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Time for an Unrestricted Second Constitutional Convention [1]

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Date: 2023-03-05

"It's feeling a bit dated"

Most proposals for calling an Article V convention of the states to revise the Constitution are doomed to failure because they are totally partisan. They focus on narrow and highly controversial issues like requiring a balanced budget or reducing the rights of corporations. We should be calling, instead, for an open-ended convention that can attempt to find common ground improvements, just like the Framers did so well in 1787.

Some argue that any convention would be too dangerous, that it could go rogue and propose radical changes. But that fear is totally misguided. The three fourths of the states required for ratification would never agree to radical changes. And countries (and U.S. states) have constitutional conventions all the time without going rogue… and most have a far lower ratification bar than we have.

Since the states pick the convention delegates and the states range from red to purple to blue, any convention would represent a broad spectrum of opinions. It’s possible that they could not agree on any changes, but not likely. And it is certainly worth trying a new convention, if for no other reason than to show that we the people still have some real civic efficacy.

At the very least, a second constitutional convention could simply serve as a new “Committee of Style'' to make the entire document much shorter and much easier to read without making any substantive changes in its meaning. For starters, they could exclude repealed, superseded, and obsolete provisions. For example, while we certainly want to teach the history of the three fifths and the fugitive slave clauses, do we really still want them in our governing document? The same goes for the original electoral college provisions that almost got Aaron Burr elected president. And do we really want “he” in there dozens of times? Can we drop arcane terms like “corruption of blood” and “letters of marque”? Can we use modern spelling and capitalization conventions? Do we really still need to use Latin?

An additional style change option would be to embed structural amendments into their relevant articles as James Madison had originally wanted. For example, the convention could include the numerous presidential amendments into the body of Article II on the executive branch. The team could also group liberties and rights together rather than have them scattered across several articles and many amendments outside the Bill of Rights

Once the convention is done with its stylistic updates, it can use the clever preface suggested by Akhil Amar: “Upon adoption of this amendment, the Constitution of the United States, in its entirety, will read as follows:”. Wouldn’t even this small step be great? Wouldn’t constitutional literacy go up? Wouldn’t this be a nice catalyst for more constitutional dialogue? Here is a very rough version of what this more readable constitution would look like.

Once the Committee of Style completed its work, there would be the momentum and perhaps the trust to tackle the harder work of agreeing on substantive changes (either at the same or at a subsequent Article V convention). There may be bi-partisan support for the idea of reducing all of the two thirds supermajority requirements in the Constitution to three fifths. Or there may be agreement to increase separation of powers by eliminating the role of the Vice President in the senate. And hopefully there may be some “grand bargain” compromises possible that actually end up win-wins for the country as a whole. We don’t know unless we try.

I love our constitution and have taught it for many years. But it is high time, after well over two centuries, that we use the mechanism it so brilliantly provided to make it even better.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/5/2156333/-Time-for-an-Unrestricted-Second-Constitutional-Convention

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