David Blume4d ago
Jeff Atwood

Many political scientists and constitutional scholars now describe the U.S. Constitution as "constructively unamendable." This means that while it is legally possible to change it, the political reality makes it functionally impossible.

Because the amendment process is broken, the energy for changing the "rules of the game" has shifted to the Supreme Court. Since the Constitution cannot be easily changed by the people, political groups fight to appoint judges who will "interpret" the Constitution to mean what they want:

  • In many other democracies, abortion rights were settled by legislation or constitutional referendum. In the US, it was granted by the Court (Roe) and taken away by the Court (Dobbs), because the amendment process was too paralyzed to address it.
  • The Citizens United ruling fundamentally changed the political landscape. To overturn it would require an amendment, which is currently impossible, so the Court's word stands as final.

...

Scholars refer to this as 'constitutional calcification.' The U.S. has the hardest constitution to amend in the democratic world. Until the partisan divide softens or one party achieves a massive, generational dominance, the U.S. is likely stuck with the Constitution exactly as it is.

Feb 12 at 8:16amWeb
Show threadJeff AtwoodFeb 12
legacy codebase kind of sucking right now
Show threadFred GFeb 12
@codinghorror time to rewrite in rust? đź«Ą
Show threadPhil BettsFeb 12
@codinghorror as an Australian with little choice but to observe all the nonsense that comes out of the States I've often wondered why there's no meaningful talk about repealing, say, the 2nd Amendment. Even if it doesn't stand a chance of getting up, wouldn't it at least be an effort to shift the Overton window back? Put gun lobbyists on the proper defensive? Seems strange it's never even mentioned as an option.
Show threadberserk du soleilFeb 12
@codinghorror we also stick out (derogatory) as having one of the oldest constitutions, esp because much of the world is far older than us!!! I think about this a lot
Show threadmgiraldoFeb 12
@codinghorror totally agree. is good that people in the US are waking up to realizing that the constitution they all believed was the most best #1 (USA!) is actually a huge backdoor thru which all sorts of nasty things go. more people need to realize this. a new constitution cannot come soon enough
Show threadShannon Clark4d ago

@codinghorror one fight I think we (liberals) should consider having which has the advantage of not being an amendment and less prone to Supreme Court challenges as well would be to push for the repeal of the Reapportionment act of 1929 that freezes the size of the House of Representatives at 435 Representatives.

Some have suggested just adding 50 or 150 representatives but I think we should instead look at what happens if we aimed for each representative to have 250k (or less in small states)

Show threadShannon Clark4d ago
@codinghorror that would change US politics in many ways - smaller districts would likely make for cheaper races (and obviously more people running) as well as make it easier for Reps offices to handle constituents requests. It would change the electoral collage and it would shake up congress quite dramatically. It’s not clear if it would result in an advantage for one party (risk of gerrymandering is real) but would reduce the current massive disparity in numbers of constituents per rep
Show threadjeremiah4d ago
@Rycaut Personally, I want to see it go even smaller. Let's get that down to the 1 per 30,000 value that existed at the time it was written. I'm ready for eleven thousand house reps.
Show threadShannon Clark4d ago

@jeremiah that would indeed be fantastic (and create space likely for true independents and even regional smaller parties - not as protest votes / spoilers but as real options to the current Dem/GOP dual party system. While I’m a solid Democrat voter and even registered as one I think we as a nation would be much better off with as you note a far larger House of Representatives (and similarly larger state legislatures in many states).

But even just a 1500+ House would be a huge improvement

Show threadjeremiah4d ago
@Rycaut I agree. Getting those numbers down so that people have to meaningfully deliver for votes would be a real movement towards democracy.
Show threadShannon Clark4d ago

@jeremiah indeed - and it is something that can happen without any constitutional amendments or other complex maneuvers. The Congress just has to repeal (or amend) one key very old law (and perhaps some related laws that clarified - i.e. the ones requiring that all Representatives have a specific district only represented by one person vs what some states did in the past having some "at-large" representatives that were voted in statewide elections

So easier albeit unlikely at present alas

Show threadStrider Uwe 🇺🇦🇨🇦🇲🇽4d ago
@codinghorror “Until the partisan divide softens or one party achieves a massive, generational dominance, the U.S. is likely stuck with the Constitution exactly as it is.” Or until the US breaks. I’d say that that’s more likely than the alternatives at this point…
Show threadPete Gontier3d ago
@codinghorror All true, but it’s also a self-fulfilling prophecy. We normals confuse Supreme Court rulings with legislated law. For example, SCOTUS doesn’t prohibit Congress from passing legislation about abortion. SCOTUS only rules on laws affecting abortion in the **absence** of legislation from Congress. Republicans are merely too cowardly to allow themselves to be forced to demonstrate, on the record, their contempt for women. SCOTUS would be likely to strike down whatever Congress passed only if it were poorly written, and that problem is fixable by passing another law. Meanwhile, back in reality, we don’t even try because cowardice.