nemo: > [@](#): > > I don’t know. It seems to me that even if you have a separate body, the fact that its members are being chosen by essentially the same method means it will produce the same result. Your Board of Electors will be chosen by the same voters who choose the House of Representatives and, for that reason, will probably choose the same President that the House would have picked. It’s certainly possible that that will be the outcome, but it’s also very possible that people want to see different strengths in a President than in a Congressperson. How many years have the Presidency and the House been held by different parties? And generally, the reason was not an Electoral College majority composed of a popular vote minority. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/150 "2020-05-28T10:35:33Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > If mobs of people totally unwilling to respect personal boundaries, potentially carrying a fatal disease, openly congregating, is not an affirmation that there IS a use for an AR-15, I don’t know what the fuck is. This is literally “zombie apocalypse” times. Interestingly, those are the same idiots who also appear to be very “pro AR-15”. I’m guessing you live someplace relatively rural and isolated? I ask, because it seems to me that it’s mostly people who live out in rural areas who act like this is a “zombie apocalypse” or that the world is coming to an end. Probably because their entire view of it is what they see on 24 hour news coverage. I live across the river from Manhattan, which experienced the highest number of cases anywhere. From my perspective, the world is not “coming to an end”. People are wearing masks and you can’t eat in restaurants or bars, but people are generally out and about (keeping their distance mostly), the power grid isn’t in danger, and grocery stores are pretty much stocked. Looking at the actual data, to me it seems like the virus is mostly managed now. At the very least, it is no longer exponentially out of control like it was a few months ago. > **[An interactive visualization of COVID-19 | 91-DIVOC](http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/)** > > An interactive, data-forward visualization of COVID-19 data by Prof. Wade at The University of Illinois. Updated daily. So now the problem is shifting to how to safely reopen the economy. ---
**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 28, 2020, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/151 "2020-05-28T14:21:04Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > …said the person who didn’t have to fight for his right to vote. > > In-person voting _is_ magical. Slipping that ballot into the box is amazing The point that was being made is that there’s nothing magical about in-person voting being the ONLY option. Voting early, voting by mail, those are both equally valid methods of voting that enhance participation by making it easier. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/152 "2020-05-28T15:50:47Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Do you honestly think that if Trump had five years of mayoring or state legislature under his belt, he would be a normal president? It’s who he is that is the issue, not his lack of experience. While I agree with you that such an amendment is not a good idea, I do think it would filter out Donny Two-scoops as a candidate. I can’t see him having enough smarts to play the long game and would chafe at being a “mere” mayor – or governor – for even two years just to get at the prize of POTUS. Years ago when our Bay Area county hosted the California Libertarian party’s state convention, we invited Milton Friedman, then at Stanford, to be the banquet speaker. I don’t remember a damn thing about his speech but after it he was fielding questions from the audience. One of them was, “If you had the power to pass any amendment to the Constitution you liked, what would it be?” “That’s easy,” he said. “Congress shall pass no law…” and paused for a dramatic effect. Paused a little too long, actually, for after about three seconds someone began to clap. More and more people joined in until about a quarter of the audience had risen to their feet while clapping. After everything settled down he laughed and said, “Well, now we know who the anarchists are,” and went on to make his point. It was pass no law interfering with a legal transaction between any individual or corporation. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/153 "2020-05-28T15:54:12Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Because you want to \*encourage \*in-person voting. I want to encourage _voting_. “In-person” is irrelevant, and now _strongly_ contraindicated. The notion that everyone ought to show up in person is as silly as the notion that everybody ought to personally haul their piss buckets to the water treatment plant. ---
**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 28, 2020, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/154 "2020-05-28T15:56:49Z")
> [@Red\_Wiggler](#): > > The point that was being made is that there’s nothing magical about in-person voting being the ONLY option. Since I’ve made it clear that it isn’t the only option here, that would be a redundant point. It’s not the only option, but it is the preferred one. For all sorts of reasons. Being a happy unifying community experience is just one of those. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/155 "2020-05-28T15:57:29Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > It was _pass no law_ interfering with _a legal_ transaction between any individual or corporation. Was the audience saddened by the decay of a once sharp intellect into nonsensical circular logic (if they took him seriously) or annoyed at being trolled (if not)? ---
**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 28, 2020, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/156 "2020-05-28T16:02:27Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > I want to encourage _voting_. “In-person” is irrelevant, and now _strongly_ contraindicated. Right now is a special case. > [@](#): > > The notion that everyone ought to show up in person is as silly as the notion that everybody ought to personally haul their piss buckets to the water treatment plant. Democracy is like waste matter to you, I get it. Here, it’s a privilege and a pleasure and a happy civic occasion. Voting is like going to the ice cream parlour. It puts a smile on my face every time. Not just me, either - all the people in the queue. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/157 "2020-05-28T16:26:55Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Right now is a special case. What is not a “special case” is that public policy should be free of arbitrary bias (which leads to the conclusion that vote-by-mail, which involves a small additional use of existing infrastructure, is preferred as a practical matter to in-person voting, which involves a significant investment of labor and equipment). The “happy civic occasion” argument is identical to the argument for taxpayer subsidy of sports stadiums, and I am as unimpressed by the one as by the other. In any case, the more substantive changes I would make are: 1. Given that the Senate’s absurd disjunction between representation and population cannot be directly corrected by amendment, reduce the power of the Senate (e.g. require all bills to originate and be amended in the House, with the Senate given only an up-or-down vote, which shall be deemed “yea” if they don’t act within a reasonable (a few weeks at most) time). 2. Expand the House to at least where it would be if it hadn’t been capped at 435 a century ago. This would have the benefit of reducing the disjunction between electoral vote and population, while retaining the Electoral College’s “firewall” effect of keeping near-ties confined to a specific state. 3. Close off a loophole by replacing the open-ended “limited times” phrasing of the Patents and Copyrights clause with an actual number (somewhere in the 50-year range, perhaps). 4. Require at least a few years of experience as a state governor or federal representative/senator before eligibility for President. As noted earlier, this would have simply delayed, not excluded, past Presidents who didn’t have that experience because they weren’t required to. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/158 "2020-05-28T17:06:51Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I can see how you could achieve fewer guns by legislative means. But I don’t see how you could legislate for a shared sense of collective responsibility. You can’t, which is why this thought exercise of how we would amend the constitution is a fantasy. We’re fantasizing that we have the necessary ingredients of a healthy democracy - values like egalitarianism, inclusion, economic parity, education, and so forth. Democracy and change for the good cannot exist in reality unless you have the right value system. Usually, the way you get people to fundamentally agree to change their value system on a grand scale is to have people share a collective reality - like Europe and much of the world after WWII or like America after the Great Depression. But shared conditions or situations don’t always guarantee shared experience. The Great Depression could have been successfully exploited by autocrats, and we could have traded in democracy for dictatorship even then. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/159 "2020-05-28T17:16:36Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > Yeah, so would I. But I don’t live there. Right, but you don’t get there by arming every one of your neighbors to the teeth. America’s problem is a kind of clannish traditionalism on steroids, which has been the downfall of multiple societies. Think of China in the late 1800s. Think of the Reich. Think of Rome. The desire to grab more guns is further evidence of a catastrophic collapse of faith in trust in your own citizens. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408/160 "2020-05-28T17:25:03Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > Whatever. Most of them are idiots who have never been on the “two-way firing range” and would scatter like flies the instant my bullets started heading their way. Mass shooters don’t necessarily need combat experience to inflict carnage; they just need access to weapons and to live in a world in which future consequences don’t register. I’d say that when people walk around with assault weapons near a capitol building and willingly expose themselves to other in a future pandemic, the evidence is in. > [@Lamoral](#): > > The point is, this pandemic has laid bare to me the fact that there are vast numbers of people in this country who are willing to infect me and to invade my space, and the government is affirming them. A faction in government is affirming them; there’s another faction that’s struggling to keep democracy viable and to remain a viable democratic and institutional option. > [@Lamoral](#): > > The country hasn’t even REALLY been tested yet. If those power grids go down, the water stops flowing, and the refrigeration stops refrigerating, it’s “nine meals to anarchy” with mobs of infected people running around. At least I’ve got a fighting chance instead of being at the mercy of these mobs. I’m sympathetic to your fear of mobs, but this is the argument for economic parity and more public power. Look at places where there’s extreme wealth inequality (Latin America, for instance) - people are living with armed security forces behind walls with barbed wire. Must be the life. Would be safer to give up some of that power and live in a world in which more people share in the fruits of free enterprise. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-the-us-constitution-be-amended/854408.md?page=9)