People
who know they can’t win on the rules often try to change the rules. The leaders
of America’s conservative revolution know their day is passing, but they want
to stay on the stage as long as they can. One of their more desperate measures
is proposing amendments to the Constitution – amendments to ban abortion, ban
gay marriage, ban Obamacare, essentially to ban all forward progress America
has made in the last half century. None of these damnfool amendments has a
chance of passing, but proposing them sounds good to the yokels who elect them.
I
have a few of my own amendments to propose.
First,
the Democracy Amendment.
It
helps to actually read the Constitution. A lot of conservatives who screech
about the original intent of the drafters of the Constitution have never read
the Constitution, just as their social conservative friends don’t know the
Bible as well as they think they do.
Let’s
start with the “Tenthers”, the people who cherry-pick the Tenth Amendment out
of the Constitution and, based on that amendment, insist that Congress does not
have the power to do a lot of the things it’s doing. What they don’t want you
to notice is that Congress, according to the Preamble and Article 1, is
empowered to promote the general welfare of the country, which can mean pretty
much whatever they say it does.
Articles
1 and 2 also instruct Congress to pass all federal laws, approve federal
officers and judges, and man courts below the Supreme Court. This is a
constitutional mandate, and certain elements in Congress are preventing these
vital positions from being filled: federal judgeships, the heads of regulatory
agencies. The business of the nation isn’t being conducted properly.
The
next issue is performance in office. Amendment 27 says Congressional pay cannot
be altered during a two-year Congress. Article 1 says each house of Congress
can rule on the qualifications of its own members. Article 2 allows the
President and other executive officers to be impeached and removed for high
crimes and misdemeanors. Amendment 14 says you cannot serve a senior position
in government if you give aid and comfort to America’s enemies; Article 3 says
that such behavior is treason. And there are some members who, according to
these standards, should be tossed out of Congress.
Next,
how do we pick presidents? It’s more complicated that you think. Amendment 20
tells us what happens if there is confusion as to who was elected president;
the language for this clear-up-the-confusion amendment is very unclear, and it
seems to say that Congress can delay the presidential selection until the
following January and just pick whoever they want. Article 2 allows the House to pick the
president, voting by state – so the more populous states get screwed because
the big boys like New York get the same vote as the Wyomings and Dakotas.
Article 2 also limits the presidency to “natural-born citizens” but doesn’t
explain what that means (it also bans presidents from accepting foreign titles
like Rick Santorum did). But a lot of this language is vague.
Next,
the issue of removing presidents. Article 2 and Amendment 25 have disturbingly
vague language indicating that Congress or even the cabinet can remove a
president who is deemed unable to perform his duties. That means that if McCain
had won in 2008 and irritated a lot of people in Congress, his own Cabinet
could have thrown him out and give us…President Sarah Palin. I’d keep the language
giving that removal power to Congress, but not the Cabinet. Article 1 also
addresses what happens after a president leaves office, noting that an
ex-president can still be charged with civil and criminal offenses, which makes
you wonder why Bush is still on the street.
Next,
the statehouses. America’s far-right is working with unprecedented vigor to
wreak havoc in our statehouses, gerrymandering House seats so that even when
America casts more votes for liberals than conservatives in House races, the
conservatives still control the House. They are also working on a scheme to
arrange the Electoral College in such a way that Blue states split up their
electoral votes proportionally to the presidential candidates who wins votes
there, while the Red states are winner-take-all, which obviously will help
conservative presidential candidates immensely.
Next,
voting rights. Article 1 empowers Congress to regulate elections; Amendment 15
allows blacks to vote, and Amendment 24 bans polls taxes. Also, Amendment 26
gives the vote to young people as of age 18.
So
here is the Democracy Amendment:
·
No
position which the Senate confirms can be vacant for more than six months.
·
The
power of filibuster in the Senate is nullified.
·
Articles
1 and 3, and Amendment 14 of the Constitution, shall be used to remove any
member of Congress whose destructive obstruction in performance of office is so
egregious that it affords aid and comfort to the America’s enemies.
·
All
members of Congress must pass a test of the Constitution before taking office.
·
For
the purposed of impeachment, “high crimes and misdemeanors” means witnesses and
evidence proving, beyond a reasonable doubt, the commission of a felony….and oral
sex doesn’t count.
·
If
no President is selected by Inauguration Day, the preceding President will
remain in office while another election is held the following November.
·
A
tie-breaking vote in the House for President will be conducted by House seat,
not by state.
·
No
person can be president who was not a U.S. citizen at birth.
·
Amendment
25 shall be amended to prevent the Cabinet from removing a President.
·
Any
state whose House seats are distributed in a manner more than 20 percent at
variance with the partisan voting in that state, will be redistricted by the
minority party in the state legislature for the next five House elections, with
review by the Justice Department.
·
All
states will distribute presidential electoral votes winner-take-all, until a
majority of the states vote to use a proportional method, in which case all
states will use the proportional method.
·
No
state will impose a Voter Identification requirement. (because they are
unnecessary and disproportionately hurt liberal voting blocs)
·
Children
under 18 who can pass the immigrant citizenship test can also vote. (since the
Preamble calls on us to secure the blessings of liberty for posterity, who
better to protect posterity than the people who will be living in it?)
·
All
elections for the presidency, House and Senate, will be publicly financed.
(Goodbye, Citizens United)
The
Human Rights Amendment
The
Bill of Rights affords us a long list of protections which the police often
ignore. Article 1 imposes uniform laws
for bankruptcies. Amendment 22 limits Presidents to two terms, which means that
a President is less accountable in his second term, and the political process
lends itself to alternating parties every eight years regardless of
performance. Article 8 and Amendment 23 give Congress control over the District
of Columbia, prevent the District from putting representatives in Congress, and
prevent the District from having more presidential electors than the smallest
state, regardless of population. Conservatives like it that way because, among
other things, D.C. statehood means two more liberal Senators. Amendment 9 says
we have rights which aren’t necessarily enumerated in the Constitution; it is
because of this concept that we enjoy rights such as a woman’s right to choose.
Amendment
21 repealed the prohibition on alcohol because it proved unworkable.
Article
1 states that Congress cannot stop states from allowing immigrants to enter,
and that all rules of naturalization must be uniform (some conservatives want
to bring in more Europeans and fewer of the scary brown people). The first
amendment affords right of assembly. Amendment 14 eliminates Native Americans
from the count when apportioning representatives. Article 4 says that states
must respect the laws from other states, which makes for confusion when states
have wildly different rules on issues such as gay marriage, which is further
complicated by the equal-protection clause in Amendment 14. Article 6 bans any
religious rest for public office. The language in Amendment 1 regarding
religion is being expanded egregiously by churches to encompass rights they
founders didn’t intend them to have. Article 1 provides for promoting the
progress of science.
So,
to untangle this mess of rights and responsibilities, the Human Rights
Amendment:
·
All
states shall suspend stop-and-frisk procedures and papers-please procedures.
·
All
states will provide defendants with a counselor who has actually won a jury
trial; “lawyers” who only know how to plead out cases before trial need not
apply for positions as public defenders.
·
Any
police search of a woman’s body will be conducted indoors by a policewoman.
·
Banks
and corporations will adhere to the same regulations in applying for
bankruptcies, as private individuals who have financial difficulty due to
medical issues or other causes. Wall Street and Main Street play by the same
rules.
·
The
Presidential term limits are abolished.
·
The
District of Columbia is to be granted full statehood.
·
No
state, nor Congress, shall pass any law affecting a woman’s right to choose, to
include extra restrictions on the business operations of women’s health
clinics.
·
The
19th Amendment shall be expanded to ban all discrimination based on
sex, in keeping with the spirit of the 14th Amendment provision for
equal protection.
·
Marijuana
is to be decriminalized, regulated and taxed.
·
Congress
shall not limit immigration, or give preferential treatment to various ethnic
groups regarding naturalization and citizenship.
·
No
state, nor Congress, shall pass any law restricting the formation and operation
of labor unions.
·
Native
Americans shall be counted when apportioning representatives in Congress.
·
All
states will grant equal rights and protections in every particular, to all
couples consisting of two consenting adults, who wish to marry.
·
No
state shall pass a law banning atheists from public office, jury duty, or any
other public function.
·
The
religion provision in Amendment 1 does not afford tax-exempt status to
religious groups, or the right to violate campaign-finance laws, or to insert
religious belief into science, education, medicine, or any endeavor other than
religious worship; religious conscience cannot be used as a pretext to break
the law or discriminate in any public function. (to include denying
contraception to women and teaching “intelligent design” in schools)
The
Budget Amendment
Conservatives
who have never read the Constitution don’t seem to realize that the
Constitution empowers the federal government to collect taxes. The Constitution
also directs the House to originate revenue bills, which is why it is silly to
scream at the Senate or the President for “not passing a budget”. It also
empowers the government to borrow money, which is why it is stupid to holler at
Obama for borrowing money to clean up Bush’s messes. Also, Article 1 says
repeatedly that taxes are to be levied and apportioned in a proportional way, in
the states. And most importantly, Articles 1 and 6, and Amendment 14, forbids
anyone from trying to invalidate or default on the national debt.
So,
the Budget Amendment:
·
Each
state will receive federal spending in proportion to the amount of taxes it
pays. (This will be a nasty shock to the Red states who think they are the
“real America” subsidizing all those nasty brown people in the Blue states –
the Red states actually are net consumers of federal money, and the Blue states
are subsidizing them)
·
Any
member of Congress who threatens to violate the Constitution, by using the
threat of a debt default as leverage in a budget negotiation, shall be removed
from office.
The
Redneck Amendment
A
lot of conservatives, when cornered in a debate about the Constitution, hop up
on their hind legs and begin howling about the intent of the framers of the
Constitution. First of all, a lot of their interpretations about the intent of
the framers are wrong. Second, the framers never intended for us to take their
words, action, opinions and illusions as holy writ, because they knew that they
were potentially as full of crap as any other group of politicians, a good
thing since they were a bunch of rich white men who in some cases owned slaves.
This is why they left it to future generations to use the amendment process to
fix their mistakes and account for changes in modern life that they didn’t
foresee.
In
one case, we even had to use an amendment to kill an amendment, which shows us
a vivid object lesson: no matter how stupid an idea is, like trying to ban
alcohol, a stupid but determined minority can ram bad ideas down our throats in
such a permanent way that it can take fourteen years to clean up the mess.
Something to keep in mind when we see small groups of extremists working
tirelessly for decades to overturn Roe or the right to vote.
The
point being that (a) conservatives don’t really understand what the founders
intended, and (b) even the founders didn’t want to hold us to that two-hundred
year-old standard.
One
misconception that conservatives cling to is that notwithstanding the outcome
of the Civil War, the states had, and still have, the right to secede. Um, no.
Even setting aside the stupidity of the idea – if we let regions split off
every time they don’t get their way in the democratic process, democracy as we
know it will die either by repeated secession or by blackmail, and the country
will split into smaller and smaller pieces until we look like the Balkans
-- the Constitution does not allow
secession or nullification, establishing that the Constitution itself is the
supreme law of the land. Article 1 says that the states cannot enter into
independent alliances or confederations, print money, keep troops or navies,
engage in war, or make agreements with other states or foreign countries.
Another
misconception is that the concept of posse comitatus prevents the federal army
from putting down any rebellion or insurrection. Articles 1 and 4 allow the
federal government to suspend habeas corpus and protect against domestic
violence. And even the posse comitatus act of the nineteenth century allows for
a number of loopholes which the federal government can use to intervene, if a
state government can’t or won’t fix a local problem which threatens the
implementation of the Constitution or the exercise of citizen rights. So
crushing a tea-party rebellion, or Oath-Keeper insurrection, or militia attack,
or whatever, is entirely within the rights of the federal government.
Another
misconception, which is shared by Supreme Court Justices who should know
better, is that the Constitution grants gun rights to everybody. It specifies
that gun rights belong to militias, and it specifies further than militia
doesn’t mean your Uncle Billy Bob creating the “Idaho I Hate Colored Folks
Club” in his basement. Article 1 specifies that a militia is a body which
executes the laws of the nation, suppresses insurrections, and accepts the
organizational discipline of Congress (and the orders of the President). So
again, no Uncle Billy Bob.
A
number of times the founders and the courts have felt compelled to state something
more than once, because the yokels didn’t get the message the first time. So in
that spirit, the Redneck Amendment is simply an affirmation:
“You
rubes do not have the right to secession, rebellion, armed revolt, or unlimited
gun rights.”
Stating
it all again may stop these stupid rubes from shooting the place up the next
time liberals have the nerve to elect a President they don’t cotton to.