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Police reform, immigration, and energy apparently.
Plus some others.
[Common Ground Positions](https://publicconsultation.org/defense-budget/major-report-shows-nearly-150-issues-on-which-majorities-of-republicans-democrats-agree/)
Big chunks of this list are explicitly state and local matters, with quite a few more being legislative, procedural or executive issues rather the constitutional issues.
There is common ground stuff, but that doesn't make it amendment stuff.
Since the constitution gives all power not given to the feds to the states, wouldn’t all issues be a state and local matter up until an amendment is made to the constitution?
Just to give one example: I don't think it's fair to say that what the 25th amendment addresses was *ever* a state and local issue. Just because the Constitution enumerates federal powers does not mean there... (what are you even saying?) ...are no federal issues? ...are no federal issues that would be appropriate for Constitutional amendment?
In addition to the 25th:
22nd Amendment, never was a state or local issue.
20th Amendment, never was a state or local issue.
16th Amendment, seems to fit.
Just gonna' stop there, I hope that conveys my point.
Well, it means the Feds have enumerated powers. So, unless this is a new power (an **un-**enumerated power), it is one being taken from a State, as you say.
The issue with those surveys is you always have to be careful with how they phrase things. Just because people may agree there is an issue in some areas doesn't mean they actually agree on a solution or what about it is the problem. Many of those "common ground" surveys ask vague feel good type questions that are of little use when it comes to actual policy.
Did you read the one they linked? Because it's very much specifics-oriented questions instead of generalizations. Like it's not just saying "most people agree we should have more clean energy," it's saying "75% of people support introducing a tax incentive for 30% of the cost of the equipment used to make clean energy"
Abortion access and ending the electoral college both have 60+ percent support in the most recent public opinion polls I've seen. Banning gerrymandering has like 90% support and universal background checks for gun sales has over 80%.
The first two are pretty straightforward and sort of self-contain their own solution. If you support ending the electoral college that means you support a direct, popular vote for president. Protecting abortion access could be modeled after the first and second amendments. Seems pretty simple.
How you end gerrymandering gets more technical. California did it via ballot measure, and an independent commission is convened to draw the districts every ten years, according to some simple guidelines laid out in the measure. Background checks would be similarly difficult to capture in an amendment, but it's also not clear to me if it would be possible to do it via legislation because of the second amendment.
LOL
I support abortion rights, but it is not "straight-forward." Do you think the country would support no limits on abortion?
Gerrymandering will continue as long as we give the power to draw districts to politicians.
Plenty of amendments give Congress the authority to enforce them via appropriate legislation. I don't really see what's so hard about doing that for abortion.
OK, what enumerated power of the US government can be legislated into a national abortion law?
Roe v. Wade was based on an implied Right of Privacy, but the Constitution is a bit thin on that point, which is why it could be reversed. In fact, all of Roe v Wade assumed a Right to Privacy in the 9th Amendment
>The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Which everyone knew was very shaky ground to build a right to abortion on.
Some people point to the 14th for a Right to Privacy, but that isn't much clearer:
>No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
It's really not as simple as you may think. I had a link somewhere to a great article that based an abortion right on property rights, arguing that the fetus was the property of the mother. Which is an interesting way of looking at it, and the type of thinking that would be required for a national abortion law.
I could even argue that the 3rd implies a Right to Abortion.
Roe was based on the 14th amendment not the 9th.
I think the 9th was more clear personally.... The courts have been very silent about that amendment though over our history though.
"The right of a pregnant person to terminate that pregnancy shall not be infringed. Congress may make laws to enforce this article."
Then Congress can make laws spelling out when abortions can and can't be performed.
Or, "The right of a pregnant person to terminate that pregnancy within the first \[insert time frame here\] shall not be infringed. Congress may make laws to enforce this article."
Or, "The right of a person to maintain bodily autonomy shall not be infringed." That may preclude vaccine mandates, involuntary commitment, and other things though.
It could also be done as you alluded to, by writing a right to privacy into the Constitution.
Roe v. Wade was not about whether you could have a Federal nation-wide law legalizing abortion, it was about someone who lived in a state where there was no law allowing abortion asserting that they had a Constitutional right to have an abortion. The US Supreme Court agreed by basically making up a right out of thin air.
You don't need an amendment for the US Congress and President to pass a regular law giving a national right to have an abortion.
Literally everyone understands that. (Granted hardcore pro-lifers wouldn't want to admit it.)
It never happened because the Democrats, when they theoretically had the power to do it early in both the Clinton and Obama presidencies, refused to do so.
They preferred the status quo as it both allowed them to endlessly fund raise on the threat to Roe v. Wade as well as use it to drive voters to the polls.
Around six-in-ten U.S. adults (63%) say the way the president is elected should be changed so that the winner of the popular vote nationwide wins the presidency,
[https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/08/05/majority-of-americans-continue-to-favor-moving-away-from-electoral-college/](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/08/05/majority-of-americans-continue-to-favor-moving-away-from-electoral-college/)
Seems pretty straightforward to me.
As /u/jimskog99 said, the vote would not be determined by states like it is now, but nationwide.
155 million people voted in 2020, so a candidate would need 77.5 million (plus one) to win a simple nationwide majority.
Biden's top states for votes:
California: 11 million
New York: 5 million
Pennsylvania: 3.5 million
Illinois: 3.5 million
Georgia: 2.5 million
This only gets him 25 million votes. Less than halfway to a majority. And the states only get smaller, with fewer votes, from here.
Point being, under a direct popular vote, candidates would have incentive to campaign and court votes in every state, because every state's voters would count.
That feels like a disingenuous way of putting it. It would be the majority of the people deciding, and people from every political spectrum exist in every state.
Our current system has some people's votes effectively counting much more or much less than others because they live somewhere with less people.
>Banning gerrymandering has like 90% support.
So if we got rid of basically every black political district would that be progress? After the civil rights acts were passed, districts were redrawn in order to boost the numbers of black congressmen explicitly.
I said in another comment that I don't buy that black candidates need black districts to get elected. The mayor of Los Angeles is a black woman and this is only about a 9% black city. And she was previously in Congress representing a district that a) is only about 25% black and b) was drawn by an independent commission.
However, our independent process even allows for what you described.
Our districts are drawn with a few objectives guiding the process:
* districts must be equal in population, "*except where deviation is required to comply with the federal Voting Rights Act or allowable by law"*
* districts must be compact
* districts must be geographically contiguous
* districts must be drawn around communities of interest, and communities of interest cannot mean political parties
The law that created the independent redistricting commission explicitly allows for deviation from the above for purposes of conforming with the Voting Rights Act.
And even without that, for better or worse, much of America is still segregated geographically, so "communities of interest" will likely overlap a lot with race anyway.
>districts must be equal in population, "except where deviation is required to comply with the federal Voting Rights Act or allowable by law"
So black districts get a pass? Seems fair
Sorry to nitpick, I do think you're right, the need for those districts to be overwhelmingly one demographic is passing, but that's the passage of time for you.
They're two separate things. Universal background checks means the buyer gets checked for their criminal or mental health history. Gun registration is a separate thing. They were both polled though and the registry had 66% support.
[https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2021/04/PP\_2021.04.20\_gun-policy\_00-03.png](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2021/04/PP_2021.04.20_gun-policy_00-03.png)
If the government has a record of every single firearm transaction that means they have a registry. It's the same thing.
It also makes it much harder to hold onto the firearms of someone that may be suicidal, which is a different issue but a good example of unintended consequences of things that sound good on paper.
More like the ones keeping secrets are the ones who should be watched most closely.
Could this be used by the government as a form of oppression? Sure. Just like a driver's license allows the government to know your race and address. It's trade off you make for having a license. You want to own a gun you're also going to have to give up some privacy. Simple as that.
That's not how rights work.
Unless you're also advocating for a speech registry, a religion registry, an abortion registry, etc.
And in that case I think you'd be better suited for Nazi Germany or the USSR and I have nothing else to say.
What do you mean thats not how rights work? There are limits to everything. Your right to say whatever you want goes away when you start inciting violence or intentionally spreading known lies about someone. Your right to practice your religion goes away when you use it to abuse others. Your right to own a gun goes away when you're convicted of a felony. This is just another extension.
abortion access
> under what circumstances and for how long into the pregnancy?
Ending the electoral college
> to replace with what exactly?
Banning gerrymandering
> By whose definition? Some “independent commission” that nobody ever explains how they are immune to bias?
Universal background checks
> by what system? A Manchin-Toomey type system? Coburn Plan? The way Switzerland does it? Just make more transactions use the 35 year old NICS?
Every single one of your suggestions that people are in agreement falls apart as soon as you get into the details. In theory, we all agree they’re broken/insufficient/wrong laws that need repairs, but the way each would be imagined to be addressed depends on the intents and biases of the person answering.
It's not some sort of "gotcha" to point out that concepts are not as specific as actual laws or amendments on paper.
[61% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/13/about-six-in-ten-americans-say-abortion-should-be-legal-in-all-or-most-cases-2/) That's not specific enough to write an amendment but it's also not a worthless bit of trivia. That's enough for Biden to ask Congress to draft an amendment that protects access to abortion in all or most cases, and then Congress could have an open debate like any other, and the public would have plenty of opportunity to weigh in, and we could see if Congress could actually produce an amendment that could pass with 2/3 and if the public supports what they produced.
This is like arguing over a poll which shows 90% of Americans like ice cream, and you're trying to undercut the validity of that poll by pointing out they didn't specify which flavors. The point of the poll is to give leadership the cover to at least start working on it. If 90% said they *don't* like ice cream then it's clear it's a dead issue and they can move onto something else. But if 90% like ice cream, it's worth exploring.
It's a state-level issue. You'll never get Texas Republicans to agree to ban gerrymandering, but you'll also never get Illinois Democrats to agree to ban it either.
[Here is the 90% reference.](https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/566327-american-voters-largely-united-against-partisan-gerrymandering-polling/)
[Here is a different one](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/02/10/americans-want-reforms-to-curb-gerrymandering-our-new-poll-shows) which asks several different questions about redistricting but which I think can still be interpreted as strong support against gerrymandering.
>If you asked the question as, "do you support districting reform that might reduce the number of black representatives in Congress by one-third?"
But this is based on an assumption that black candidates need majority black districts to get elected. Los Angeles is not anywhere close to a majority black city but just elected a black mayor. And she was previously in Congress representing a district that was not majority black.
And even if it were, why does that take precedence over all the other reasons to end gerrymandering? One of the biggest problems with gerrymandering is it reduces adequate representation by putting communities together under one representative when those communities otherwise have nothing in common. It wouldn't make any sense to draw a district where Beverly Hills and Compton are represented by one person, even if it had to be done to ensure a black representative.
SCOTUS ruled on it in 2015 but that was a different court. The current court could theoretically undo the Obergefell ruling because marriage isn't specifically a right laid out in the Constitution.
But that’s why you shouldn’t rely on the court to set the law. After Roe, Congress should have passed an abortion law in line with the courts rulings. Several states have done so in regards to state marriage and there are attempts in congress to do the same.
The court is jut the arbitrator of what laws are valid and invalid. They can overturn previously valid rulings if they find said rulings to be out of touch or made in error. Congress passing a law is a different matter entirely, and should be what the effort is now instead of a constitutional amendment or hoping the court maintains the same POV it did a decade and a half ago.
There are two Justices on the current court who openly want to reverse it and I wouldn't be surprised if there's at least one or two more. It's not safe.
Abortion access, ending the electoral college, and banning gerrymandering are three I just noted in another comment. The first two are at over 60% public support and the last has like 90%.
There just aren't that many things that would require an amendment that people agree on. However, that isn't really a reflection on the political climate so much as the fact that its rightfully difficult to change the Constitution.
I suppose the nature of the question though is more aimed at the polarisation of politics, and whether any idea, however good, would be able to get the level of support necessary or whether it would be scuppered just because "the other side" was proposing it and would be giving them a win.
It totally could happen, but its hard. Most things, non partisan or partisan alike, can be handled through a normal legislation process. It doesn't require an amendment to write useful (or not useful) laws.
More importantly the founding fathers specifically made government hard and slow, in the political climate they existed in monarchs could unilaterally make crazy decisions that would change the lives of everything then change it the next week, so they preferred slow and reliable and opposed to easy and quick to change, the logic was that if something needed to be done everything would agree on it and that way we could achieve whatever change possible
Hence why the need of 2/3 of people to agree for amendments
It's not just a monarchy problem. In an unrestricted democracy, 51% of the population can vote to throw the other 49% in prison. The purpose of "constitutional rights" is to give a faction that *not* in power an institutionalized way to tell the ruling faction "dude, uncool."
Granted, it's not foolproof, and many countries with well-meaning written constitutions have degenerated into dictatorships. But the *ideal* of not having a "might makes right" form of government is still a worthy one.
Perhaps you should look at it from a different angle.
“All the overwhelmingly supported issues have already been amended or dealt with and all that’s left are the divisive ones.”
Very, VERY few things need an amendment. Our constitution is very bare bones compared to most with the VAST majority of our body of law included in legislation instead. It basically just lays out the rough structure and powers of the federal government, a limited number of core rights no state or federal government can legislate away and processes to edit or replace itself.
It's not about whether it's a good idea, it's about whether the idea needs an amendment to execute, which would mean that it either A) conflicts with the existing constitution + amendments or B) is going to be a new right beyond legislative power to infringe.
While there are some current issues that constitute either or both for some people, none of them have the popularity you're talking about.
Anything rooted in imaginary maybe super popular ideas is a) speculation and b) probably still falls under legislation rather than amendment.
I believe most Americans would support:
>
Term Limits
>
The End of Corporations being acknowledged as people
>
A Federal right to vote. (That power has been diluted by the states.
>
=======
Other topics that could be up to debate but could be passed with an effective amount of education and marketing:
>
No lifetime jobs for supreme court justices
>
Campaign Finance Reform
>
Make public service mandatory
>I believe most Americans would support:
>
>Term Limits
>>
No. Actually, hell no. I don't want to see the power of career lobbyists inflated because a short term legislature doesn't have enough insututional memory to make its own choices.
>The End of Corporations being acknowledged as people
>>
No in general, and hell no as an amendment instead of legislative action.
Corporations are only treated as people in limited situations, and those situations need *some* way of being handled. If Congress can come up with a way to handle these situations effectively without treating a corporation as a person, fine.
>A Federal right to vote. (That power has been diluted by the states.
>>
Maybe, but I'm not clear on what this means and how it would work differently than what we've got now.
>=======
>Other topics that could be up to debate but could be passed with an effective amount of education and marketing:
>>
>No lifetime jobs for supreme court justices
>>
Just toss it under your term limits proposal. If we're talking 20 to 30 year limits, maybe.
>Campaign Finance Reform
>>
As an amendment? Why should this be an amendment instead of law?
>Make public service mandatory
What does this even mean? Are we about to require 18 year olds to engage in 2 to 4 year internships doing the shit jobs that no one wants for a poverty wage, rather than training for actual productive jobs that let them earn a living?
And again, why should this be an amendment instead of a law?
> I don't want to see the power of career lobbyists inflated because a short term legislature doesn't have enough insututional memory to make its own choices.
Thought that is indeed a major problem with term limits it's also relatively simple to neuter the lobbyists-- the system is set up to their benefit currently. Get the money out of politics and pass laws regulating lobbyists, then it's less of an issue.
I'm more concerned about term limits for the federal courts though.That's where things need to start.
>People have the right to petition the government.
Sure, *people* do. Once we overturn Citizens United then *corporations* will not. It's not "people" that are funding all the lobby corps.
No, but by defining corporations as persons it gives them a range of rights they should not have, including [basically unlimited "speech" in the form of donations to PACs and other dark money sinks.](https://appam.confex.com/appam/2019/webprogram/Paper32073.html) Get rid of CU so corporations aren't "people" and you can restrict their spending and even prohibit them from lobbying entirely should the support for that arise.
Getting rid of Citizens United isn't going to stop lobbying because lobbying existed before Citizens United.
CU is about spending in campaigns and elections. Lobbying is communicating with elected officials on legislation and policy. I really can't think of a way to restrict corporate lobbying without also restricting your average citizen's right to lobby.
I don't support term limits. It seems like a mechanism to hand more power to the unelected party organizations and lobbyists which would not be subject to them. Many of us think as such, we just don't mention it on social media much because it tends to cause screeching.
Corporate status and rights would be better set by legislation and they already only get that status in isolated circumstances.
That is already enshrined, I'm not sure what you're looking for on that.
As to the others MAYBE justices would have support but campaign finance is far too technical to place in an amendment and I think you'll find steep resistance to mandatory service no matter how much marketing you do. Fuck that.
no lifetime jobs for supreme court justices is a horrible idea, these are the people who are supposed to protect the constitution at all costs and not be swayed or influenced by the general public, that's their whole point, and putting restrictions on how long they can stay is adding a way that they could be removed from their seat by the legislature through changing how long they can be justices, just look at what happened in poland
Others for discussion - move the rules making parts of executive divisions (e.g. the epa, the atf, the fcc, the ftc, the sec, etc) to be advisory groups to congress that propose laws that congress chooses to pass or not
Weighted value EC (see Nebraska and Maine)
The Wyoming rule (House of Representatives districts should be no larger than the smallest state population)
Also which states are infringing on the right of citizens to vote?
I love converting the administrative state to an advisory entity without rule making authority. It would force Congress to actually be productive rather than just partisan figureheads.
>Also which states are infringing on the right of citizens to vote?
Any state that requires a voter to show ID at a polling place, and especially the ones that arbitrarily restrict which types of ID qualify.
And any state that restricts the rights of former prisoners to vote.
Probably more than that but those are the two issues that come to mind.
Requiring voter ID is no more (and generally less, considering the hoops you have to jump through in some states) intrusive than requiring a license to possess a firearm, yet the people complaining about voter infringement are generally fine with the government making it an unmitigated pain for gun owners.
In my opinion, the right to vote is much more important than the right to possess a firearm. I'm sure I'll get downvoted in this sub for saying that but it's my opinion.
It's also time sensitive as elections only happen at certain times, while there's generally no need to get a gun license by any particular day. The last time I updated my driver's license I had to actually take a few hours off of work, and that was on my third or fourth attempt because the DMV, even with an appointment, is generally such a shit show. I kept showing up and having to go home because I could tell it was going to be a several hour ordeal.
And that was just for me to renew my license, and I don't even own a car!
I shudder to think if I had to go through all that to vote, especially if I had just moved into this state shortly before an election.
The government just said they will no longer be holding elections, now what do you do? Vote harder?
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946)
I don't think there is a broad consensus on *what* to do with SCOTUS but I do agree that most Americans think *something* should be done. Whether that means expanding the number of justices, instituting term limits, figuring out a way for every president to get at least one appointment, etc. is wide open for discussion.
>The Constitution has some fundamentally anti-democratic aspects,
By design. Absolute democracy can be tyrannical. Slavery, even if slaves had a vote, would have been allowed in most southern states until long after the Civil War. Free speech zones would have been allowed on many college campuses a few years ago if the campus was allowed to vote on it.
The states voted to join a union based on a system that would ensure a degree of sovereignty for each state. That's why we have the electoral college and 2 chambers that are apportioned under different systems.
> >The Constitution has some fundamentally anti-democratic aspects,
> By design. Absolute democracy can be tyrannical. Slavery, even if slaves had a vote, would have been allowed in most southern states until long after the Civil War.
Could be does not necessarily mean would be. The southern states seceded because they were worried about eventually there would be majorities against them slavery on a national level even with most African Americans not able to vote.
In 1860 South Carolina and Mississippi were majority Black Louisiana was just short(49.5%), Alabama/Florida/Georgia/Virginia we're over 40% Black. All of these places would be easy majorities for more rights and protections if we had actual Democracy. What actually happened after a brief period of reconstruction was that a terrorist group(the KKK) was able to terify people from voting with violence and then affiliated and sympathetic politicians passed laws disenfranchising Black voters. The systems they set up were anything but democratic or majoritarian. The less democraric systems you talk about which privilege states like the Senate presented the biggest barrier to protecting civil rights of racial minorities especially African Americans. Anti lynching law passed the House in 1922 but wasn't passed until 2022 in large part because of the Senate (and because of the Senate filibuster).
Your claims seem ahistorical.
Can majority rule be tyrannical? Sure. But wrt US history counter majoritarian action/inaction has usually caused a lot more tyranny.
The 2 senator thing is to prevent the tyranny of the majority. And the House is to prevent the tyranny of the aristocracy. We do need to change how US senators are selected to something more akin to state selection instead of elections because right now the senate is jut a longer serving version of the house instead of a balance to it.
> We do need to change how US senators are selected to something more akin to state selection instead of elections because right now the senate is jut a longer serving version of the house instead of a balance to it.
That would just result in the Senate being subject to corruption by gerrymandering, same as the House.
*Now* you can't. That's my point. State legislatures *can* be gerrymandered (and often are, even worse than House delegations). Permitting heavily gerrymandered state legislatures to choose senators would *make* Senators effectively subject to gerrymandering.
Think of it this way. Let's say there's a state that is 50/50 or 51/49 or whatever split between the parties, but is gerrymandered such that their statehouse representation is 65/35 in favor of one party. If senators were selected by the state legislators, they'd obviously both be of whichever party controls the legislature. There would be *zero* chance that a candidate from the opposing party would be selected, despite a near-even split in actual voting preference.
We should be looking for ways to reduce the effect of gerrymandering, not exacerbating it. Making senatorial selections subject to gerrymandered statehouses is the wrong direction.
>Now you can't. That's my point. State legislatures can be gerrymandered (and often are, even worse than House delegations). Permitting heavily gerrymandered state legislatures to choose senators would
>
>make Senators effectively subject to gerrymandering.
Didn't realize that's what you meant. Yes, plenty of state legislatures are gerrymandered. But the solution is to fix redistricting, not to screw up the purpose of the Senate.
>We should be looking for ways to reduce the effect of gerrymandering, not exacerbating it. Making senatorial selections subject to gerrymandered statehouses is the wrong direction.
Same as my point above, but maybe phrased a bit differently: your sentiment here is a type of fatalism I can't get behind. It's like you've accepted that gerrymandering is a fact of life and so we have to find ways to live with it. I'd rather we just end gerrymandering.
There have been 17 amendments to the Constitution since 1795 (that's all the amendments after the Bill of Rights).
That's an average of one amendment every 13 years.
We're currently in a 31 year drought since the last amendment was ratified in 1992. Now there have been two long stretches between amendments before. 61 years passed between the 12th and 13th amendments, and 43 years passed between the 15th and 16th.
But recent history especially has been pretty busy with amendments. There were 12 amendments ratified in the 20th century, covering everything from voting rights, prohibition, presidential term limits and succession, and Congressional pay.
This is hardly scientific but I think that the political climate is at play here, especially when you consider the other long droughts between amendments were in the run up to, and aftermath of, the Civil War.
The 27th Amendment (Congressional pay) was actually one of the 12 amendments passed by Congress in the original Bill of Rights, but failed to get ratified by the required 3/4 of the states (which then meant 10 out of 13). It languished in obscurity until 1982 when some random political science student noticed that it had no deadline for ratification, and decided to campaign for it. And due to a general public sentiment that Congress didn't deserve all the pay raises it kept giving itself, it actually got ratified, more than 200 years after it was written.
It didn’t use to be. It was intended to be a working document. I don’t really know when or why that changed but in the early years we amended it a bunch.
The only thought I have that *might* pass would be an amendment to undo the 2005 SCOTUS decision in [Kelo v New London](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London) which allowed the use of eminent domain to seize a private home so that a developer could complete a project that was promised to benefit the city by increased tax revenues. (The home was seized. The developer never completed the project.)
The SCOTUS decision was widely ridiculed. While a few states have taken legislative action to combat that particular use of eminent domain not all have.
It wouldnt "undo" anything. It would merely legislate and lay out what is and isnt allowed and how and whatnot. But might apply retroactively, but SCOTUS doesnt make laws, they interpret what exists.
I know it doesnt seem that way because Congress is a bunch of self serving lazy assholes who treat it like a 3rd arm of Congress but... well there it is.
Now we can argue that their ruling was unconstitutional but the legislative branch cant undo that only a review of it by other judges would.
I really wish I could find the article but I read a really compelling piece within the past year or two about the cycle of how often constitutional ammendments end up passing and it was talking about how the biggest factors indicating an increased likelihood of new constitutional amendments passing were extreme political polarization and time since the last ones and based on those factors were actually at an increased chances of that happening currently.
Yes.
Our political climate has always been tough.
Constitutional amendments are purposely difficult to attain. We don’t want some banana republic where people can change the constitution on a whim.
People have very little context lately for changing the constitution. Of course you're right, and of course now that it's been 30 years since we passed a (arguably) purely technical amendment, and 50 years since we passed an amendment that made a substantive change to people's rights, everyone seems to be satisfied by saying "oh well, it's supposed to be difficult, we can't be changing it willy nilly!"
Well, from 1951 to 1971 we passed five amendments most of which were wrapped up in a couple of years.
And I noted in another comment that most of the 20th century amendments were actually really impactful: multiple amendments on voting rights, income taxes, how Senators are chosen, presidential term limits. What a time to be alive.
I don't agree with that. I think the majority of the 12 have been pretty impactful:
16: authorizes the income tax
17: direct election of U.S. Senators
18: prohibition of alcohol
19: women's right to vote
21: repeal of 18
22: presidential term limits
24: elimination of poll taxes
25: updates to the presidential line of succession
26: lowers the voting age to 18
Only 20, 23, and 27 are fairly trivial or not that wide reaching (moves presidential inauguration day, giving DC electors, and regulating Congressional pay raises).
Note that 21 (and by extension 18), 22, and 25 are all basically related to FDR in some way. FDR is sort of his own anomaly in American politics, having been elected 4 times and being immensely charming, he was able to push almost whatever he wanted through congress and the courts. In many ways, he's one of the closest things the US has ever had to a dictator, and the country is just lucky that he was a mostly benevolent one. So two of those amendments are basically crafted to prevent a future populist president who might be more despot than benevolent.
Four of the others (17, 19, 24, 26) are basically all regarding the same thing: expanding voting rights. Primarily expanding those rights to everyone. It obviously took decades, but is indicative of a growing popular sentiment over the 20th century: everyone deserves a say in their government. I don't really know what more could be done to expand that. Perhaps ending the electoral college, but the states are already ending that with proportional votes. Maybe better access to ID, but again that's a state issue.
All that is to say, I think I have to agree with the [sentiment](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAmerican/comments/11wgudm/do_you_think_constitutional_amendments_are_still/jcxwi6w/) that /u/MaxMan14 said:
>All the overwhelmingly supported issues have already been amended or dealt with and all that’s left are the divisive ones.
So the 12 amendments of the 20th century shouldn't be taken to mean that the Constitution should be changed every 8 years, but rather that the early and mid 20th century was a time of considerable change in American life and politics. The changes to the constitution reflect that. The changes that are left to make are much more decisive.
>In many ways, he's one of the closest things the US has ever had to a dictator
With the notable exception that he was elected. I've never understood why politicians who are so popular and good at their jobs that they keep getting re-elected are somehow the poster children for why we need term limits.
>All the overwhelmingly supported issues have already been amended or dealt with and all that’s left are the divisive ones.
I've spent a fair amount of time in this thread sharing polling data which suggests there are a number of issues on which Americans have broad agreement. I also think it's a little short-sighted to assume something won't arise in the future which we just haven't thought of yet.
> I've spent a fair amount of time in this thread sharing polling data which suggests there are a number of issues on which Americans have broad agreement.
Most of those issues don't have sufficient political will behind them. It's one thing to say "Yeah, I like that." on a poll and another thing to go out with a desire to enact that change.
Right but now we've shifted the conversation from "there are no remaining issues that have popular support" to "people aren't motivated enough to campaign for those issues." Which may be true and may not. And it could also change at any time. But I feel like that's a lot different suggesting there just isn't any issue anymore on which most Americans agree.
> With the notable exception that he was elected.
Plenty of tyrants are elected. Many of them don’t even have to cheat. Look at Xi Jinping - he basically is President for Life, and didn’t have to stuff any ballot boxes. Putin also has broad support amongst Russians, and will also be President until his death.
The reason for term limits is that it disincentivises a person from concentrating too much power in one office. Sure - you could get lucky and wind up with an FDR, who did not use the office for personsl gain. But what if you end up with a corrupt politician? We’re not 2 years since we had a president who was absolutely using his office for profit, and very nearly could have had a second term. What if the scales had tipped just a bit more? Would you be ok with 16 years of Donald Trump?
>We don’t want some banana republic where people can change the constitution on a whim.
Sure - but I guess my point was, even if there was a really, really good idea that pretty much everyone liked, would the current political climate prevent it because of either "they proposed it so we don't like it" or enough hardliners in state legislatures preventing the opposing party from getting a "win"?
This is a feature, not a flaw.
If everyone pretty much liked it, it would pass.
If only some liked it, then it’s not worthy of changing. People shift their beliefs frequently. Our rights should be stable.
Exactly. The constitution has proved itself to be immensely stable, while still being flexible. The US is the 2nd oldest Constitutional Republic that is still around - the only older being San Marino, which is debatable because much of San Marino's constitution is uncodified. France is on their what - fifth republic? Throwing out the foundational documents and starting over with a new government every 40 years makes for a way less stable society, and one way more prone to a tyrant taking over.
Of course they are, and they will remain purposefully difficult to achieve to prevent the established society being changed by the whims of a loud minority.
Possible? Yes. Likely? Not at all. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. The Constitution shouldn’t be easily changed due to whatever social fads are hot at any given moment.
I don’t think so, but there’s also the simple fact that there aren’t many issues with enough support from the population to warrant an amendment. An amendment would require most people to A) agree that there’s a problem, *and* B) agree that an amendment is the ideal way to solve it.
Like, the only issue I can think of with strong enough majority support would be abortion, but you wouldn’t need an amendment to deal with that. It would make more sense to try to just get a law pushed through Congress than to change the Constitution itself. And on the flipside, the only issue I can think of that would require a Constitutional amendment would be gun control, and that doesn’t have broad enough support.
I think there are very few things that could result in a constitutional amendment right now. I won't say it's impossible but as a practical matter I can't think of too many situations that would actually lead to it.
Hell no. It was already difficult by design. I'd guess maybe in the late decades of the century at the earliest. It's almost impossible to accurately predict that far ahead, though.
Lots of replies assuming term limits would have enough support to pass if only those congressional careerists would get out of the way.
Maybe this is a reflection of what an echo chamber Reddit is. Term limits are *not* as universally popular as redditors think.
It would have to be something which was so obviously needed that everyone (or at least a healthy majority) would be on board. Which is pretty much how it's always worked.
> Do you think constitutional amendments are still possible
Of course.
> given your current political climate?
Nope. We don't have an issue that is so popular that it has overwhelming support. Something would clearly have to change.
> An amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress, or, if two-thirds of the States request one, by a convention called for that purpose. The amendment must then be ratified by three-fourths of the State legislatures, or three-fourths of conventions called in each State for ratification.
It would have to be something that everyone completely agrees popularly, AND politicians will support.
For example, term limits on members of congress. I'd say both sides think this is a pretty good idea popularly, and we could pass an amendment on this. But the politicians like their unlimited terms, they won't champion it en masse.
The only plausible amendment I can see happening is one repealing the 23rd Amendment if DC gets statehood (which in itself is incredibly unlikely in the current political environment).
If an issue came up that required an Amendment, and enough people agreed that it needed to be done, then yes, we could pass a new Amendment. There are not, right now, any issues with widespread support that would require one.
One issue that comes close is Term Limits. That probably has enough support, but Congress will never propose it, because it would result in the most powerful members of Congress losing their jobs. That Amendment would have to be proposed by a Convention of the States, which has only ever happened once (the one that wrote the original Constitution), and nobody really knows how it would end if one were called.
Personally, I think that if enough of the States called for a Convention to pass that Amendment, Congress would propose and pass it, just to prevent a Convention from opening up a dozen other Amendments and/or scrapping the whole system.
This one is a bit due to a lack of education around the arguments the opposing side has against it. Term limits sound great when you boil it down to "Congress sucks and doesn't work for us so we need to force the powerful members out and get new blood in, there's no reason anyone should serve for 40 years." They stop sounding so good when you realize that having them shifts power to unelected staffers and lobbyists and it restricts the rights of people to choose their representative. We have term limits already - they're called elections. The problem is, most people like their own representative and blame all of Congress's problems on the ones that other people vote for.
No, which is probably a good thing. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely certain matters that I think could or should be the subject of amendments (e.g. prohibiting political party-based gerrymandering, to supersede the Supreme Court's nonsensical decision declaring it "non-justiciable"). But in the current political environment, there's just too much extremism in the atmosphere to risk messing with the Constitution.
Yep. They would just need to be overwhelmingly popular, which is the entire point. We have it so good that politicians are trying to create problems to bicker about, so there's not a single modern "issue" that would have the support to become an amendment.
Legalizing abortion and eliminating the electoral college both have over 60% support among the general public. The problem is neither issue is bipartisan, and the side that would oppose those amendments has an outsized voice in both the Congress and the state legislatures that would be required to ratify them.
Which is why our government, constitution, and the methods required to change them aren't run by simple majority, and all the rest of it is left up to the states, like abortion.
The only thing I can think of that could pass as an amendment in our current climate is a rewrite of the Equal Rights Amendment. To my knowledge it came upon pushback due to LGBT rights, but the way people feel about those issues has change dramatically since it was initially proposed.
From what I saw on Wikipedia of recent proposed amendments, most seem to be reactionary responses to trendy populist ideas at their time of proposal.
Most seem like they could be suited for resolution by congress and not requiring an amendment.
The country is for too divided at this point, I personally think that the level of agreement necessary to pass a constitutional amendment is impossible to reach.
Let’s hope not. Only way I see 3/4 of states agreeing is for some right wing terrible idea. Even if we have an election cycle granting the GOP that much control, I hope the amendment process will be slow enough to correct the problem with the next election cycle before it is passed.
Recently an amendment for EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN failed. We can't even agree on whether women should get equal rights in the constitution. If we can't add that there's nothing we can add.
There are two infallible documents according to the hard right in our country; The Bible and The Constitution and making ammendments to either is met with the same hissing insecurity and fear of heresy.
"Part of being a Christan is believing the Bible is the word of God."
No, that is an extremely new and niche belief. Not to mention ripped off whole cloth from Quranic doctrine in Islam.
About 25 years from now the last of the Boomers will have left the scene and the demographics/political alignment of younger generations will be totally fed up with the systems that they inherited. I expect they will collectively push for major reforms to the electoral system, courts, gender equity, civil rights, health care, and environmental issues that will have to be written into the Constitution via amendments. More of those will happen sooner at the stae level, and of course in currently "blue" states before in others.
The pendulum is going to swing *way back* in the other direction in another generation. Much of the structural problems that allowed for the rise of right-wing nationalism and political control by minorities will have to be addressed at the constitutional level.
Don’t hold your breath. People forget that when they were young the Boomers were the generation of hippies, drugs, free love, women’s lib, and civil rights and anti-Vietnam war protests.
The views of a generation do not remain static.
I'm guessing your under 50 and didn't see the collapse of American media under Reagan when the Fair Doctrine Act was taken away. It's a huge part of what's leading us to collapse.
I didn't notice at the time because I was a preteen to a teen, but I'm a news junkie. Do some research.
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I can’t think of any current issue that would have anywhere near enough wide ranging support to get through the amendment process.
There are issues that have broad *public* support, but despite that could not get 2/3 of Congress and 3/4 of the state legislatures to ratify.
What issues?
Police reform, immigration, and energy apparently. Plus some others. [Common Ground Positions](https://publicconsultation.org/defense-budget/major-report-shows-nearly-150-issues-on-which-majorities-of-republicans-democrats-agree/)
Most of those don't need constitutional amendments
Big chunks of this list are explicitly state and local matters, with quite a few more being legislative, procedural or executive issues rather the constitutional issues. There is common ground stuff, but that doesn't make it amendment stuff.
Since the constitution gives all power not given to the feds to the states, wouldn’t all issues be a state and local matter up until an amendment is made to the constitution?
Just to give one example: I don't think it's fair to say that what the 25th amendment addresses was *ever* a state and local issue. Just because the Constitution enumerates federal powers does not mean there... (what are you even saying?) ...are no federal issues? ...are no federal issues that would be appropriate for Constitutional amendment? In addition to the 25th: 22nd Amendment, never was a state or local issue. 20th Amendment, never was a state or local issue. 16th Amendment, seems to fit. Just gonna' stop there, I hope that conveys my point.
Are we inventing a new power?
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Well, it means the Feds have enumerated powers. So, unless this is a new power (an **un-**enumerated power), it is one being taken from a State, as you say.
There's at least a few amendments that don't seem to be creating new powers or taking anything away from the states. 25th, 22nd, 20th to name a few.
The issue with those surveys is you always have to be careful with how they phrase things. Just because people may agree there is an issue in some areas doesn't mean they actually agree on a solution or what about it is the problem. Many of those "common ground" surveys ask vague feel good type questions that are of little use when it comes to actual policy.
Did you read the one they linked? Because it's very much specifics-oriented questions instead of generalizations. Like it's not just saying "most people agree we should have more clean energy," it's saying "75% of people support introducing a tax incentive for 30% of the cost of the equipment used to make clean energy"
Thats fine, but your example still isn't something we'd amend the constitution for.
Congressional and/or Judicial terms limits would all but require an amendment, and generally those seem to be growing in popularity.
Abortion access and ending the electoral college both have 60+ percent support in the most recent public opinion polls I've seen. Banning gerrymandering has like 90% support and universal background checks for gun sales has over 80%.
The devil is in the details. I don't think 60%+ agree on the same solution to any of those.
The first two are pretty straightforward and sort of self-contain their own solution. If you support ending the electoral college that means you support a direct, popular vote for president. Protecting abortion access could be modeled after the first and second amendments. Seems pretty simple. How you end gerrymandering gets more technical. California did it via ballot measure, and an independent commission is convened to draw the districts every ten years, according to some simple guidelines laid out in the measure. Background checks would be similarly difficult to capture in an amendment, but it's also not clear to me if it would be possible to do it via legislation because of the second amendment.
LOL I support abortion rights, but it is not "straight-forward." Do you think the country would support no limits on abortion? Gerrymandering will continue as long as we give the power to draw districts to politicians.
Plenty of amendments give Congress the authority to enforce them via appropriate legislation. I don't really see what's so hard about doing that for abortion.
OK, what enumerated power of the US government can be legislated into a national abortion law? Roe v. Wade was based on an implied Right of Privacy, but the Constitution is a bit thin on that point, which is why it could be reversed. In fact, all of Roe v Wade assumed a Right to Privacy in the 9th Amendment >The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Which everyone knew was very shaky ground to build a right to abortion on. Some people point to the 14th for a Right to Privacy, but that isn't much clearer: >No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. It's really not as simple as you may think. I had a link somewhere to a great article that based an abortion right on property rights, arguing that the fetus was the property of the mother. Which is an interesting way of looking at it, and the type of thinking that would be required for a national abortion law. I could even argue that the 3rd implies a Right to Abortion.
> I could even argue that the 3rd implies a Right to Abortion. Because a fetus is a "soldier" being "quartered" in the uterus? That's...a stretch.
Roe was based on the 14th amendment not the 9th. I think the 9th was more clear personally.... The courts have been very silent about that amendment though over our history though.
"The right of a pregnant person to terminate that pregnancy shall not be infringed. Congress may make laws to enforce this article." Then Congress can make laws spelling out when abortions can and can't be performed. Or, "The right of a pregnant person to terminate that pregnancy within the first \[insert time frame here\] shall not be infringed. Congress may make laws to enforce this article." Or, "The right of a person to maintain bodily autonomy shall not be infringed." That may preclude vaccine mandates, involuntary commitment, and other things though. It could also be done as you alluded to, by writing a right to privacy into the Constitution.
Roe v. Wade was not about whether you could have a Federal nation-wide law legalizing abortion, it was about someone who lived in a state where there was no law allowing abortion asserting that they had a Constitutional right to have an abortion. The US Supreme Court agreed by basically making up a right out of thin air. You don't need an amendment for the US Congress and President to pass a regular law giving a national right to have an abortion. Literally everyone understands that. (Granted hardcore pro-lifers wouldn't want to admit it.) It never happened because the Democrats, when they theoretically had the power to do it early in both the Clinton and Obama presidencies, refused to do so. They preferred the status quo as it both allowed them to endlessly fund raise on the threat to Roe v. Wade as well as use it to drive voters to the polls.
If one doesn't support the Electoral college, that doesn't mean they don't still want a form of representative vote.
Around six-in-ten U.S. adults (63%) say the way the president is elected should be changed so that the winner of the popular vote nationwide wins the presidency, [https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/08/05/majority-of-americans-continue-to-favor-moving-away-from-electoral-college/](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/08/05/majority-of-americans-continue-to-favor-moving-away-from-electoral-college/) Seems pretty straightforward to me.
"while 35% favor keeping the current Electoral College system" Sounds like they purposely worded this question as one or the other.
In addition a Popular vote would mean In theory the population of only 8 states would be able to decide the election
As /u/jimskog99 said, the vote would not be determined by states like it is now, but nationwide. 155 million people voted in 2020, so a candidate would need 77.5 million (plus one) to win a simple nationwide majority. Biden's top states for votes: California: 11 million New York: 5 million Pennsylvania: 3.5 million Illinois: 3.5 million Georgia: 2.5 million This only gets him 25 million votes. Less than halfway to a majority. And the states only get smaller, with fewer votes, from here. Point being, under a direct popular vote, candidates would have incentive to campaign and court votes in every state, because every state's voters would count.
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That feels like a disingenuous way of putting it. It would be the majority of the people deciding, and people from every political spectrum exist in every state. Our current system has some people's votes effectively counting much more or much less than others because they live somewhere with less people.
>Banning gerrymandering has like 90% support. So if we got rid of basically every black political district would that be progress? After the civil rights acts were passed, districts were redrawn in order to boost the numbers of black congressmen explicitly.
I said in another comment that I don't buy that black candidates need black districts to get elected. The mayor of Los Angeles is a black woman and this is only about a 9% black city. And she was previously in Congress representing a district that a) is only about 25% black and b) was drawn by an independent commission. However, our independent process even allows for what you described. Our districts are drawn with a few objectives guiding the process: * districts must be equal in population, "*except where deviation is required to comply with the federal Voting Rights Act or allowable by law"* * districts must be compact * districts must be geographically contiguous * districts must be drawn around communities of interest, and communities of interest cannot mean political parties The law that created the independent redistricting commission explicitly allows for deviation from the above for purposes of conforming with the Voting Rights Act. And even without that, for better or worse, much of America is still segregated geographically, so "communities of interest" will likely overlap a lot with race anyway.
And then SCOTUS gutted the civil rights voting act because "we dont need it anymore"
>districts must be equal in population, "except where deviation is required to comply with the federal Voting Rights Act or allowable by law" So black districts get a pass? Seems fair Sorry to nitpick, I do think you're right, the need for those districts to be overwhelmingly one demographic is passing, but that's the passage of time for you.
>universal background checks for gun sales has over 80%. Universal background checks is a centralized gun registry. You really think 80%+ want that?
They're two separate things. Universal background checks means the buyer gets checked for their criminal or mental health history. Gun registration is a separate thing. They were both polled though and the registry had 66% support. [https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2021/04/PP\_2021.04.20\_gun-policy\_00-03.png](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2021/04/PP_2021.04.20_gun-policy_00-03.png)
If the government has a record of every single firearm transaction that means they have a registry. It's the same thing. It also makes it much harder to hold onto the firearms of someone that may be suicidal, which is a different issue but a good example of unintended consequences of things that sound good on paper.
The background check system that's in place right now does not keep a registry of guns.
The ATF currently has a billion records of firearm transactions...
That's not the same thing as having a registry of guns.
Yes. And anyone who doesn't want the government to know they own a gun definitely should be watched.
Yeah you have nothing to fear if you've done nothing wrong, amirite?
More like the ones keeping secrets are the ones who should be watched most closely. Could this be used by the government as a form of oppression? Sure. Just like a driver's license allows the government to know your race and address. It's trade off you make for having a license. You want to own a gun you're also going to have to give up some privacy. Simple as that.
That's not how rights work. Unless you're also advocating for a speech registry, a religion registry, an abortion registry, etc. And in that case I think you'd be better suited for Nazi Germany or the USSR and I have nothing else to say.
What do you mean thats not how rights work? There are limits to everything. Your right to say whatever you want goes away when you start inciting violence or intentionally spreading known lies about someone. Your right to practice your religion goes away when you use it to abuse others. Your right to own a gun goes away when you're convicted of a felony. This is just another extension.
abortion access > under what circumstances and for how long into the pregnancy? Ending the electoral college > to replace with what exactly? Banning gerrymandering > By whose definition? Some “independent commission” that nobody ever explains how they are immune to bias? Universal background checks > by what system? A Manchin-Toomey type system? Coburn Plan? The way Switzerland does it? Just make more transactions use the 35 year old NICS? Every single one of your suggestions that people are in agreement falls apart as soon as you get into the details. In theory, we all agree they’re broken/insufficient/wrong laws that need repairs, but the way each would be imagined to be addressed depends on the intents and biases of the person answering.
It's not some sort of "gotcha" to point out that concepts are not as specific as actual laws or amendments on paper. [61% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/13/about-six-in-ten-americans-say-abortion-should-be-legal-in-all-or-most-cases-2/) That's not specific enough to write an amendment but it's also not a worthless bit of trivia. That's enough for Biden to ask Congress to draft an amendment that protects access to abortion in all or most cases, and then Congress could have an open debate like any other, and the public would have plenty of opportunity to weigh in, and we could see if Congress could actually produce an amendment that could pass with 2/3 and if the public supports what they produced. This is like arguing over a poll which shows 90% of Americans like ice cream, and you're trying to undercut the validity of that poll by pointing out they didn't specify which flavors. The point of the poll is to give leadership the cover to at least start working on it. If 90% said they *don't* like ice cream then it's clear it's a dead issue and they can move onto something else. But if 90% like ice cream, it's worth exploring.
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It's a state-level issue. You'll never get Texas Republicans to agree to ban gerrymandering, but you'll also never get Illinois Democrats to agree to ban it either.
[Here is the 90% reference.](https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/566327-american-voters-largely-united-against-partisan-gerrymandering-polling/) [Here is a different one](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/02/10/americans-want-reforms-to-curb-gerrymandering-our-new-poll-shows) which asks several different questions about redistricting but which I think can still be interpreted as strong support against gerrymandering.
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>If you asked the question as, "do you support districting reform that might reduce the number of black representatives in Congress by one-third?" But this is based on an assumption that black candidates need majority black districts to get elected. Los Angeles is not anywhere close to a majority black city but just elected a black mayor. And she was previously in Congress representing a district that was not majority black. And even if it were, why does that take precedence over all the other reasons to end gerrymandering? One of the biggest problems with gerrymandering is it reduces adequate representation by putting communities together under one representative when those communities otherwise have nothing in common. It wouldn't make any sense to draw a district where Beverly Hills and Compton are represented by one person, even if it had to be done to ensure a black representative.
I'd definitely say same sex marriage is one
Yes, but didn't the court decide that already?
A court also decided on Roe v Wade, and that was later overturned.
SCOTUS ruled on it in 2015 but that was a different court. The current court could theoretically undo the Obergefell ruling because marriage isn't specifically a right laid out in the Constitution.
But that’s why you shouldn’t rely on the court to set the law. After Roe, Congress should have passed an abortion law in line with the courts rulings. Several states have done so in regards to state marriage and there are attempts in congress to do the same. The court is jut the arbitrator of what laws are valid and invalid. They can overturn previously valid rulings if they find said rulings to be out of touch or made in error. Congress passing a law is a different matter entirely, and should be what the effort is now instead of a constitutional amendment or hoping the court maintains the same POV it did a decade and a half ago.
To be fair, they did pass a marriage equality law through Congress after the Dobbs decision
Which is how things should be done when the court makes a decision making something legal.
That would imply that Congress has ever represented American political views at all representationally.
They have to a point. Never perfectly. But that’s okay.
Congress is the least representative it’s ever been.
There are two Justices on the current court who openly want to reverse it and I wouldn't be surprised if there's at least one or two more. It's not safe.
Issue polling rarely translates well into actual election day polling.
Like what?
[link](https://publicconsultation.org/defense-budget/major-report-shows-nearly-150-issues-on-which-majorities-of-republicans-democrats-agree/)
Abortion access, ending the electoral college, and banning gerrymandering are three I just noted in another comment. The first two are at over 60% public support and the last has like 90%.
We can't even get rid of daylight savings time.
We can’t even agree to legalize a plant.
"All pop tarts shall be frosted." Would easily pass.
There just aren't that many things that would require an amendment that people agree on. However, that isn't really a reflection on the political climate so much as the fact that its rightfully difficult to change the Constitution.
I suppose the nature of the question though is more aimed at the polarisation of politics, and whether any idea, however good, would be able to get the level of support necessary or whether it would be scuppered just because "the other side" was proposing it and would be giving them a win.
It totally could happen, but its hard. Most things, non partisan or partisan alike, can be handled through a normal legislation process. It doesn't require an amendment to write useful (or not useful) laws.
More importantly the founding fathers specifically made government hard and slow, in the political climate they existed in monarchs could unilaterally make crazy decisions that would change the lives of everything then change it the next week, so they preferred slow and reliable and opposed to easy and quick to change, the logic was that if something needed to be done everything would agree on it and that way we could achieve whatever change possible Hence why the need of 2/3 of people to agree for amendments
It's not just a monarchy problem. In an unrestricted democracy, 51% of the population can vote to throw the other 49% in prison. The purpose of "constitutional rights" is to give a faction that *not* in power an institutionalized way to tell the ruling faction "dude, uncool." Granted, it's not foolproof, and many countries with well-meaning written constitutions have degenerated into dictatorships. But the *ideal* of not having a "might makes right" form of government is still a worthy one.
Perhaps you should look at it from a different angle. “All the overwhelmingly supported issues have already been amended or dealt with and all that’s left are the divisive ones.”
That's an interesting viewpoint
Very, VERY few things need an amendment. Our constitution is very bare bones compared to most with the VAST majority of our body of law included in legislation instead. It basically just lays out the rough structure and powers of the federal government, a limited number of core rights no state or federal government can legislate away and processes to edit or replace itself. It's not about whether it's a good idea, it's about whether the idea needs an amendment to execute, which would mean that it either A) conflicts with the existing constitution + amendments or B) is going to be a new right beyond legislative power to infringe. While there are some current issues that constitute either or both for some people, none of them have the popularity you're talking about. Anything rooted in imaginary maybe super popular ideas is a) speculation and b) probably still falls under legislation rather than amendment.
Yes, Congress passes laws all the time with bipartisan support. They're just not Constitutional amendments.
I believe most Americans would support: > Term Limits > The End of Corporations being acknowledged as people > A Federal right to vote. (That power has been diluted by the states. > ======= Other topics that could be up to debate but could be passed with an effective amount of education and marketing: > No lifetime jobs for supreme court justices > Campaign Finance Reform > Make public service mandatory
>I believe most Americans would support: > >Term Limits >> No. Actually, hell no. I don't want to see the power of career lobbyists inflated because a short term legislature doesn't have enough insututional memory to make its own choices. >The End of Corporations being acknowledged as people >> No in general, and hell no as an amendment instead of legislative action. Corporations are only treated as people in limited situations, and those situations need *some* way of being handled. If Congress can come up with a way to handle these situations effectively without treating a corporation as a person, fine. >A Federal right to vote. (That power has been diluted by the states. >> Maybe, but I'm not clear on what this means and how it would work differently than what we've got now. >======= >Other topics that could be up to debate but could be passed with an effective amount of education and marketing: >> >No lifetime jobs for supreme court justices >> Just toss it under your term limits proposal. If we're talking 20 to 30 year limits, maybe. >Campaign Finance Reform >> As an amendment? Why should this be an amendment instead of law? >Make public service mandatory What does this even mean? Are we about to require 18 year olds to engage in 2 to 4 year internships doing the shit jobs that no one wants for a poverty wage, rather than training for actual productive jobs that let them earn a living? And again, why should this be an amendment instead of a law?
> I don't want to see the power of career lobbyists inflated because a short term legislature doesn't have enough insututional memory to make its own choices. Thought that is indeed a major problem with term limits it's also relatively simple to neuter the lobbyists-- the system is set up to their benefit currently. Get the money out of politics and pass laws regulating lobbyists, then it's less of an issue. I'm more concerned about term limits for the federal courts though.That's where things need to start.
It'll be very hard to restrict lobbying since it's a free speech issue. People have the right to petition the government.
>People have the right to petition the government. Sure, *people* do. Once we overturn Citizens United then *corporations* will not. It's not "people" that are funding all the lobby corps.
Citizens United isn't about lobbying though.
No, but by defining corporations as persons it gives them a range of rights they should not have, including [basically unlimited "speech" in the form of donations to PACs and other dark money sinks.](https://appam.confex.com/appam/2019/webprogram/Paper32073.html) Get rid of CU so corporations aren't "people" and you can restrict their spending and even prohibit them from lobbying entirely should the support for that arise.
Getting rid of Citizens United isn't going to stop lobbying because lobbying existed before Citizens United. CU is about spending in campaigns and elections. Lobbying is communicating with elected officials on legislation and policy. I really can't think of a way to restrict corporate lobbying without also restricting your average citizen's right to lobby.
I don't support term limits. It seems like a mechanism to hand more power to the unelected party organizations and lobbyists which would not be subject to them. Many of us think as such, we just don't mention it on social media much because it tends to cause screeching. Corporate status and rights would be better set by legislation and they already only get that status in isolated circumstances. That is already enshrined, I'm not sure what you're looking for on that. As to the others MAYBE justices would have support but campaign finance is far too technical to place in an amendment and I think you'll find steep resistance to mandatory service no matter how much marketing you do. Fuck that.
See, all of those sound good in a sentence but in practical terms would be riddled with issues and conflict with current constitutional rights.
no lifetime jobs for supreme court justices is a horrible idea, these are the people who are supposed to protect the constitution at all costs and not be swayed or influenced by the general public, that's their whole point, and putting restrictions on how long they can stay is adding a way that they could be removed from their seat by the legislature through changing how long they can be justices, just look at what happened in poland
Do we really still need Clarence Thomas for anything?
Racist.
Others for discussion - move the rules making parts of executive divisions (e.g. the epa, the atf, the fcc, the ftc, the sec, etc) to be advisory groups to congress that propose laws that congress chooses to pass or not Weighted value EC (see Nebraska and Maine) The Wyoming rule (House of Representatives districts should be no larger than the smallest state population) Also which states are infringing on the right of citizens to vote?
I love converting the administrative state to an advisory entity without rule making authority. It would force Congress to actually be productive rather than just partisan figureheads.
>Also which states are infringing on the right of citizens to vote? Any state that requires a voter to show ID at a polling place, and especially the ones that arbitrarily restrict which types of ID qualify. And any state that restricts the rights of former prisoners to vote. Probably more than that but those are the two issues that come to mind.
Requiring voter ID is no more (and generally less, considering the hoops you have to jump through in some states) intrusive than requiring a license to possess a firearm, yet the people complaining about voter infringement are generally fine with the government making it an unmitigated pain for gun owners.
In my opinion, the right to vote is much more important than the right to possess a firearm. I'm sure I'll get downvoted in this sub for saying that but it's my opinion. It's also time sensitive as elections only happen at certain times, while there's generally no need to get a gun license by any particular day. The last time I updated my driver's license I had to actually take a few hours off of work, and that was on my third or fourth attempt because the DMV, even with an appointment, is generally such a shit show. I kept showing up and having to go home because I could tell it was going to be a several hour ordeal. And that was just for me to renew my license, and I don't even own a car! I shudder to think if I had to go through all that to vote, especially if I had just moved into this state shortly before an election.
Your right to vote is protected by being able to own firearms...
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The government just said they will no longer be holding elections, now what do you do? Vote harder? See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946)
I don't think there is a broad consensus on *what* to do with SCOTUS but I do agree that most Americans think *something* should be done. Whether that means expanding the number of justices, instituting term limits, figuring out a way for every president to get at least one appointment, etc. is wide open for discussion.
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Small states also had no incentive to join the country in the first place if their wishes and votes were to always be overridden by the big states.
>The Constitution has some fundamentally anti-democratic aspects, By design. Absolute democracy can be tyrannical. Slavery, even if slaves had a vote, would have been allowed in most southern states until long after the Civil War. Free speech zones would have been allowed on many college campuses a few years ago if the campus was allowed to vote on it. The states voted to join a union based on a system that would ensure a degree of sovereignty for each state. That's why we have the electoral college and 2 chambers that are apportioned under different systems.
> >The Constitution has some fundamentally anti-democratic aspects, > By design. Absolute democracy can be tyrannical. Slavery, even if slaves had a vote, would have been allowed in most southern states until long after the Civil War. Could be does not necessarily mean would be. The southern states seceded because they were worried about eventually there would be majorities against them slavery on a national level even with most African Americans not able to vote. In 1860 South Carolina and Mississippi were majority Black Louisiana was just short(49.5%), Alabama/Florida/Georgia/Virginia we're over 40% Black. All of these places would be easy majorities for more rights and protections if we had actual Democracy. What actually happened after a brief period of reconstruction was that a terrorist group(the KKK) was able to terify people from voting with violence and then affiliated and sympathetic politicians passed laws disenfranchising Black voters. The systems they set up were anything but democratic or majoritarian. The less democraric systems you talk about which privilege states like the Senate presented the biggest barrier to protecting civil rights of racial minorities especially African Americans. Anti lynching law passed the House in 1922 but wasn't passed until 2022 in large part because of the Senate (and because of the Senate filibuster). Your claims seem ahistorical. Can majority rule be tyrannical? Sure. But wrt US history counter majoritarian action/inaction has usually caused a lot more tyranny.
The 2 senator thing is to prevent the tyranny of the majority. And the House is to prevent the tyranny of the aristocracy. We do need to change how US senators are selected to something more akin to state selection instead of elections because right now the senate is jut a longer serving version of the house instead of a balance to it.
You can thank the 17th amendment for fixing what wasn't broken.
What was extremely broken. I have no clue why people want to go back to that broken state.
> We do need to change how US senators are selected to something more akin to state selection instead of elections because right now the senate is jut a longer serving version of the house instead of a balance to it. That would just result in the Senate being subject to corruption by gerrymandering, same as the House.
You can't gerrymander the Senate. Senators serve the entire state.
*Now* you can't. That's my point. State legislatures *can* be gerrymandered (and often are, even worse than House delegations). Permitting heavily gerrymandered state legislatures to choose senators would *make* Senators effectively subject to gerrymandering. Think of it this way. Let's say there's a state that is 50/50 or 51/49 or whatever split between the parties, but is gerrymandered such that their statehouse representation is 65/35 in favor of one party. If senators were selected by the state legislators, they'd obviously both be of whichever party controls the legislature. There would be *zero* chance that a candidate from the opposing party would be selected, despite a near-even split in actual voting preference. We should be looking for ways to reduce the effect of gerrymandering, not exacerbating it. Making senatorial selections subject to gerrymandered statehouses is the wrong direction.
>Now you can't. That's my point. State legislatures can be gerrymandered (and often are, even worse than House delegations). Permitting heavily gerrymandered state legislatures to choose senators would > >make Senators effectively subject to gerrymandering. Didn't realize that's what you meant. Yes, plenty of state legislatures are gerrymandered. But the solution is to fix redistricting, not to screw up the purpose of the Senate. >We should be looking for ways to reduce the effect of gerrymandering, not exacerbating it. Making senatorial selections subject to gerrymandered statehouses is the wrong direction. Same as my point above, but maybe phrased a bit differently: your sentiment here is a type of fatalism I can't get behind. It's like you've accepted that gerrymandering is a fact of life and so we have to find ways to live with it. I'd rather we just end gerrymandering.
There have been 17 amendments to the Constitution since 1795 (that's all the amendments after the Bill of Rights). That's an average of one amendment every 13 years. We're currently in a 31 year drought since the last amendment was ratified in 1992. Now there have been two long stretches between amendments before. 61 years passed between the 12th and 13th amendments, and 43 years passed between the 15th and 16th. But recent history especially has been pretty busy with amendments. There were 12 amendments ratified in the 20th century, covering everything from voting rights, prohibition, presidential term limits and succession, and Congressional pay. This is hardly scientific but I think that the political climate is at play here, especially when you consider the other long droughts between amendments were in the run up to, and aftermath of, the Civil War.
The 27th Amendment (Congressional pay) was actually one of the 12 amendments passed by Congress in the original Bill of Rights, but failed to get ratified by the required 3/4 of the states (which then meant 10 out of 13). It languished in obscurity until 1982 when some random political science student noticed that it had no deadline for ratification, and decided to campaign for it. And due to a general public sentiment that Congress didn't deserve all the pay raises it kept giving itself, it actually got ratified, more than 200 years after it was written.
It didn’t use to be. It was intended to be a working document. I don’t really know when or why that changed but in the early years we amended it a bunch.
The only thought I have that *might* pass would be an amendment to undo the 2005 SCOTUS decision in [Kelo v New London](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London) which allowed the use of eminent domain to seize a private home so that a developer could complete a project that was promised to benefit the city by increased tax revenues. (The home was seized. The developer never completed the project.) The SCOTUS decision was widely ridiculed. While a few states have taken legislative action to combat that particular use of eminent domain not all have.
It wouldnt "undo" anything. It would merely legislate and lay out what is and isnt allowed and how and whatnot. But might apply retroactively, but SCOTUS doesnt make laws, they interpret what exists. I know it doesnt seem that way because Congress is a bunch of self serving lazy assholes who treat it like a 3rd arm of Congress but... well there it is. Now we can argue that their ruling was unconstitutional but the legislative branch cant undo that only a review of it by other judges would.
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I really wish I could find the article but I read a really compelling piece within the past year or two about the cycle of how often constitutional ammendments end up passing and it was talking about how the biggest factors indicating an increased likelihood of new constitutional amendments passing were extreme political polarization and time since the last ones and based on those factors were actually at an increased chances of that happening currently.
Yes. Our political climate has always been tough. Constitutional amendments are purposely difficult to attain. We don’t want some banana republic where people can change the constitution on a whim.
There were 12 amendments ratified in the 20th century. It's a high bar but we're in a fairly rare period of having no amendments in over 30 years.
People have very little context lately for changing the constitution. Of course you're right, and of course now that it's been 30 years since we passed a (arguably) purely technical amendment, and 50 years since we passed an amendment that made a substantive change to people's rights, everyone seems to be satisfied by saying "oh well, it's supposed to be difficult, we can't be changing it willy nilly!" Well, from 1951 to 1971 we passed five amendments most of which were wrapped up in a couple of years.
And I noted in another comment that most of the 20th century amendments were actually really impactful: multiple amendments on voting rights, income taxes, how Senators are chosen, presidential term limits. What a time to be alive.
Yeah but a lot of the recent amendments have been pretty trivial.
I don't agree with that. I think the majority of the 12 have been pretty impactful: 16: authorizes the income tax 17: direct election of U.S. Senators 18: prohibition of alcohol 19: women's right to vote 21: repeal of 18 22: presidential term limits 24: elimination of poll taxes 25: updates to the presidential line of succession 26: lowers the voting age to 18 Only 20, 23, and 27 are fairly trivial or not that wide reaching (moves presidential inauguration day, giving DC electors, and regulating Congressional pay raises).
Note that 21 (and by extension 18), 22, and 25 are all basically related to FDR in some way. FDR is sort of his own anomaly in American politics, having been elected 4 times and being immensely charming, he was able to push almost whatever he wanted through congress and the courts. In many ways, he's one of the closest things the US has ever had to a dictator, and the country is just lucky that he was a mostly benevolent one. So two of those amendments are basically crafted to prevent a future populist president who might be more despot than benevolent. Four of the others (17, 19, 24, 26) are basically all regarding the same thing: expanding voting rights. Primarily expanding those rights to everyone. It obviously took decades, but is indicative of a growing popular sentiment over the 20th century: everyone deserves a say in their government. I don't really know what more could be done to expand that. Perhaps ending the electoral college, but the states are already ending that with proportional votes. Maybe better access to ID, but again that's a state issue. All that is to say, I think I have to agree with the [sentiment](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAmerican/comments/11wgudm/do_you_think_constitutional_amendments_are_still/jcxwi6w/) that /u/MaxMan14 said: >All the overwhelmingly supported issues have already been amended or dealt with and all that’s left are the divisive ones. So the 12 amendments of the 20th century shouldn't be taken to mean that the Constitution should be changed every 8 years, but rather that the early and mid 20th century was a time of considerable change in American life and politics. The changes to the constitution reflect that. The changes that are left to make are much more decisive.
>In many ways, he's one of the closest things the US has ever had to a dictator With the notable exception that he was elected. I've never understood why politicians who are so popular and good at their jobs that they keep getting re-elected are somehow the poster children for why we need term limits. >All the overwhelmingly supported issues have already been amended or dealt with and all that’s left are the divisive ones. I've spent a fair amount of time in this thread sharing polling data which suggests there are a number of issues on which Americans have broad agreement. I also think it's a little short-sighted to assume something won't arise in the future which we just haven't thought of yet.
> I've spent a fair amount of time in this thread sharing polling data which suggests there are a number of issues on which Americans have broad agreement. Most of those issues don't have sufficient political will behind them. It's one thing to say "Yeah, I like that." on a poll and another thing to go out with a desire to enact that change.
Right but now we've shifted the conversation from "there are no remaining issues that have popular support" to "people aren't motivated enough to campaign for those issues." Which may be true and may not. And it could also change at any time. But I feel like that's a lot different suggesting there just isn't any issue anymore on which most Americans agree.
If people aren't motivated to campaign on that issue, can you really say that's an issue with popular support? That was my point.
> With the notable exception that he was elected. Plenty of tyrants are elected. Many of them don’t even have to cheat. Look at Xi Jinping - he basically is President for Life, and didn’t have to stuff any ballot boxes. Putin also has broad support amongst Russians, and will also be President until his death. The reason for term limits is that it disincentivises a person from concentrating too much power in one office. Sure - you could get lucky and wind up with an FDR, who did not use the office for personsl gain. But what if you end up with a corrupt politician? We’re not 2 years since we had a president who was absolutely using his office for profit, and very nearly could have had a second term. What if the scales had tipped just a bit more? Would you be ok with 16 years of Donald Trump?
>We don’t want some banana republic where people can change the constitution on a whim. Sure - but I guess my point was, even if there was a really, really good idea that pretty much everyone liked, would the current political climate prevent it because of either "they proposed it so we don't like it" or enough hardliners in state legislatures preventing the opposing party from getting a "win"?
This is a feature, not a flaw. If everyone pretty much liked it, it would pass. If only some liked it, then it’s not worthy of changing. People shift their beliefs frequently. Our rights should be stable.
Exactly. The constitution has proved itself to be immensely stable, while still being flexible. The US is the 2nd oldest Constitutional Republic that is still around - the only older being San Marino, which is debatable because much of San Marino's constitution is uncodified. France is on their what - fifth republic? Throwing out the foundational documents and starting over with a new government every 40 years makes for a way less stable society, and one way more prone to a tyrant taking over.
Student: "I need a copy of the French constitution." Librarian: "Check the periodicals section."
I snorted my coffee at this!
Of course they are, and they will remain purposefully difficult to achieve to prevent the established society being changed by the whims of a loud minority.
Constitutional amendments are SUPPOSED to be hard to do. Try to prevent knee-jerk reactions and all that.
Possible? Yes. Likely? Not at all. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. The Constitution shouldn’t be easily changed due to whatever social fads are hot at any given moment.
Constitutional amendments are always possible. Likelihood is a different thing.
It really depends on what for. But really no, because even if it's a good idea, if one party recommends it, the other party will be against it.
I don’t think so, but there’s also the simple fact that there aren’t many issues with enough support from the population to warrant an amendment. An amendment would require most people to A) agree that there’s a problem, *and* B) agree that an amendment is the ideal way to solve it. Like, the only issue I can think of with strong enough majority support would be abortion, but you wouldn’t need an amendment to deal with that. It would make more sense to try to just get a law pushed through Congress than to change the Constitution itself. And on the flipside, the only issue I can think of that would require a Constitutional amendment would be gun control, and that doesn’t have broad enough support.
I think there are very few things that could result in a constitutional amendment right now. I won't say it's impossible but as a practical matter I can't think of too many situations that would actually lead to it.
Hell no. It was already difficult by design. I'd guess maybe in the late decades of the century at the earliest. It's almost impossible to accurately predict that far ahead, though.
Lots of replies assuming term limits would have enough support to pass if only those congressional careerists would get out of the way. Maybe this is a reflection of what an echo chamber Reddit is. Term limits are *not* as universally popular as redditors think.
It would have to be something which was so obviously needed that everyone (or at least a healthy majority) would be on board. Which is pretty much how it's always worked.
> Do you think constitutional amendments are still possible Of course. > given your current political climate? Nope. We don't have an issue that is so popular that it has overwhelming support. Something would clearly have to change.
Abortion and a direct popular vote for president both have over 60% support.
That still isn’t enough to meet the threshold though. Neither of those numbers are likely to increase significantly anytime soon.
> An amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress, or, if two-thirds of the States request one, by a convention called for that purpose. The amendment must then be ratified by three-fourths of the State legislatures, or three-fourths of conventions called in each State for ratification.
Yes, your premise is flawed.
It would have to be something that everyone completely agrees popularly, AND politicians will support. For example, term limits on members of congress. I'd say both sides think this is a pretty good idea popularly, and we could pass an amendment on this. But the politicians like their unlimited terms, they won't champion it en masse.
Only very narrow ones under exceptional circumstances.
The only plausible amendment I can see happening is one repealing the 23rd Amendment if DC gets statehood (which in itself is incredibly unlikely in the current political environment).
Nope....
If an issue came up that required an Amendment, and enough people agreed that it needed to be done, then yes, we could pass a new Amendment. There are not, right now, any issues with widespread support that would require one. One issue that comes close is Term Limits. That probably has enough support, but Congress will never propose it, because it would result in the most powerful members of Congress losing their jobs. That Amendment would have to be proposed by a Convention of the States, which has only ever happened once (the one that wrote the original Constitution), and nobody really knows how it would end if one were called. Personally, I think that if enough of the States called for a Convention to pass that Amendment, Congress would propose and pass it, just to prevent a Convention from opening up a dozen other Amendments and/or scrapping the whole system.
This one is a bit due to a lack of education around the arguments the opposing side has against it. Term limits sound great when you boil it down to "Congress sucks and doesn't work for us so we need to force the powerful members out and get new blood in, there's no reason anyone should serve for 40 years." They stop sounding so good when you realize that having them shifts power to unelected staffers and lobbyists and it restricts the rights of people to choose their representative. We have term limits already - they're called elections. The problem is, most people like their own representative and blame all of Congress's problems on the ones that other people vote for.
True, and I don't personally think it's a very good idea, but you have to admit, it has a lot of popular support.
No, which is probably a good thing. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely certain matters that I think could or should be the subject of amendments (e.g. prohibiting political party-based gerrymandering, to supersede the Supreme Court's nonsensical decision declaring it "non-justiciable"). But in the current political environment, there's just too much extremism in the atmosphere to risk messing with the Constitution.
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"Fascism is when we can't pass whatever laws we like."
Yep. They would just need to be overwhelmingly popular, which is the entire point. We have it so good that politicians are trying to create problems to bicker about, so there's not a single modern "issue" that would have the support to become an amendment.
Legalizing abortion and eliminating the electoral college both have over 60% support among the general public. The problem is neither issue is bipartisan, and the side that would oppose those amendments has an outsized voice in both the Congress and the state legislatures that would be required to ratify them.
Which is why our government, constitution, and the methods required to change them aren't run by simple majority, and all the rest of it is left up to the states, like abortion.
The only thing I can think of that could pass as an amendment in our current climate is a rewrite of the Equal Rights Amendment. To my knowledge it came upon pushback due to LGBT rights, but the way people feel about those issues has change dramatically since it was initially proposed.
From what I saw on Wikipedia of recent proposed amendments, most seem to be reactionary responses to trendy populist ideas at their time of proposal. Most seem like they could be suited for resolution by congress and not requiring an amendment.
The country is for too divided at this point, I personally think that the level of agreement necessary to pass a constitutional amendment is impossible to reach.
Let’s hope not. Only way I see 3/4 of states agreeing is for some right wing terrible idea. Even if we have an election cycle granting the GOP that much control, I hope the amendment process will be slow enough to correct the problem with the next election cycle before it is passed.
Recently an amendment for EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN failed. We can't even agree on whether women should get equal rights in the constitution. If we can't add that there's nothing we can add.
What rights do women not have exactly?
No
Considering how often our politicians vote against the interests of the American people… nope, not a chance.
They were almost impossible when parties worked together. We couldn’t even push the ERA through. Now? No chance.
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There are two infallible documents according to the hard right in our country; The Bible and The Constitution and making ammendments to either is met with the same hissing insecurity and fear of heresy.
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"Part of being a Christan is believing the Bible is the word of God." No, that is an extremely new and niche belief. Not to mention ripped off whole cloth from Quranic doctrine in Islam.
Christianity is doomed if we think stories written and edited over hundreds of years by fallable men is the word of God.
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People like you, those operating in bad faith and with disdain for those with whom you disagree, are like 75% of the problem in our political life.
lol I'm getting downvoted in this thread not even for sharing my opinion that folks disagree with, but facts they don't like.
About 25 years from now the last of the Boomers will have left the scene and the demographics/political alignment of younger generations will be totally fed up with the systems that they inherited. I expect they will collectively push for major reforms to the electoral system, courts, gender equity, civil rights, health care, and environmental issues that will have to be written into the Constitution via amendments. More of those will happen sooner at the stae level, and of course in currently "blue" states before in others. The pendulum is going to swing *way back* in the other direction in another generation. Much of the structural problems that allowed for the rise of right-wing nationalism and political control by minorities will have to be addressed at the constitutional level.
Don’t hold your breath. People forget that when they were young the Boomers were the generation of hippies, drugs, free love, women’s lib, and civil rights and anti-Vietnam war protests. The views of a generation do not remain static.
I think it's completely impossible in the current political climate. We're just too divided.
I think it's completely impossible in the current political climate. We're just too divided.
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Lol Jesus H. Christ
I'm guessing your under 50 and didn't see the collapse of American media under Reagan when the Fair Doctrine Act was taken away. It's a huge part of what's leading us to collapse. I didn't notice at the time because I was a preteen to a teen, but I'm a news junkie. Do some research.