Let’s Have a Constitutional Convention

Rewriting the Constitution would be a good thing, but we need to recognize the limitations of a Constitutional Convention.

Article V of the Constitution provides a way of amending the Constitution that bypasses Congress and has been promoted by a number of people on the Right. But there’s nothing inherent in the idea of a Constitutional Convention that promotes right-wing causes. Indeed,it could well go the opposite way. But the results of such a convention are constrained in several ways.

First, any amendments, including a wholesale rewriting, have to be ratified by 3/4 of the States. That is likely to be an impossible hurdle, whatever the changes.

Second, Article V provides that no State can be deprived of its equal representation in the Senate. That equal representation is the biggest defect of the Senate as it is now constituted, since it underrepresents the people in the most populous states — which of course are the liberal states. But there is a way to circumvent this restriction: redefine the role of the Senate to make it a purely ceremonial body with no real powers. That would still be consistent with Article V, and in fact would resemble the legal structure of several other nations.

The problem this country faces is that we are hopelessly and bitterly divided, and have been since the American Revolution. Hillary Clinton got it right, even though it was disastrously impolitic for her to say it: perhaps a third of the country consists of Trump supporters — the Deplorables — and they are not going away.