If the logic of this morning’s Supreme Court Trump v. Anderson ruling is followed consistently, the United States Constitution no longer protects freedoms I thought it did yesterday. Here is a modest proposal for a remedy:
Step 1: Identify all constitutional provisions with the phase “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation” or “Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” These are:
Amendment 13 (until this morning, seemed a self-executing article outlawing slavery)
Amendment 14 (equal protection, and enforcement of oaths of office)
Amendment 15 (suffrage for all races and colors)
Amendment 19 (female suffrage)
Amendment 23 (D.C. presidential election participation)
Amendment 24 (eliminates poll tax)
Amendment 26 (suffrage at age 18)
Step 2:
Take the text of the above amendments, excluding sentences regarding congressional enforcement, and put that in a bill entitled CONSTITUTION IMPLEMENTATION ACT.
Step 3:
Make congressional passage of the CONSTITUTION IMPLEMENTATION ACT a Democratic and (unlikely, but one can hope) Republican legislative priority.
It already exists for Section 13: see Title 18, Sections 1581-1597 of the United States Code.
“Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation” is necessary because while the Constitution says that slavery is illegal, it doesn’t say what the penalty for slavery is.
I think the Voting Right’s Act also implements the 26th amendment (in fact, it passed prior to SCOTUS ruling that it was unconstitutional, thus prompting the Amendment).
ETA: The various Voting Right’s Acts and amendments could also be seen as the implementing legislation for Amendments 15 and 19, and possibly 23 and 24 (not sure on those).
Most – perhaps all – of the relevant constitutional articles have some federal law touching on them. But if a Constitution Implementation Act was passed, I think it would (assuming we remain a representative democracy) eventually be seen as a bedrock of American freedoms.
The Constitution Implementation Act could be changed, without need for a super-majority, to disrespect whichever freedom becomes unpopular. But any law, seen as resuscitating the soon-to-be notorious Trump v. Anderson decision, would be hard to pass.