US Constitution 2.0

I love the Constitution. I think it is one of maybe the top 5-10 most important documents in human history. Having said that, I do think it is getting a tad dusty. The world has changed dramatically since the wild, carefree days of 1787, and I think there are some parts that could use some updating. Lets start with the bill of rights:

2nd Amendment - OK this made sense in 1787, but no one could have predicted the destructive capability a single person can do with “arms” these days. The phrase “a well regulated militia” is also antiquated and somewhat unhelpful. I think most people are OK with the idea of restricting arms to the general public - the idea of citizens running around with high powered artillery & automatic weapons isn’t super appealing. Personally I don’t see why anyone would need a firearm, but knowing that a total ban isn’t going to fly in 2007 America, can we rewrite this to allow personal firearms? How about something like “The right of the people to keep and bear small caliber Arms shall not be infringed, although it can be regulated to ensure proper use”? Obviously the phrase “small caliber” is going to be problematic, but it is a start.

3rd Amendment - Probably don’t need this one anymore.

9th Amendment - Probably can be merged with the 10th. We are busy people. Brevity counts.

18th Amendment - Clearly no longer needed, along with the 21st.

22nd Amendment - Also no longer needed. With the current state of American politics, if we find a leader we like who does a good job, I want him/her to stick around longer than 8 years.

As for the Constitution itself, it seems we need to clearly state the chain of events required to go to war. From what I understand, it was customary but not required in days past for the president to request congress permission to go to war. These days the president goes to war whenever he feels like it.

This should get us started. How can we clean up the Constitution and make it Y2K compliant?

Yes, it will. I can certainly foresee in a hundred or two hundred years there being small caliber weapons with ammunition that could causle great, irreparable harm. If, as you say, the2nd Amendment issue problematic and we’re redoing the Constitution, why not just get rid of it entirely? What is the point of adding more layers of vague language to it?

  • Honesty

We’d probably end up with a King. While it sounds good to say that if people don’t like him they’ll vote him out, the reality is that the longer someone is in office, the harder they are to get rid of. Regardless of how incompetent or otherwise unpleasant they are.

My two cents.

House of Representatives - Lengthen the terms so that people don’t spend half their term campaigning. Require the states to move to a “top X” system where everyone in the state votes for their representative and the top X become representatives. This will solve the gerrymeandering problem by eliminating districts. Minority representation shouldn’t be a problem so long as minorities vote as a bloc (which they’re forced to do with gerrymeandering anyway) and the minority constitutes 1/X of the state’s population.

Senate - Shorten or lengthen the terms to 5 or 7 years such that we only have massive Congressional turnover every 15 or 21 years.

Congressional Powers (Article 1, Section 8) - Rewrite these so that they’re not archaic and reflect what Congress actually does today. Two things that need updating are the concept of a standing army as well as intercountry commerce.

Electoral College - Require states to vote their electoral votes in proportion to the popular vote in that state (we can keep the electoral votes per state the same so that the small states still have their goddamn advantage :rolleyes: ). Allow fractional electoral votes if that makes things easier.

Judicial Review - Write in the concept of judicial review (Marbury v. Madison) into the Constitution so that it can’t be overturned.

Constitutional Amendment - Make it a 75% nationwide vote (or even electoral vote) rather than 75% of states. The current system allows some 2.3% of the population to block an Amendment by forming 51% majorities in the bottom 13 states, and 20% of the population to pass an Amendment by forming 51% majorities in the bottom 38 states. The disparity between state populations was much smaller when the Constitution was first drafted; it needs updating.

1st Amendment - Separate this into three different Amendments - religion, press, and speech/assembly. Better yet, write these into the Constitution as fundamental rights and subordinate the Congressional, Executive, and Judicial sections as means to accomplish the protection of these rights.

2nd Amendment - Do away with this altogether, since anything like it just impedes the overwhelmingly popular concept of restricting personal firearms in some way (even if it’s just outlawing land mines and bazookas). If we’re not going to get rid of it completely, at least scale it back to “the government can’t take away all rights to weaponry, but it can come damn close if the people so choose”.

4th through 8th Amendments - Again, put the concept of fair and impartial trials and presumption of innocence into the Constitution as fundamental rights and list these Amendments as means to accomplish the protection of these rights.

If nothing else this thread should illustrate the difficulties in forming a government everyone can agree upon.

Marc

Uh?

I can imagine lengthening Senate terms to 8 years, with 4 classes, so that each state elects one Senator every 4 years and at most 1/4 of the Senate is up for grabs at any given election.

I say every 13 or 17 years, like locusts.

Doubt it. Political winds change quickly these days, and backlash hits everyone eventually. If we are really worried, we can have a 4 term limit. Call it the FDR rule.

There’s no way we are gonna get anything accepted in America without some verbage guaranteeing a right to bear some sort of arms. But as we have seen, getting the exact wording correct is pretty crucial. Getting it accurate and succinct is going to be the real challenge.

Every 10 years, the district boundaries gerrymeander around :slight_smile:

But this never happened in over 150 years of U.S. history without a 22nd amendment, and doesn’t happen in other industrialized democracies that do not have term limits.

So…basically you’re suggesting that we amend the Constitution?

I thought that was the point of the thread? :confused:

First - Split it up, and change wording to something like - “No governmental entity shall…”

Second Amendment -
Yeah, “small caliber” is problematic since M16’s are what I consider “small”, but your average run-of-the-mill hunting rifle isn’t.

How about “Self defense being necessary for a functional society, the right of the people to keep and bear military arms shall not be infringed”?

Fourth - Add “No really, we mean it. Even if you think it doesn’t apply in this one case, it really really does.”

Seventh - bump up the dollar amount a bit. What is the modern equivalent of the $20?

Folks who lived under FDR’s 4 terms may disagree, or at least see how someone in power that long could end up “owning” his office. Since it was passed right after his terms clearly some people viewed it as a potential problem.

Maybe it was your wording that confused me a bit, since “writ[ing] these into the Constitution as fundamental rights” is exactly what an amendment is. They become fundamental rights as soon as they are adopted.

I totally disagree with Aptronym on length of service for Representatives. 2 years allows for a rapid turn-over if the feelings of the people change. What I would do is amend the Constitution to mandate term limits across the board. Allow a maximum of 5 terms as a Rep. and 3 terms as a Senator. Then add an Amendment that prohibits any elected official from serving as a lobbyist. Anywhere. Ever.

Then let’s refine the Electoral College as noted above.

I probably would have agreed with you a few years ago, but keep in mind that the current Bush administration has flagrantly disregarded the constitution, individual rights, and the checks and balances built into government.

The rise of highly paid private mercenaries causes me to rethink the right to bear arms and housing soldiers. We need to hang onto every basic right afforded us under the constitution.

The 18th Amendment may no apply to Americans today, but it is part of our history and permanent record.

No, people. A federal election is the collation of 50 mini (state) elections, not a popular vote. You don’t get to put your votes into the pot of another state.

Leave the electoral college alone.

Winner take all is a lousy system for distributing Electoral votes. Make states allocate them proportionally so the losing party doesn’t get totally disenfranchised.

Dude, you own me a new keyboard. Mine now is full of coffee.

Interesting OP. I need to think about it a bit more before weighing in fully.

The big hole I see is a lack of wording covering judicial review. I’d like to see some specificity in how the judiciary should review both constitutional issues and statutory issues. I’d like my own judicial philosophy to be in there, of course, but even if it worked out the other way I wouldn’t mind so much. I just don’t like the bitter disputes that some decisions cause because people have so many different assumptions about how the courts should decide things.