# What if you could replace the U.S. Constitution with a completely new one? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 20, 2004, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338 "2004-06-20T19:59:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/1 "2004-06-20T19:59:15Z")
The United States has the oldest political constitution in the world – arguably, even older than Britain’s, as the current British political system bears only superficial resemblance to what they were using in 1789. Thomas Jefferson once proposed (no cite) that the Constitution should be torn up and completely written periodically, say every 20 years, on the grounds that you cannot expect a man to wear a boy’s jacket. Suppose a new American Constitutional Convention were called, and you got to be a delegate! The Convention might just propose amendments, but its mandate expressly extends to ignoring the old Constitution entirely and writing a whole new one, as the original Constitutional Convention did in 1787. What sort of Constitution would you propose? I’m not asking about details like whether we really need constitutional protection for gun rights or abortion rights. What **political system** would you propose, that might be an improvement on what we’ve got now? Here’s some ideas to get us started: In his book _The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution is Paralyzing Democracy_ (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1996), Daniel Lazare, a socialist, railed against federalism, separation of powers, the bicameral Congress, and the whole body of “checks and balances” the Framers put in place to restrain popular majorities from translating their will directly into policy. He advocated what amounts to a parliamentary system, in which the House of Representatives would roughly the same absolute sovereignty as the British House of Commons, the president would serve at the House’s pleasure, and the Senate would be abolished or reduced to a purely advisory body like the House of Lords. In the February 1, 1999 _New Left Review,_ political journalist Michael Lind (who is not a socialist but has called in print for many measures that appear socialistic by American standards) wrote a rejoinder to Lazare, “Why There Will Be No Revolution in the U.S.” – [http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=article&pubID=1013](http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=article&pubID=1013) From his article: > [@](#): > > **Two Conceptions of Democracy** > > If Lazare’s critique of the U.S. constitutional system depended entirely on his ideology-influenced misprisions of American political culture and American political history, then it would deserve to be dismissed. The most important aspects of Lazare’s critique, however, are based on a conception of democracy, which in theory (if not in Lazare’s own theory) has no necessary connection to the ideology of the socialist left. > > Lazare never makes explicit his own conception of the ideal constitution. From his writings, it appears that his conception of the good constitution rests on two premises. The first is that a “demos” is a more or less coherent community. The second assumption is that relatively simple majoritarian institutions are the most adequate vehicles for the expression of the sovereign will of the demos. Lazare’s ideal constitution, it would seem, would establish a unicameral legislature in a unitary state, with a majority of the legislators free to abrogate the constitution and promulgate a new one whenever they chose to do so. This conception explains Lazare’s insistence that federal systems and complex constitutions are either deluded responses to groundless fears of majority tyranny or sinister contraptions devised by machiavellian elites to neutralize democracy. “Can a people divided and conquer itself?” Lazare write (p. 27). “Is stable self-government really to be achieved through self-fragmentation?” (p.27). > > If this is a fair statement of Lazare’s views, as I believe it is, then Lazare belongs in the older and more influential of the two traditions of thinking about democracy. The oldest and most prevalent conception of democracy identifies it with the will, or in another version the interests, of a numerical majority. Most centrist liberal and progressive proposals for constitutional reform, along with those of the radical left, have been based on this assumption. 7 There is, however, a minority tradition in political thought, which questions the identification of democracy with majority rule. The nineteenth-century American theorist and South Carolina Senator John Calhoun, with his idea of “the concurrent majority,” is one of the key figures in this minority tradition. 8 So are twentieth century theorist of “consociational democracy,” like Arend Lijphart and Lani Guinier, most of whom are found on the center-left and share nothing in common with Calhoun except for a concern with the plight of numerical minorities.9 > > The consociational theory of democracy differs from the majoritarian theory in two key respects. First, unlike majoritarians, consociationalists take seriously the possibility that a given political community may be made up of two or more enduring, distinct communities defined by extra-political characteristics, such as regional, racial, or religious identities. The second difference follows from the first. Consociationalist theory rejects the assumption that simple majoritarian constitutional structures are necessarily the best. In countries with a complicated regional or ethnic make-up, complicated democratic instititutions may be necessary. > > **Concessions and Consensus** > > From the consociationalist perspective, a given constitution may be less important as a set of rules for the self-government of a majority than as what the philosopher John Gray calls a modus vivendi, a treaty among various groups, which may have a long history prior to that of the national or multinational polity in which they find themselves as a result of coercion or choice. In particular countries, particular compromises embedded in the constitution as a concession to this or that sub-national group will cause the constitution to deviate to a greater or lesser degree from the Platonic ideal of a democratic constitution. In some cases the deviations may be unjustifiable (like the concessions made to slave-owners or less populous states in the U.S. constitution). In other cases, though, the concession may be reasonable and legitimate—particularly if the alternative to an idiosyncratic constitution is not a simpler, more majoritarian constitution, but secession or other kinds of civil strife. > > For many (though by no means all) majoritarian theorists, the purpose of democracy is to “express” the “will” of the more or less unitary “people”—a Rousseauian General Will that somehow (perhaps by mental telepathy) has formed apart from, and prior to, elections and debates among elected officials. For adherents of consociationalism, the purpose of democracy is not the expression of a pre-existing national will, but the formation of a consensus among sub-national groups—substantial minorities, as well as majorities. Elections, negotiations among parties within the legislature, negotiations among houses of a government with separation of powers, even negotiations between levels of government—all of these may be legitimate stages in the cobbling together of a political consensus. To oversimplify matters, it might be said that majoritarians see legislation as the product of a political consensus, whereas consociationalists see a political consensus as the product of the legislative process. > > The emphasis that consociational democracy puts on consensus suggests that as a rule supermajorities should be preferred to simple majorities. A program enacted by a bare majority, against the bitter opposition of a near-majority, is likely to be lacking in legitimacy, in practice if not in theory. Nor is it that much more legitimate in theory, if one rejects the majoritarian fiction that fifty-one percent of a population speaks for the whole. Every numerical minority in a society cannot be placated. But no effect should be spared to coopt substantial minorities, if social peace hangs upon the result. > > Consociational democrats are much more likely than majoritarians to view the constitutional polity as something fragile and in danger of “Balkanization” into lesser communities along subnational lines. The fact, noted above, that party systems in democracies tend to perpetuate and reinforce regional and ethnic and religious divisions within nations only strengthens the fear of consociated theorist that ill-designed democratic arrangements will exacerbate rather than avert civil strife. > > * * * > > **Consociationalism and Constitutionalism** > > If we think of constitutions as compromises among different groups living in the same territory, groups that may agree on little more than the desirability of continued co-existence, then we would not expect them to resemble one another closely, any more than we would expect a treaty between Britain and Iceland to contain most of the provisions of a treaty between Australia and Indonesia. As Adam Ferguson wrote, “Laws, whether civil or political, are expedients of policy to adjust the pretensions of parties, and to secure the peace of society. The expedient is accommodated to special circumstances…” 10 The irreducible diversity of constitutions reflects the irreducible diversity of nations and the regions, ethnic groups, linguistic communities and religious denominations into which the populations of the world’s states are divided. > > Proponents of consociational democracy, then, tend to be very cautious about suggesting that only one or a few models of constitutional democracy are legitimate. Asked to devise an abstract blueprint for an unnamed democracy, most contemporary theorists of consociationalism would be likely to propose a parliamentary system with legislators elected by one or another method of proportional representation. But any consociational theorist worth his salt would probably reject the exercise, on the grounds that, as there are no generic countries, there can be no generic constitutions. In most circumstances, PR might be preferable to plurality voting. However, in countries where PR might lead to formation of parties along narrow regional, ethnic or religious lines, plurality voting might deter the direct translation of social difference into political conflict, by encouraging the coalescence of interests into two stable parties based on crosscutting alliances. Similarly, as a general rule, parliamentary democracy may be better than presidential democracy. But in newly-democratized countries with royal or dictatorial traditions, a quasi-regal president, invested by popular election with plebiscitary legitimacy, might be more effective than a prime minister or chancellor in imposing civilian authority on recalcitrant armed forces and bureaucracies. That’s a starting point: Majoritarian vs. consociational democracy. Which model would you prefer for a new American constitution? ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/2 "2004-06-21T02:31:32Z")
One of my favorite 'What if’s. All in all it is most unlikely, the present Constitution works pretty well and there is no widespread pressure to change it. On the other hand, a number of States have called for a Convention to consider a Balanced Budget Amendment. Such a Convention can not be limited to a single topic. In fact the last one wrote the present document. All of that being said, I would point out that the present document does not mention: 1. The ability of the Supreme Court to declare laws unconstitutional. 2. The Cabinet. 3. Senatorial Privilege In addition, I (and only I) am opposed to the direct election of the Senate. Bad idea, could lead to democracy. Dangerous stuff. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/3 "2004-06-21T02:40:23Z")
The present Constitution does indeed mention the Cabinet, i.e., [“the principle officers of the executive department”](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment25/). Also note that the positions of the Cabinet, and the underlying departments, are created by Congress, not by presidential fiat. ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/4 "2004-06-21T02:45:32Z")
Not to be snarky or rude to anyone, but I seriously doubt that any person or persons on these boards has the mental capacity to rewrite the Constitution. I’m just barely smart enough where I know to leave well enough alone. I’m sure there are some people out there who can reach Mr. Jefferson’s goals of a “living” document, but they have better things to do than hang around here. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Qwertyasdfg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/ecc23a/32.png) [@Qwertyasdfg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qwertyasdfg)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/5 "2004-06-21T02:46:03Z")
Hmmm… Mostly I’d leave it as is (at present, not as it was when first adopted.) I mean it’s worked pretty well. Two things I’d get rid of though are the electoral college and the 2nd amendment. I’d also probably codify the tradition of judicial review. That’s all I can think of at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/6 "2004-06-21T02:53:16Z")
Gore Vidal proposed doing so in one of his books, I canot recall what changes he offered up, but he is quite a good writer and I found myself agreeing with him a lot. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/7 "2004-06-21T03:10:51Z")
ARTICLE I The President, Congress and Supreme Court shall continue to be elected or appointed basically the same way we’ve been doing it for like 200 years. Except no more of this “electoral vote” nonsense. ARTICLE II The government shall stay the hell out of people’s business except to enforce contracts and to stop people from hurting each other or stealing other people’s stuff. ARTICLE III Any television network broadcasting the Olympic Games shall be required to devote 90% of all programming to athletes actually competing in events, as opposed to those insanely boring soft-focused “athlete profiles.” ARTICLE IV The misuse of apostrophes, since as “Here is you’re order” or “Mr. Jones’ car is broken” shall constitute high treason and is punishable by firing squad. ARTICLE V Effective upon the date of the adoption of this Constitution, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico shall be States, but the Dakotas and Carolinas will be combined so we still have 50. What else would you need? ---
**Author:** ![RandomLetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@RandomLetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandomLetters)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/8 "2004-06-21T03:30:14Z")
I would keep the Constitution mostly the same, though I would clairfy exactly what interstate trade and the “General Welfare” clauses mean - for the first, I would restrict Congress power to regulate trade specifically to goods and services crossing state lines, the second, I would scrap entirely. Also, I would remove that vague first part of the Second Amendment, leaving just the " the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." their. I would also scrap the 16th & 17th amendments, and throw in a balanced budget section. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/9 "2004-06-21T05:17:21Z")
Well, I’m not quite up to the task of rewriting the whole thing, but I’d definitely: (1) Scrap the electoral college. (2) Require proportional representation in the House. If only 51% of a state’s voters support Party X, it is not right for 100% of the state’s Representatives to belong to that party. (3) Clarify the purpose and limits of copyright. The Constitution says copyrights and patents shall be granted “for limited times”, but apparently that isn’t obvious enough, since retroactive extensions (which the SCOTUS has approved) mean that copyright terms can be unlimited anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/10 "2004-06-21T05:40:38Z")
I would just like to point out that a balanced budget amendment isn’t as smart a thing as it might seem at first blush. There really are circumstances that call for running a deficit, and it’s not a good thing to hamstring the government in those circumstances since they tend to be towards the dire end of the scale. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/11 "2004-06-21T05:55:13Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > I would just like to point out that a balanced budget amendment isn’t as smart a thing as it might seem at first blush. There really are circumstances that call for running a deficit, and it’s not a good thing to hamstring the government in those circumstances since they tend to be towards the dire end of the scale. I wish there were a smiley available that could adequately convey the sense of the phrase, “Well, DUH!” ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/12 "2004-06-21T06:00:50Z")
I’m not familiar with “consociational democracy” and as a hardcore majoritarian perhaps it will take a while for its precepts to filter into my brain. Offhand what jumps out at me is Lind’s statement that it’s adherents ( I take it that includes him ) worry about the dangers of Balkanization. Well they should. If you divide up the polity you shouldn’t be surprised when the seperate groups pursue their own agendas instead of working together. I don’t see any reason to favor such a theory unless in order to justify the actions of tyrants like Calhoun seeking to protect their narrow local interests even at the expense of the general interest. There must be more to it than that, right? As for me, I’m a big fan of Lazare and will happily defend his work. Well, most of it anyway. Lets start with this quote from the OP: _" Lazare’s ideal constitution, it would seem, would establish a unicameral legislature in a unitary state, with a majority of the legislators free to abrogate the constitution and promulgate a new one whenever they chose to do so. This conception explains Lazare’s insistence that federal systems and complex constitutions are either deluded responses to groundless fears of majority tyranny or sinister contraptions devised by machiavellian elites to neutralize democracy."_ Lind would have more credibility with me if he bothered to pick up a history text before jumping to conclusions. If he had ever read Jackson Turner Main’s _The Upper House in Revolutionary America_ and Gordon Wood’s _The Creation of the American Republic_ he would know that bicameralism and judicial review were favored by elites as a means of restricting democracy. That the authors of the Constitution sought to neutralize democracy is hardly news. See the discussion on [May 31, 1787](http://www.constitution.org/dfc/dfc_0531.htm): Elbridge Gerry: _“The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy.”_ George Mason: _“He admitted that we had been too democratic but was afraid we sd. incautiously run into the opposite extreme.”_ Edmund Randolph: _" He observed that the general object was to provide a cure for the evils under which the U. S. laboured; that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy: that some check therefore was to be sought for agst. this tendency of our Governments: and that a good Senate seemed most likely to answer the purpose."_ ## And those were the Antifederalists! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/13 "2004-06-21T06:08:07Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > And those were the Antifederalists! Please bear in mind, **2sense,** that at that time the Federalists, such as Alexander Hamilton, were aristocratic elitists. And the Antifederalists – or Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans – were populists. The Federalists were also centralists, and the Antifederalists were decentralists. These distinctions have been obscured by the events of later American history, for most of which elitists (e.g., Southern aristocrats and slaveholder, and, later, Jim-Crow segregationists) have been states’-rights decentralists, while those we now think of as “liberals” or “populists” have for the most part been national-state centralists. Things are seldom simple, and this clearly is not one of them. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/14 "2004-06-21T07:00:06Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Please bear in mind, **2sense,** that at that time the Federalists, such as Alexander Hamilton, were aristocratic elitists. And the Antifederalists – or Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans – were populists. I’m a history buff. In particular I am interested in American revolutionary period ( 1755-1805 ) and have read dozens of titles on the subject. Right now in the room with me I have 15 books that deal specifically with the creation of the Constitution ( though one is as yet unread ). I think I have a pretty good grasp of the period. Yes, the Country faction ( “Antifederalists”/Jeffersonians Republicans ) does have a reputation for being more populist. Hence my exclamation that those three men disparaging democracy were “Antifederalist”. Here is what the introduction of a book I just started has to say: > [@](#): > > _Neo-Progressive claims that Anti-Federalism represented the voice of an insurgent agrarian democracy have failed to explain why several of the most sophisticated and influential Anti-Federalist writers espoused the views of a rising middling sort whose vision of democracy was tied to commerce. Nor can the Progressive paradigm explain the centrality of the writings of a small but exceedingly important group of elite Anti-Federalists who were neither democratic nor exclusively agrarian."_ > > From “Antifederalism & the Dissenting Tradition in America” by Saul Cornell The elite nondemocratic “Antifederalists” he refers to include, in all likelyhood, the men I mentioned earlier or rather the first 2. Randolph isn’t as important as he hoped he would be. BTW- although some historians do use the term “Democratic-Republicans” ( including Professor Cornell ) it is anachronistic. The term didn’t come into common use until the time of Jackson and in the revolutionary period most gentlemen would bristle at being called a “democrat”. Make no mistake, the leaders of the Country faction were aristocrats as well. I believe the historians do it not out of ignorance but rather to provide a distinction between Jeffersonian Republicans and the modern variety. I think it’s a good idea to avoid misidentification with modern groups but not at the risk of confusing contemporary groups. There were Democratic-Republican clubs in the 1790s. They sprang up in response to Citizen Genet’s call for worldwide revolution and while their members were likely Republicans they had nothing to do with the association of likeminded Country partisans known as the Republicans. ## The reason there can be confusion over the name is because at the time “party” was also a dirty word. The followers of Jefferson and the followers of Hamilton and Adams each denied being in a party themselves though they were quick to accuse their opponents of such behavior. Before he died Jefferson himself did everything he could to conceal his party building activities from the eye of history. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/15 "2004-06-21T07:05:46Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > There were Democratic-Republican clubs in the 1790s. They sprang up in response to Citizen Genet’s call for worldwide revolution and while their members were likely Republicans they had nothing to do with the association of likeminded Country partisans known as the Republicans. ## Hmmm. This part wasn’t clear. What I meant was that the Democratic-Republican clubs ( AKA Jacobin clubs ) had nothing to do with the Republicans although the members of the clubs were likely Republican voters. The Country leadership looked upon the Jacobin clubs as a bunch of anarchists. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/16 "2004-06-21T13:40:14Z")
Election of President and Vice President Voters shall vote for president and vice president separately. The electoral college shall be modified as follows: The presidential and vice presidential candidate with the most votes in each State shall be given the two electoral votes that correspond to the Senate seats for that State. Those electoral votes that correspond to the House seats shall be given to the candidate with the most votes in that Congressional district. The electoral votes shall be determined by the Secretary of State for each State without the voting of actual electors. No Confidence vote If a no confidence resolution is passed by 2/3 vote in the House and Senate, new presidential and vice presidential elections shall be held on the 60th day afer such resolution is passed. No more than one such resolution may be acted on for each presidential term. Budget Process All budgetary desisions shall be made on financial data made by impartial career civil servants. The Congress shall determine which expenditures are necessary, the budget office shall determine the funds needed to meet these expenditures, and the Congress shall determine how to raise these funds. Revenue shall not be reduced unless the budget is in surplus. Guns Federal, state, and local governments shall be empowered to regulate or ban any and all weapons as they deem necessary. There is no absolute right to gun ownership. Equal Rights Discrimination for or against any person because of race, age, nationality, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual preference is prohibited. Abortion Abortions shall be permitted for any reason in the first trimester of pregnacy, for sound health reasons only in the second trimester, and illegal once fetal viability is attained. Marriage Any two people may get married, except in the case where opposite sex couples share 1/16 or more genetic DNA. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/17 "2004-06-21T14:46:33Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Election of President and Vice President > Voters shall vote for president and vice president separately. > The electoral college shall be modified as follows: > The presidential and vice presidential candidate with the most votes in each State shall be given the two electoral votes that correspond to the Senate seats for that State. Those electoral votes that correspond to the House seats shall be given to the candidate with the most votes in that Congressional district. > The electoral votes shall be determined by the Secretary of State for each State without the voting of actual electors. I’ve heard most of this for at least 20 years in various columns and books. It would be simple to implement and I’m all for it. It would complicate the presidential elections something fierce…and I’m all for that! On the balanced budget amendment I agree that an amendment simply outlawing deficit spending would be counter-productive. But what about something like this: Balanced budgets are considered the norm. To go outside a balanced budget (as determined by the Congressional Budget Office and the General Accounting Office in cooperation) requires a separate majority vote in Congress. To do so for a second year requries a separate vote of Congress with a 60% supermajority. Each subsequent year shall require a 75% supermajority. After one year with a balanced budget the system shall reset. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/18 "2004-06-21T15:15:45Z")
I would keep the electoral college system of voting, but I would insert an amendment requiring each state to distribute at least 75% of its electors in proportion to the popular vote within that state rather than going with winner-take-all. I would scrap _Roe vs. Wade_ and replace it with an amendment stating that no one can be forced to become or remain pregnant involuntarily, or prevented from becoming or remaining pregnant, nor can any law be passed that prevents a person from providing medical assistance, within the parameters of their medical training and subject to normative laws regulating medical practice, towards helping a person terminate or maintain a pregnancy, or from engaging in research, within the research regulating normative research ethics, geared towards extending and improving upon techniques for establishing, preventing, terminating, or maintaining pregnancy. I would modify the 2nd Amendment so as to clarify the range of firepower citizens are entitled to own and carry, and then state that registration and licensing requirements will be set by each state but shall not infringe upon a qualified person’s right to bear arms, and that a citizen shall be entitled to an efficient and speedy registration and licensing process which does not deny the right to bear arms without cause that can be shown to stem from concerns for the public safety specifically applicable to the individual in question. I would give the US President the line-item veto and would rescind the two-term limit in favor of a two-_consecutive_-term limit. I would incorporate the Equal Rights Amendment into the Constitution. I would enter a new amendment specifying that adulthood is universally acquired at 18 and that every adult shall be considered competent and therefore not restricted from any behavior on the basis of age, nor restricted from any behavior permitted to other adults in the absence of a legal process finding the individual to be either guilty of a violation of law (and hence subject to restrictions in accordance with the penal and judicial system’s actions) or lacking in judgmental capacity; and that the process of finding an individual to be lacking in judgmental capacity shall be uniform in practice within all the states and shall be subject to the same guidelines and restrictions applicable to felony criminal procedures (right to representation, right to a finding by a jury of one’s peers, must be found incompetent beyond a reasonable doubt / assumed competent until proven otherwise, right to testify in one’s own behalf or to refrain from testifying against one’s self, etc.); and that this right shall not be abrogated or affected by any alleged medical, mental, spiritual, physical, or other condition or circumstance. I would enact a tort reform amendment specifying that punitive damages assessed in any civil case will be collected from the respondent and the revenues thus obtained turned over in their entirely to the Social Security Administration of the United States to be added to its general budget. Only actual damages reparations shall continue to be turned over to the plaintiff. I would make the right to privacy explicit in another new amendment, that the right of citizens to engage in any behavior shall not be curtailed or restricted except for demonstrable compelling state or public-interest reasons; and that nothing shall constitute a compelling state or public-interest reason sufficient to abrogate this right with regards to private activities and the integrity and maintenance of one’s own body except where a demonstrable risk to public health and safety can be shown to exist. ---
**Author:** ![Menocchio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/19 "2004-06-21T15:17:45Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Marriage > Any two people may get married, except in the case where opposite sex couples share 1/16 or more genetic DNA. You realize, of course, that this means no two human beings can ever marry one another. Hell, I can’t even marry an ape with that standard. 😉 I like the rest of it, and what you were trying to say there. I might allow for gun rights, but I’d still rewrite the relevant article so it actually says something this time. The right of the people to own firearms, defined as a weapon firing non-explosive, non-propelled projectiles that can be held and operated by one person\*, shall not be broken except in case of mental incompetence or as part of due criminal convictions. The various states may make laws against the unsafe handling and storage of firearms, as long as the above basic right remains unabridged. \*This is becasue the right to bear arms has to end somewhere, or else Bill Gates can have the bomb. It’s not really necessary, as it’s largely understood even today, but I like my laws and rights to be nice and explicit. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338/20 "2004-06-21T15:24:03Z")
> [@Menocchio](#): > > You realize, of course, that this means no two human beings can ever marry one another. Hell, I can’t even marry an ape with that standard. 😉 Well OK, Mr. Scientist. I meant to say closer than 2nd cousins. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-you-could-replace-the-u-s-constitution-with-a-completely-new-one/251338.md?page=2)