Should the US Constitution be amended more frequently?

Great Debates
1

I am a strong social liberal.

I believe that consenting, competent, adults ought to have the right to have sex with each other in whatever method and combination they choose without government interferance or discrimination.

I believe that people have the right to medical autonomy. That while the government may license and control doctors and medicine to ensure that they remain effective and safe, but that beyond that they may not interfere with the decisions of the patient and doctors. This includes treatments such as abortion, birth control, and the cessation of treatments leading to death.

I think these rights are important enough that they ought to be enshrined and protected in the constitution. And some, including some on the Supreme Court, argue that they are. Yet, despite my deep support of these principles, I just can’t see it. No matter how hard I squint at the constitution, I cannot see how it gurantees these rights.

I think it’s a bad thing to read the constitution so loosely. While such a reading can grant rights, these rights can only hold until the Court changes enough to take them away, and similarly loose readings can grant too much power to the government. Since these rights are not in the Constitution, I think we should add them.

But there’s the rub. As a political culture, we’ve become very reluctant to amend our constitution. We’ve only done it 26 times (which may as well count as 15, given that the first ten came in one chunk, and one of them was undoing another), and after the Bill of Rights most of them are clarifying or tweaking the internal workings of the government. Aside from the abolition of slavery, and the gurantee of a vote regardless of sex or race, our Constitution has only changed in a few details from the one written in 1787. While Amendment XVI passed quietly in 1992, there has not even been a serious debate over an amendment within my lifetime. There’s been some attempts (amendments banning flag desecration and same-sex marriage come immediately to mind), but they were quickly squashed, and I’d question the sincerity of their authors anyway.

Is this a good thing? Should we cherish the stability such a steady constitution gives us? Should we be glad that the rights that it does protect are as unlikely to be removed as new ones are to be added?

I do not think so. While I appreciate stability, I think the Constitution should not be held as a sacred document, never to be questioned or altered. Just as the electorate must challenge the elected officials that make up the government, so too must we scrutinize and challenge the structure of our government. Does this document hold up in a nation with a much different demographics, technology, and even differences in our ideas about the role of government and the nature of freedom and rights? We, and our elected officials, should look at the Constitution critically and honestly, and propose amendments to address any shortcomings we may find in it.

I’m not saying that the amendment process itself should be changed, or that amending the Constitution should be taken lightly. What I am saying is that when faced with an important constitutional issue, or when detecting some grave defect in how the government is structured, all sides of the debate should look more often to changing the Constitution, instead of merely hoping the Courts find in their favor, and then working to alter the court until they agree once they lose. Even if most proposed amendments ultimately fail, a lively ongoing debate and examination of the Constitution is still good for the country, as it would force us to essentially affirm it over and over again. Thus increasing popular awareness of and respect for the document.

I welcome all comments, but I hope this thread doesn’t turn into a debate on my example issues. My intention is to focus on whether we should be more apt to amend the Constitution itself, rather than debate any specific hypothetical amendments.

2

Poor number 27. It don’t get no love from nobody.

3

If you do amend it, you’d better be sure, because it stays on the books FOREVER. That’s why there’s so much reluctance. If they get it wrong and it’s repealed, they have documentary evidence in the most important document in the land that they screwed up. Most people don’t want to make that kind of mistake.

Further, controversial issues such as the ones that you would like to see enshrined in the Constitution will never make it precisely because of that controversy.

4

But does any of that mean we shouldn’t try. I’m honestly more interested in the public debate about the Constitution than actually changing it. It also seems to be a more healthy way of protecting and fighting for your rights than to pretend that they’re already in the Constitution and hope for a court that (mis)reads the document the same way.

5

The Constitution is meant to provide a very loose framework to make up the government. It isn’t meant to provide specific legislation for or against certain behaviors and attempts in that direction like prohibition were ill advised and failed.

The U.S. is just that, a collection of states around a federal government that each need to try their own experiments about what works best. That is good from a scientific standpoint because it allows us to copy successes rather that just make a blanket statement for the rest of the country about what some think should work on a grand scale.

The actual answer to your question though is that it simply cannot be done: Your example: “I believe that people have the right to medical autonomy.” wraps up abortion, euthanasia, and tons of other issues into one grand statement. Put simply, no amendment could ever be put together that could pass through that kind of divisiveness. The requirements to pass a Constitutional amendment are extreme and it isn’t even worth trying for blanket statements about those kinds of issues. We couldn’t amend the 2nd Amendment for similar reasons unless it enshrined more gun rights. I can’t think of any amendment that has any chance of passing in the near future. Can you? That is the root of the issue.

6

I’d like to see the second amendment dropped.
I’d like to see proportional representation by parties. I.e., if the Dems get 49% of the vote, the GOP 50%, and the Greens 1%, then their strength in both houses would equal that ratio.

7

Depending on your “lifetime”, you may be missing the ERA. THAT was big. And heavily debated. And it went down.

The OP itself includes one of the reasons why the reluctance:

Part of the argument against these was precisely that the US Constitution is NOT meant to be some sort of National Civil Code. IIRC there are two amendments in the last 110 or so years that were essentially policy legislation: the one authorizing the Federal Income Tax (and the Big Deal with that one was authorizing a tax on ANY income and the disregarding of State apportionment, not the taxation itself), and Prohibition – which had to be repealed by another Amendment within a few years. The others have had to do with presidential succession and terms, citizens’ rights (women’s suffrage, youth suffrage, no poll tax, DC Electoral Votes), and organization of Congress (direct election of Senators, session dates, pay raises).

As Shagnasty touches upon, the process itself is designed so that the only subjects that get to the level of debate and vote are those that the proponents see as likely to garner a broad consensus (including the consensus of indifference, a proposal so innocuous it doesn’t generate opposition) OR that they consider a matter of grand principle (including political grandstanding). In the OP example of “medical autonomy” it seems that there’s precious little pressure on Congress to come up with that. A large enough proportion of the people either accept, or don’t care, that one or more of the aspects included in the concept be contingent on policy decisions dependent upon the ebb and flow of social and political trends, so they’re not clamoring for something so all-encompassing. It’s up to those such as yourself who support the concept to create the support and consciousness that will lead to Congressment deciding it’s something to act upon.

Which is not to belie that too many Legislators on the left and the right have grown dependent upon the Courts’ interpretations as a convenient way of avoiding responsibility – either by counting on the Courts to find FOR a policy, while avoiding casting a vote or putting it to the people; or by relying on the Courts to find AGAINST a policy and thus safely playing the “I tried but the Big Bad Court wouldn’t let me” card.

Of course, an absolute Federalist could grab a hold of the 9th and 10th Amendments and tell you that if there appears no right to “X” is mentioned in the National Constitution, that does NOT mean it’s forbidden, and its recognition and enactment should devolve upon the States and the People, and the Feds should not interfere there. Tell that to the state of Oregon…

8

I dunno. Didn’t work out too well last time . . . http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40990

9

How do you expect the Constitution to be amended any more frequently than it has been, if we keep the same cumbersome, all-but-impossible amendment process?

10

I think that we should start with amending the Interstate Commerce Clause. The interpretation given now is nowhere close to what the Founding Fathers intended. Right now, the Feds can reason that since the price of corn in Iowa affects the price of Burbon in Kentucky, they can regulate both. Dairy cows in California AND Wisconsin? ICC. The tungstan for the lightbulb came across state lines? Good - ICC lets us legislate light bulb laws. I think that an amendment should put a strict interpretation on the ICC and of course the Feds would never pass this. We may need the states to propose it.