Which congress do you want doing that review? The past several congresses have been unqualified to do any sort of constitutional reviewing in my opinion.
Do you mean the French Revolution? If you actually read the history on that (even basic stuff beyond the "Reign of Terror") I don't think any person would want to experience that for their country. It had tons of indiscriminate violence and took a decade of chaos before they sorted out into a real government, which then resulted in Napolean's coup
(I've read that the French are talking about a Sixth, given that they've gone through several prime ministers in the past few weeks/months and seem unable to maintain a government long enough to pass anything.)
[1] https://thegoodlifefrance.com/short-history-of-the-five-repu...
Quoting from the article:
Things came to a head in 1958 as France struggled to decolonize. There was strong opposition within France to Algerian independence and part of the army openly rebelled. Important generals threatened a coup unless de Gaulle was returned to power. They sent paratroopers to capture Corsica in case anyone missed their point.
Prussians, too. A lot of Europe seemed to not really feel one way or another about the plucky little colony but had very strongly defined feelings about damaging Great Britain.
I mean that it implies France didn't have several other revolutions.
We need ranked or approval voting, elimination of gerrymandering. Strongly prefer elimination of Citizens United and the Senate.
> Provided that no Amendment [...] no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
(Awkward ellipsizing, but the elided text is another thing that's not allowed, which expired in 1808, and is otherwise thankfully no longer relevant.)
Better voting systems can be implemented, but since the states run federal elections, each state would have to pass legislation requiring a different voting system. Of course I expect all 50 would not agree on which alternative system is the best, which may or may not matter. And I doubt red states would want to change, as voting systems that better reflect the will of the electorate tend to disadvantage the GOP.
Eliminating gerrymandering is difficult, because it's hard to objectively define what is and isn't a gerrymandered map. There have been some attempts to do so, and I would say they've even been somewhat successful, but people can reasonably disagree with the methodology and thresholds used.
The Citizens United SCOTUS ruling and precedent absolutely needs to be reversed; agreed. Corporations are not people and should not get first amendment protections. Or any kind of protections outside any that are defined in regular law.
Another thing we need to do away with is the Electoral College. Presidents should be elected based on the national popular vote, not by per-state winner-take-all proxies, with vote apportionment that wildly advantages some states over others. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact would effectively do away with the EC if states "owning" at least 270 electoral votes were to all sign it, but that's unlikely to ever happen. (Then again, it's more likely that the Compact would achieve that threshold than the passing of a constitutional amendment to abolish the EC.)
We should amend it [0] so that any state may subdivide within its own borders without the consent of the Senate, provided that no subdivision is smaller (less-populous) than the smallest current state.
In other words, small states don't have to give up their disproportionate representation in the Senate... but they cannot use that power to monopolize being small either. Any state above a certain size (>2x the smallest) may decide that its constituents are best-served by fission.
This adheres to Article V, Section 5, since no state is being deprived of "equal suffrage": Each state has 2 senators, just like always.
However, that still ought to be California's decision to make, as opposed to minority Wyoming-gang's to veto. Even if a big state doesn't actually do it, having the latent option is itself a subtle influence on interstate politics.
For the other half the country, we really don't want to Federal laws to be decided by people in other states that don't share the same values. This is why state rights exist and will not be removed (at least in our lifetime).
Do you reject majority votes in general or do you merely propose explicit minority protections for non-urban communities?
If whatever city/state you live in wants to have majority-vote for all issues, please go do it.
Does your system of voting include anyone who just comes in or is restricted to only citizens with verified ID ? If the latter, then majority voting is completely fine.
The context was: "decided by people in other states that don't share the same values."
Funny people can look at Arabs or Indians and identify “these people have a diametrically opposed culture and cannot peacefully coexist with me”, but can’t extended that to people that look like them and are also diametrically opposed.
It’s delusional to try and maintain a country that’s developed such opposed cultures. You can try to force peace for a while, but it always bubbles back up.
Have the subcultures of the US diverged over time or does it just seem that way because it is easier to publish non-moderate opinions because of the internet?
I think a lot of people, particularly on the right, cannot define what they actually want this country to look like in 20-30 years or how it needs to get there.
Helped me understand a lot about modern america, but tldr, no it feels like its always been this way
Allow me to be "aggressive" as well:
For the other 60% of the country, we don't want Federal laws held up by people in arbitrarily drawn political districts and don't share our values regarding human rights and dignity. This is why, while states do retain broad rights to administer their internal affairs, spending and education, federal laws should be altered with a majority, excepting certain fundamental laws like the Constitution.
The closest thing we have is the amendment process. In theory we could use that to rewrite the entirety of the constitution[0], but good luck getting the required votes in place on any possible replacement. The bar is pretty high: amendments need to be proposed by either a vote of 2/3 of Congress, or by a constitutional convention convened by 2/3 of the state legislatures, and then ratified by 3/4 of all state legislatures.
We couldn't get that sort of agreement to pass something as theoretically uncontroversial as the Equal Rights Amendment. It's laughable to think we could pass a "new constitution" that way.
I expect the only way we could end up with a new constitution is through a bloody civil war, or some sort of coup. Hopefully no one wants something like that, though. I certainly don't.
[0] Technically the entirety of the constitution can't be amended; Article V, Section 5 prohibits an amendment from changing each state's equal representation in the Senate. Though I suppose a "rewrite amendment" might get around that by preserving the Senate as-is as a ceremonial body without any power. That would certainly violate the spirit of that wording in Article V, so I imagine it would be challenged in court.
- Corporate money should be out of politics
- Gerrymandering should be stopped
If we had amendments for these two things, it could change A LOT. Congress might actually be able to function. Corporate corruption could be prosecuted. We might be possible to put meaningful limits on corporate power.
Of course, the devil’s in the details. How do you write amendments for these two things in a way that actually accomplishes the goals? But though it would be difficult, I don’t think it would be impossible.
I mean given how much is already happening in America, I am just curious from a legal standpoint if there could be done something like that (forgetting the insane backlash but still), what could the president of america do to completely sieze the constitution ?
"In this region, I'm the ruler, and here we believe in TERF!".
Hopefully we get to try from scratch a third time if that happens but I worry that collapse will be too tempting for Russia or China to not step in.
Maybe we can be lucky and get conquered by Canada first in that case? What a weird thing to think...
Until the Dem party fixes their brand and wins back some of the Senate seats they used to control in the 90s and early 2000s there will be no positive progress.
There were only 13 states when the Constitution was ratified. It was never envisioned to be as disproportionate as it is today, with California's two Senators representing 40 million people vs. Wyoming's 0.6 million.
That seems like a good theory that would keep itself in check.
In execution it's an absolute shit show, I'll give you. But I do believe the theory is sound. With the house and the Senate we get the best of both worlds.
In theory.
The Senate is a good system, it's just that most states are Republican.
Some of the larger states might consider splitting themselves into separate states to better represent their populations. Though that may not be constitutionally possible.
If we ever add additional states to the Union (Puerto Rico, D.C., etc.), they'll want to enjoy having an equal say with every other state in the Union. It's a compelling feature of our system.
The House, as a proportional system, actually needs to be re-normalized. There are not enough representatives to have an actually proportional vote.
The founders aren't infallible gods, and they really fucked up here.
The practical consequence of this system is that it effectively prevents a majority of voters from large urban centers from imposing their will onto rural populations, at least at the federal level. It was designed that way.
I've seen comments here claiming that countries like Canada or France deliver better outcomes than the US. They are stronger welfare states, yes, but they also have become overly paternalistic nanny states, with heavy-handed regulations, and high taxes stifling individual initiative.
We absolutely do have minority rule. In both the Senate and the House, the Republican majorities represent a minority of the population.
The fact that both the House and Senate are nearly 50% by party again points to the fact that we have a good balance.
Obviously I understand that not every person voted in the election (many are not even eligible). It is simply not relevant to this conversation, and is an often trotted out diversion meant to diminish the mandate given by the actual voters.
The fact that we have minority rule in the Senate, House, and Supreme Court is exactly why we don't have any checks and balances any more and Trump gets to act like an emperor.
It seems clear that the majority in the 2024 election preferred Republican governance, and so they gained control over President/House/Senate.
Republicans have a majority in the Senate when their senators received a minority of votes, by about 24 million votes.
Update
Here are some rough numbers I found quickly (because your numbers are obvious nonsense):
President
R - 77.3m - 49.8%
D - 75.0m - 48.3%
Others - 2.9m - 1.9%
Senate
D - 55.9m - 49.1%
R - 54.4m - 47.7%
Others - 3.7m - 3.2%
House
R - 74.4m - 49.8%
D - 70.6m - 47.2%
Others - 4.6m - 3.1%
So fewer voters and constituents for a pretty significant majority in senators.
So if 49% of California voted Republican, but both Senators are Democrats, then the entire population they represent should be counted as Democrats.
A flawed argument.
It also completely ignores the entire reason the Senate exists in the first place, to represent the States.
What makes you say that Republican senators represent a minority of the population?
There is no real way to determine the population in each state represented by a party other than votes. The presidential vote tallies (the only truly national vote) are the closest we have to this. Numbers in the Senate are fairly close to the popular vote (not a coincidence).
If you study the U.S. history in detail the you see the reasons and the main ones are quite "logical".
You might not agree with them (I don't necessarily), but that doesn't make them illogical.
Additionally, because the population of the country is not evenly distributed across all the states, senators from some states have disproportionate power and control this is frequently mentioned and brought up several times in this post alone. Not sure what aspects make it a good system, some type of beleaguered point about preventing tyranny of the majority? At what cost? tyranny of the minority, political stagnation?
States have sovereignty and rights.
The point is that all states have equal representation.
> Not sure what aspects make it a good system, some type of beleaguered point about preventing tyranny of the majority? At what cost? tyranny of the minority, political stagnation?
Because states are political test tubes and need autonomy.
> Additionally, because the population of the country is not evenly distributed across all the states, senators from some states have disproportionate power and control
In my lifetime, the Senate has been majority Democratic party controlled [1].
If you go back to the second Bush term, it's been 60% Democrat.
The current party makeup is only temporary. Things are constantly in flux.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_United_Stat...
From the point of view of the U.S. legal system, the Confederacy's secession was "absolutely null".
> Chase, however, "recognized that a state could cease to be part of the union 'through revolution, or through consent of the States'".
Secession does not have to be done legally. Who knows what, if any, conflict that might bring about.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secession_in_the_United_States
Having 1 chamber that allows equal representation
And
Having 1 chamber that allows proportionate
Is a good system in theory. Otherwise, States (which are again separate entities) with high populations just steamroll those that have low populations.
The system now allows states with high populations to be appropriately represented in the house, which sends bills to the Senate.
I feel like it's a good system, in theory. You get your population representation and checks and balances for rural areas as well.
In theory, but in practice, most states are highly dependent on a few very populous and productive ones, for economic and military protection.
Not to mention that the Feds control the purchasing power of the currency and international trade, so the states aren’t sovereign to do anything of consequence.
Hence in practice, this whole theory of states being sovereign goes out the window.
> Arbitrary or not, States are sovereign things.
In practice that's not really true. The federal government has many, many levers it can use to get states to fall in line.
This is a separate problem that should be fixed.
Because tyranny of the majority is still a thing. Elections would just switch from swing states to appealing to California and Texas if we did everything with purely popular votes. So the house is there as a large power and senate can check it.
Of course, in practice the house is way under represented so its almost like we have a senate and a mini-senate. That's where things fall apart.
Aka democracy.
> Elections would just switch from swing states to appealing to California and Texas if we did everything with purely popular votes.
No, it wouldn’t. It would switch to appealing to the most voters, who may or may not happen to live in California and Texas, but that is irrelevant to a democracy.
Yes. I hope I don't need to explain the many times that the majority sentiment was in fact not the correct one. A pure democracy under the basis the US was founded under would end up much more conservative than what we have today.
> It would switch to appealing to the most voters.
So it'd switch to appealing to urban cities and ignore the rural areas. Iirc the top 10 cities today make up some 40+% of voters. Why bother going to Omaha when you can focus instead of LA and NYC?
I don't see why that would be the case. To win an election you don't need to win states at all; you need to win lots of voters, and those voters could come from anywhere.
You could lose every single voter in both CA and TX and still win the election, given different political demographics across states.
As an aside, I also think abolishing the Electoral College and going strictly by the national popular vote would increase voter turnout for presidential elections. I live in a solidly blue state, and if I didn't care about down-ballot races, I probably wouldn't bother to vote in presidential elections, since my vote doesn't really matter here. Only votes in swing states matter under the current system.
The founders knew exactly what they were agreeing to when they gave each State two Senators. It’s supposed to be a separate check on the Federal power to force a wide swathe of consensus.
Top 25 states: 2 Democrats - 52% 2 Republicans - 40% Split - 8%
Bottom 25 states: 2 Democrats - 36% 2 Republicans - 60% Split - 4%
Top quintile: 2 Democrats - 50% 2 Republicans - 40% Split - 10%
2nd quintile: 2 Democrats - 60% 2 Republicans - 30% Split - 10%
Middle quintile: 2 Democrats - 40% 2 Republicans - 60%
4th quintile: 2 Democrats - 30% 2 Republicans - 70%
Bottom quintile: 2 Democrats - 40% 2 Republicans - 50% Split - 10%
The very top and very bottom are a 55% to 45% split in either direction. It's not a heavy skew, a single party flip in the quintile from the majority to the minority would make it 50/50 even. Those quintiles cancel each other out when voting on party/caucus lines. It's actually the 2nd and 4th quintiles that have the biggest skews. Democrats take the 2nd quintile while Republicans take the 3rd and 4th.
The top & bottom quintiles don't cancel out, but rather support the same trend, which is that Republicans have more voting power per capita.
That said, I am surprised that the top & bottom quintiles are nearly balanced. I'll have to look up which bottom quintile states have Democratic senators.
I agree, the data does indeed show that Republicans have more voting power per capita, as they have advantages in the bottom 3 quintiles. However, I don't think the correlation of population to party (at the state level) is as extreme as some try to portray it. There are high population Republican states as well as low population Democratic ones. Vermont, Rhode Island, Delaware, and New Hampshire are Democratic states in the bottom quintile.
The top has 11 Democratic votes and 9 Republican votes. The bottom has 9 Democratic votes and 11 Republican votes. If they all vote on party lines it's a tie. So it's really the middle population states that give Republicans their current edge.
It's a frequent criticism that smaller states have outsized representation relative to their population. The US is not alone in this, the EU also has the same characteristic. Germany, the most populous, has over 150 times the population of Malta, the least populous, but only 16 times the amount of representation in parliament (96 MEP vs 6 MEP). By comparison, the largest state, California, has 37 times the population of the smallest, Wyoming, but 18 times the representation in Congress and the electoral college (54 vs 3). Granted, it's not an apples to apples comparison as the votes are divided between houses and the relative power of the EU vs the US federal government but it's a comparison nonetheless.
It's a compromise when trying to form a union of political entities that differ so greatly in size. The smaller entities obviously give up some sovereignty to their larger counterparts. The larger ones seem to have to have to reciprocate in a meaningful way to keep a voluntary union.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey_Plan
I suppose, however, that the majority of low-population states were also frontier states, seems like a fairly compelling distinction.
Not so much, unless you consider Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont to be "frontier" states in 1787. Actual frontier states like Georgia were in favor of the Virginia Plan as they figured their population would grow soon enough and they could take advantage of their eventual large population (with slaves being counted as 3/5 of a person) in a "Virginia Plan" world.
The Connecticut Compromise[0][3] ended up in the Constitution as a reconciliation of the Virginia Plan[1][4] and the New Jersey Plan[2][5], with the larger states supporting the Virginia Plan and smaller states supported the New Jersey Plan.
The above is incredibly abridged and ignores much context. As such, I strongly recommend you read Article I, Sections 2 and 3 of the US Constitution[7] (the result of the Connecticut Compromise) as well as the original Virginia and New Jersey plans, or at least the wikipedia pages I linked for a much better discourse on the topic.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Compromise
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Plan
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey_Plan
[3] The current system. Which differs from the original only in direct election of Senators, rather than them being appointed by state legislatures[6].
[4] Proposed a bicameral legislature with both houses apportioned by population.
[5] Proposed a unicameral legislature with one vote per state.
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_U...
[7] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/
Edit: Added the missing link.
Whether the founders intended that or not it's a shitty, unfair, and undemocratic system that doesn't act as a check, it just enables permanent minority rule.
Meanwhile, the house is about 10 times smaller than what the founders envisioned. Maybe that's overkill but we probably should at least expand the house quite a bit. And Probably expand the supreme court as well.
The fact that the most democratic part of the US government, the house of reps, is now the weakest part of the US legislature is ridiculous.
If we're dreaming up fixes, I'd say
1) Senate actions should require a strict majority. If anything should require super-majorities, it should be the House of Representatives.
2) The Senate should not be in control of appointments to the exclusion of House of Reps. No idea what the ideal system is there but the disproportionate body should not be more powerful than the proportionate body.
3) The Senate should be able to at most block an action for one term of Congress. That means that every Senate action can be overridden by an election. Which means the disproportionate body is effectively calling a referendum on legislation, instead of being a hard-stop.
This is, of course, exactly what the founding fathers intended. They disliked kings but they feared rule by common people and always intended there to be a privileged class of citizenry that does the actual ruling because people like you and me are just too ignorant to be trusted with that. That's why they excluded the vast majority of people from voting at all and those that were allowed to vote had their power diluted by various mechanistic means like capping the senate, flooring the house (and later capping it as well), using the electoral college to make sure that those precious few who vote at all don't vote incorrectly and having the least representative members of the executive and legislative branch select the judicial branch so that they're not swayed by "politics" (read: what the governed actually want).
And that's how we have a system that claims to be a democracy but where what people want is actually completely disconnected from what happens, and where "The opinions of 90% of Americans have essentially no impact at all" (https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba/).
Something being more democratic doesn't make it better by default. Hence why there's a bill of rights.
There is no way to prove this but who is your Representative without googling the naming, do you know them? Ever talked to them before?
My future perfect world:
proportional representation for assemblies (eg US House),
some arbitrarily low number of reps per citizens (200k - 400k?),
no upper assembly (eg US Senate),
approval voting for executive positions (eg Mayor, Sheriff, President),
only public financing of campaigns,
limit campaign season to maybe 6 weeks.
There's so many reasonable, impactful reforms which could be done. And my wishlist is based on my (imperfect) understanding of best available (political) science. And I'm all ears about SCOTUS reforms. And I doubt any reforms will stick, so long as our gini coefficient is so out of whack (wealth vs democracy, the timeless struggle).
We know, from comparative study of existing representative democracies, how to do that better (have an electoral system for the legislative branch that provides results that are substnantially more proportional than under the current system); what we don’t have is a practical way to get from where we are to where we need to be given the construction of the electoral systems in the states and nationally and the politicians and interests that has entrenched and the Constitutional amendment process.
That being said, there's always the option of just getting rid of the president's ability to overrule the people on criminal matters. We could probably go after state governors as well, that's just as rife with abuse.
States can reject dumb amendments. Congress proposes amendments, the states ratify them [1].
[1] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-5/