Others' Proposed Articles and Amendments to the Constitution

Responses to the forthcoming A Proposed New Constitution.
http://proposednewconstitution.blogspot.com/

Others' Proposed Articles and Amendments to the Constitution
by Al Carroll, et al.

There has been an interesting mix of reactions to my articles at Counterpunch, DailyKos, and Democratic Underground discussing constitutional reform. Some responses were kneejerk rejection, mostly incoherent or bluster. Perhaps the most juvenile was one who sputtered, “Dafuq...this is ridiculous.” The angriest responses were essentially, “How dare you even talk about this?”

As I argued in my first article, many Americans are afflicted with constitution worship. The constitution is just not to be questioned, and even those who think of themselves as left of center often become like fundamentalists on the subject. A few responded with hysteria, paranoia, or conspiracy theories. One insisted any constitutional convention would be taken over by Monsanto.

But those reactions were a distinct minority, not even a fourth of the respondents. Most responses were well thought out. Most often those that disagreed with my own proposals had read much history and law, given much thought to the subject, and had intelligent critical responses and their own counter proposals.

The most common counter argument was that what was needed more than anything was for the current rights in the constitution to be actually followed. Articles in the constitution give the power to declare war to congress, and the Fifteenth Amendment is supposed to protect voting rights. My response is that the elitist nature of the current system put in place by the founders into the original constitution prevents the nobler parts of the document from being enforced. The bad drives out the good, and the former needs to be removed or reformed.

Here are 33 other counter or additional proposals from 13 different commenters. I argue that most of these certainly deserve serious consideration. I do not claim to have all the answers and always wanted my proposals to be a starting point for the public.
Numbering and bolding is added by me:

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Greeting, Dr. Carroll,
Thank you for your very interesting essay on proposed amendments to the U.S. Constitution. I agree with your proposals.

1. I would like to add that the U.S. should experiment with proportional representation. Instead of winner take all, congressional representatives would be allocated according to the percentage of votes received in each congressional district.

2. Voting must be done via a verifiable system that must be publicly owned, so there is no profit motive, and no conflict of interest, nor appearance of conflict of interest attached to voting.

3. A net neutrality amendment should be written into the constitution. The internet is to be declared a common carrier. No former internet service provider executive may serve on the FCC. All laws forbidding municipalities, counties, regions, or states from developing and providing their own internet service must be abolished.

4. Descendants of U.S. slavery are entitled to reparations.

5. All substance abuse is decriminalized. Funds dedicated to the criminal justice approach to drug use, are to be transferred and used in a healthcare based approach.

6. All citizens of the U.S. are entitled to water, food, education, housing and healthcare as basic human rights.

7. Mandatory periodic debt forgiveness for individuals, small businesses, and local governments. No financial institution may profit from the repackaging and reselling of debt.

8. No results or projected results of any elections may be broadcast prior to the closing of the polls in the relevant district.
Dawn Uwangue, Staten Island, New York

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9. I would add an amendment requiring environmental protection. Basically it would make the Antiquities Act part of the Constitution. "In the absence of Congressional action, the executive, shall have full power to declare areas as national monuments or forests, collected from the public lands held by this Government in trust for the People. Congress may not exempt any State or Territory or any part of it from this amendment, nor place any limitation on the sizes of areas protected, or on the number of areas set aside by the President. the Legislature shall have the sole authority to designate areas wilderness or parks, and may abolish monuments that have been degraded.

10. I think adding members to the Supreme Court would solve a lot of those issues. Remember the court did rule against Bush at the height of the Imperial Presidency, which provided a necessary bounds on a presidency gone amok. Originally the executive was meant to be a group, not just one person, but that changed over the years.

2. I would change us to be more in line with a parliamentary system, with seats given based on percentage of voters, so say the reform Party gets 1% they get 1 seat. [This agrees with the earlier suggestion, so was numbered as 2. as well.]

11. I would lift the cap in congress so it grows in size every 10 years as was intended.

12. Give the president the ability to call early elections if congress does not do its job.
MorrellWI1983

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12. Any sane system could not end up in the deadlock situations we routinely find ourselves in. Snap elections would occur to determine the mandate, and the ones causing the mess would be ousted. [This agrees with the earlier suggestion, so was numbered 12 as well.]
Aseth

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I want the new constitution to explicitly include examples of things that are not permissible. Several such examples would include
13. [Barring] miscellaneous schemes for stealth governing.

14. Ferocious limits on the operations of corporations, (and believe me, I mean ferocious). [Proposed Article 6 limits rights for “persons” to human beings, limits corporate life span, requires them to serve the public interest, and dissolves them if they break the law five times. But there may be other limits this person would like added.]

15.Possibly explicit constraints on the activities and institutions of political parties.

16. Limits on the size and expenditures of the military.

17. Especially ferocious limits on the operations of media corporations.
[Proposed Article 10 requires media to be nonprofit, limits journalists and commentators to no more than five times the average income, and fines persons and companies that broadcast or post falsehoods. There may be other limits this person would like added.]

18.Specific limits on patents, copyrights and other intellectual property grants, etc. etc. etc.

19. Explicit statements about every citizen's right to a free and well-funded education, and so on.
Untimelyrippd

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19. Specific FIXED limits on these things -- for a reasonable term of years, NOT renewable or adjustable by a simple act of Congress. And a complete ban on what is now called "proprietary" intellectual property. If you aren't willing to expose your creations to public view (and eventual passage into the public domain), they are to be afforded NO legal protection at all. Patent/copyright (with their limits and conditions) or lose it -- no other choices.
Thanaotkephaloides
[Both described a similar proposed article, thus both were numbered as 19.]

20. Why not change to corporate charters to specify that representatives of workers, community members and environmentalists must be represented on corporate boards of directors. (The codetermination laws in Germany and the Scandinavian countries have 50% of board members democratically elected by the workforce.)
Cherrymapin

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21. Genocide should be factored in so that American Indians are given a handicap so that we get one [representative] for each of the original nations of this OUR LAND.
Representation based on government census over represents Whites, many Latinos are counted as White and Arabs are counted as White. But over counting the conquering population was a feature of the Constitutional convention's piece of paper. "Indians not taxed."
Clyde Grubbs

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I like a lot of this, but there are parts I am not so sure of.

22. I would prefer 4 year terms for both houses, because I fear that yearly turnover of people who have no training for this job would end up in chaos, or be run by the non-elected staffers who would be the ‘old hands’ giving all the advice to the constantly new senators. Since they would be chosen at random, they could have terms that start two years off from the four year cycle to stagger the ‘everyone is new’ issues.

There also needs to be a way for people to opt out, for health or certain other reasons, just as we can do for jury duty. A parent expecting a child, the only surgeon in a rural hospital, serious health issues, or other similar circumstances might be deemed a reason for turning down a term. We don’t have a draft for a reason, and I would rather not have ‘conscripted’ senators, either.

23. The other thing I don’t see here are term limits for the House. I would think no more than 2 four year terms? Or is only a single term implied somewhere in the article?

24.I also think that VP and Secretary of State may need to stay separate, or that another job should be added. Yes, a lot of VPs are ‘just for show’, but it can still be a full time job, and Secretary of State is MORE than a full time job already.

25.The last thing I would like to see included would be national voting rights that can not be changed by any state or local government. All elections are treated the same, with the same rules, with early voting and easy registration guaranteed. [This is part of Proposed Article 3.]

26.I have always thought that Election Day should be a Federal holiday. We can celebrate Columbus and two long dead presidents, but we have to work the one day of the year (or 4 years) that we can directly affect our current lives and history? Make it a Federal holiday and more people will be able to actually use their right to vote. [This is also part of Proposed Article 3.]
QueenoftheFaeries

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27. I do think we should find a way to do away with the party system and elect a more representative federal government. However that needs to be done on a pattern of New Zealand's Parliament where no group can take control and coalitions must be formed to effect government. [This differs from another's proposal that parties be limited.]

Such "time-honored" institutions as gerrymandering, parties, and the Electoral College should be mothballed. [Abolishing gerrymandering and the college are part of Proposed Articles 2 and 3.]
MyOwnReality

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28...If the House is not enlarged... it could stay at 435 but there would actually be 4350 reps.... the rep who goes to Washington could be chosen from 10 local reps each of whom is elected in a sub section of the district and who stay in their subdivisions so as to stay in closer contact with constituents and local govt... they would choose one of their number to go to Washington to represent them all and have regular meetings with them via the net to keep current on local and national doings...
IreGyre

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29. There are still going to be people who have to work. Hospital workers, for example. How about having voting on both Saturday and Sunday and requiring that employers give one of those days off?
Jeff47

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30. Any law with the outcome, even unintended, of denying the vote to members of any identifiable demographic group, shall be immediately void.
That was easy
It also takes care of LBGTs, religious minorities, atheists, agnostics, and other groups that are currently facing persecution or organized social opprobrium, or have faced such in the past.

31. What I'd like to also see is a provision that reverses all decisions taken by elected officials who were found to have gained office via voter suppression or tampering with elections.
Thereby removing the incentive that fanatical ideologues presently have for doing those things in order to get their policies enacted.
G2geek

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32. The Right to Vote should be exercised by inmates from their prison cells.
Eugene Debs gained a million votes while running for President from his prison cell.
He was unable to vote for himself, due to his being disenfranchised.

33. Under no circumstances should the qualifications for voting for a public office exceed the qualifications for running for that same public office.
That just doesn't make sense at all.
Anybody who is deemed eligible to run for President should also be deemed as eligible to vote for that President.
PacifistSocialist

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Al Carroll is Assistant Professor of History at Northern Virginia Community College and the author of numerous articles and books including the forthcoming A Proposed New Constitution.
http://proposednewconstitution.blogspot.com/
http://alcarroll.com