Sabato’s Crystal Ball: Toward A More Perfect Constitution
Like almost all Americans, I grew up believing in the Constitution–every bit of it. But having chosen American politics as my primary passion in life, over decades of daily thinking about the issues that confronted the nation, I gradually began to see that parts of the system were no longer working very well, that the day-to-day, incremental political process was inadequate to fix the root causes of the system’s dysfunction. In this, I was encouraged by the bright young people in my classrooms, who asked good questions, pointed out wrongs that needed righting, and were unwilling to accept “that’s how we’ve always done it” as the final, correct answer.
The Constitution’s brilliance and originality have inspired millions around the globe to seek a better society where they live. Much of the Constitution’s superstructure needs no fundamental fix, including the separation of powers into three branches, the system of checks and balances (with a few exceptions), and the Bill of Rights. The fault is not with these basics, and it’s important to stress one fundamental truth from the outset: the framers of the Constitution did not fail us. Our forefathers designed the best possible system that could be achieved at that moment in time.
Bit by bit, in response to superb student critiques as well as my own–and the public’s–growing doubts, I began to construct an alternate universe for parts of the American system. The ideas comprising this universe are at the heart of this new book, A More Perfect Constitution: 23 Proposals to Revitalize our Constitution and Make America a Fairer Country.
By no means are my proposed reforms a repudiation of the founders’ principles. I believe that Washington, Madison and Jefferson would be the first to insist that the words in the Constitution are not the final word, and they would encourage us to start thinking about constructive changes in the constitutional framework. At the very least, we’ll be better off for having thought carefully about the Constitution. More people may even read it! Chief Justice John Roberts recently commented, “Nobody reads [the Constitution]. We talk about it a lot. We have cases about it. But to actually sit down and read it doesn’t happen that often–and that is a very rewarding exercise.”
The following is an adaptation of the first chapter from A More Perfect Constitution, that I prepared especially for the Crystal Ball and provide exclusively to you, our dear readers. For more information on the book, the ideas, an opportunity to offer comments and even a forum for suggesting your 24th idea for change, visit amoreperfectconstitution.com.
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12 Responses to “Sabato’s Crystal Ball: Toward A More Perfect Constitution”
Constitutional reform and revision have a long history, Holly, and there are several good books out there. The most interesting among those I own is by one of the original New Dealers, Rex Tugwell, which I was glad to get when I was in Seattle — it’s 700+ pages along with something like a 30-page-long new proposed constitution.
Elitists back in the 1980s concerned about “divided government” (a Democratic Congress no longer faced a Democratic White House, and therefore things didn’t go as smoothly and easily as desired) have advocated various reforms to elections as well as to the Constitution (e.g., “Constitutional Reform and Effective Government,” Brookings) and I have seen others (which I don’t fully support, by any means, either, such as institutionalizing the two-party duopoly we have by creating roles for a Government and an Opposition, as sought by Hardin).
Along with “fusion of powers” there even are advocates for a parliamentary system of government for the USA (as well as proportional representation in Congress and in the state legislatures).
Presumably the details you seek, as have others, are in the body of the document rather than merely hinted at in a Preamble (so misused so often and so wrongly and dishonestly by activists).
I would accept those enlargements that make sense. Consider research done on what the correct size of a body must be to accurately represent the consituency or the electorate (such as that which underlies the “cube root rule” or Pembrose’s square root rule). If you visit the literature and use the USA as an example (particularly if you take an anticipated or expected future size of the USA in order to “design for the future”),
As to making the House more amateur and more populist in character, random selection in place of election would improve things additionally — going to the House of Representatives also would likely be accepted more willingly than jury duty.
Districts are easy to form: Just use ZIP code areas or US Census tracts.
Note that a more ambitious thing associated with this would be to revise the states, their number, their boundaries, all of these. (This was included in Tugwell’s book as an associated issue along with explicit constitutional reform.) A radical thing would be to eliminate states and just have (US House) districts. (One granola-style lefty book on a new constitution I own calls these districts “neighborhoods” with the idea that that’s how they should be conceived and appreciated.)
Term limits have never been an extreme or extremist concept or objective. Nor would be simply prohibiting running immediately a second time for any specific public office. Term limits are even desireable for judges, including Supreme Court justices. There is no dependency on current officials provided the judges’ terms are the longest. (a 4-6-8-24 system for the highest federal officials is an example).
This and your introduction to the book only scratch the surface. Good luck with the project.
(I’m assuming if you’re taking the time to post the exerpts you’re interested in this topic yourself.)
Anyone that has become convinced that we need serious improvements in our Constitution should carefully examine the effort to get the nation’s first Article V convention at http://www.foavc.org and join the effort
Great post, Holly.
Dissent. STRONGLY. Both on theoretical basis (where it exists) and in most particulars. Sabato says he wants to build upon the Founder’s model, but his proposals would actively undermine and tear down same. Darn near every single item he proposes would have the effect of undermining state’s rights and moving power upward from the states to the federal government–the very thing the Founders were trying to avoid. And would be destructive of the purpose they structured things for that way in the first place. Sabato does not seek to improve upon the Founder’s system. He seeks to destroy it, gutting out the principled features of federalistic government in favor of populism.
The reasons for the public’s semi-permanent disaffection with Congress are all too clear. No committee of 535 can act with dispatch or appear especially organized
Sabato’s solution? Make Congress bigger! More members! Yeah, making committees larger always makes them work better….
Take the Senate proposal, for example. After expounding on the purpose of states getting equal representation in the Senate regardless of population, Sabato immediately proceeds to whine that states have more disparate populations than at the time of the Constitutional Convention, and that larger states should therefore have more Senators! Excuse me, but that’s pretty blatant BS, completely antithetical, and contrary reasoning. The purpose of equal representation in the Senate is precisely to help prevent the MINORITY from being oppressed by the MAJORITY. That is not accomplished by giving more power to the majority just because the majority has gotten bigger and the minority smaller.
Sabato dismisses this by saying that “The twenty-five states with the smallest populations would not forfeit any representation.” BLATANT BULLSHIT. They would lose sway in proportion to the number of new seats added–the very thing the system was structured to prevent. All states that failed to gain one or more extra seats would lose roughly 25% of their “sway” power. That’s a power grab, plain and simple.
I won’t delve deeply into the analysis (it’s late, I’m tired) but his proposal for vastly boosting the size of the House is likewise a bad idea. Hugely increasing the size of the House would make each and every member that much less powerful than their corresponding Senate members, and thus leave the House mostly subject to the whims of the Senate–which his proposal would now weight more towards the most populous states.
The net result I see is a MASSIVE shift of power away from the individual states as equal member states of the Union and towards the larger metropolitan coastal states on a direct population basis, yet the number of people in Washington actually able to wield power would actually shrink–the EXACT thing the Founders were designing to avoid. It would loosen the intentionally glacial pace of political change and leave government more subject to the momentary whims of demagogues and the mob–the EXACT thing the Founders were designing to avoid.
Sabato wants to bring in King Stork by claiming the Founders would have wanted it that way. Sorry, I’m not buying. The Founders worked real darn hard building King Log specifically in order to avoid King Stork.
It’s my impression that the trouble with Washington lies more in the mindset of the elctorate than in the rules governing Congressional representation. If the same public that is so dissatisfied with Congress stopped endorsing, and even demanding, manipulating the current system, there would be no need to talk of revising the Constitution.
For starters, we should stop manipulations via redristcting. Before worrying about what foumula would achieve a more perfect representation, we should establish rational and manipulation-proof districts to be represented. If that isn’t done, the blame can’t be found in the Constitution or in Washington; It’s the voters who are responsible.
Changing term limits would come at a cost. A rookie in Congress needs time to learn how Congress works, and, especially, needs time to gain expertise in the subjects of his committee assignments. A House full of uninformed officials is not an appealing prostpect to me. On the contratry, I wish there were some way of testing them before letting them loose with pens to sign bills into laws.
While thinking about the need for expertise, the time devoteed to fund-raising is eating away at time spent on productive Congress work. As it is, the top item in the job description for Congresspeople is to work on getting re-elected, i.e. fundraising. That leaves the gate wide open to the corrupting influence of deep pocket donors. Get the money out of elections, and Congress might begin to clean up its act.
A rapid change-over in Congress membership could also lead to rapid fluctuations in laws and dizzying changes undermine stability.
Making the resolution of all problems a states rights issue makes no more sense to me than resorting to federal law in every case. When the country was rural and communities has less long distance contact, self identifying with a state had a totally different meaning than now, when we are in a condition of flux. As people increasingly move from state to state, their mind sets become less state oriented.
When someone works in one state, but lives in anoter, it can be a source of confusion to have to deal with two sets of differing laws.
Modern transportation also undermines the impact of state laws. When in 20 minutes you can cross the state border to avoid the restristions of a state law, the very essence of state law is changed.
I do think we nee to update out thinking, but I don’t think we need to update the Constitution, at least, not yet. There are more important things to work on
There’s a simpler, easier, more possible way to achieve many of the same results the Dr. Sabato seems to be looking for: divide the large states. California could easily be divided into three or more states (Southern, Central, Northern). Texas, New York, Florida, too.
This could be done without amending the Constitution. All that is necessary is the acquiesence of the states involved. The battle would be interesting.
That wouldn’t greatly boost the number of representatives, though, so it would probably be a half-a-loaf solution to Sabato.
It would still tend towards the same effect, diluting the Senatorial sway of the smaller states. The reason for equal Senate representation was precisely to prevent the larger-population states with bigger cities from dictating to the rural states. Unless the chopping up was somewhat extreme, the new subdivided states would still be under the control of a few large metro areas.
And for Texas and New York at least, it wouldn’t happen. In New York the state tax base is extremely dependent on NYC. In Texas, no one would consent to giving up the Alamo.
I had much of the same reaction as Tully to the proposals, though the only one I read in great detail was the Senate reforms. While Sabato denies it, his proposal to increase the number of Senators precisely reduces the importance of Senators from smaller states. The count remains “two”, but their power would be 1.6.
I find the comment discussion of two senators per state and the possibility of dividing up states quite interesting. While keeping two senators per state is principled, the states themselves are largely happenstance. While some of the states, mostly to the East, were indeed true political entities in their own right when becoming states, most weren’t formed with their exact boundaries because they formed any sort of natural or political unit at the time. There were a few important places and then you just draw a line somewhere to make up the rest.
Unless we think that the states in the West just happened to form political units in the shape of boxes.
And so it make sense to fight for viable political units to have equal representation, but what happens if the units are semi-random? It’s not clear that the equal representation of the Senate is actually representing any sort of interests, such as farming communities, in particular.
Tully:
Note that many elitist proponents of reforms seek “fusion of powers” and other populistic changes that make Washington more national rather than less federal. This is a shame, given that our constitutional federalism already has frequently been replaced by de facto nationalism, with Washington routinely encroaching into what are properly state and local affairs only.
One author (Lazare) did what so many want to do, overcome the anti-populist nature of the Senate by doing away with it, and predictably, the scenario he describes for this involves the resort of frauds and losers: the Preamble as the basis and the justification for abolition of the Senate.
I view this with a cold eye as well (as I hope what I wrote indicated or at least implied), but if you study the research on the most effective size of a representative body, the case for making Congress larger actually has merit. At least in a scholarly and technical sense, even though it does increase the size of bureaucracy, hence also the inefficiency, possibility of conflicts, and so on.
Of course — that’s what elitists often want. And they typically have contempt for federalism and want to see as much additional state and local power arrogated by Washington as possible, and to formally transfer such power is better still.
There are a number of reasons why the Senate was chosen to be different in nature than the House, and while one may argue for or against the changes that have affected the Senate since then, what we’re seeing with Sabato is more elitist grousing about the Senate similar to what we’ve always heard before.
Abolishing the Senate (which I do not support) makes more sense than gradually, incrementally converting it into another House. (I’m surprised activists don’t want to see a judge rule that Baker v. Carr also applies to the US Senate. That would make as much sense as other activist rulings, including Baker v. Carr itself.)
Domajot:
See my comments earlier, for they refer to what are normally fixed, or at least (US Census districts) not subject to frequent change and abuse. Use ZIP code areas or US Census tracts to form larger districts. (County boundaries won’t suffice.)
A rookie in Congress needs time to learn how Congress works, and, especially, needs time to gain expertise in the subjects of his committee assignments.
The committee system can be completely revised any time Congress wants. As to length of time to learn anything, I supplied an example of terms for House members, the Presidency, terms for Senate members, and for Justices of the Supreme Court earlier, as follows: 4-6-8-24. Note the longer House term in particular, versus the current two years. (A 24-year limit for Justices should not be controversial here in the least and I do not consider it to be as noteworthy.)
Making the resolution of all problems a states rights issue makes no more sense to me than resorting to federal law in every case.
We dishonor constitutional federalism so much that morally we cry for much more resolution of issues by states and localities, for that is where nearly all issues should be resolved. (If Washington has no power granted to it to do something, it has no right.) However, the “destruction of distance” with modern transport and communications obviously leaves the USA different than in the past, there are externalities in this world (such as air pollution in Arizona from California), and not everyone in favor of federal expansion is hateful of federalism, but simply prefers one standard and system to adhere to rather than fifty; one is simpler and more convenient! But if that’s what is wanted, at least make it legal and legitimate — amend the constitution, then write clear, precise federal law.
D, T, P:
If you have lived and traveled to these places, you know it could be done. California could easily become two, three, or four states; Texas at least two (east and west), but more if desired (and had reserved the right to form as many as five at the time of admission). New York, yes (E-W along the western Hudson watershed boundary, Catskills, the Adirondacks, etc.), and Florida (Suwanee and St. Augustine River is a common idea for separating the peninsula from the mainland).
Actually, “New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.” (federal law)
And what often, routinely, are the views and motives held by those who want to change this? Where are they located and with whom are they allied politically? They’d love to see the nation dominated by California and the Northeast and older heavily Democratic Rust Belt cities.
While I would redraw boundaries in the East as well as in the West, the West is where “rationalization,” the redrawing of boundaries and redesigning the entire set of states, would really be welcome. Note that the arbitrary, straight lines have a special sense of meaning. It was done during our expansion and even imperialist era (we grew as large as we chose and refused to let the South leave), and to this day people in the West rightly (pun intended) resent being treated as a colony of the federal government. The drawing of lines, the holding of so much vast proportions of lands, everything from creation to the present day is of a colonial nature.
(Since World War II the West is no longer something akin to a “branch plant” economy of northeastern corporations as well, such as is complained about regarding Canada with US corporations. In fact, California, which has become the cultural capital of the nation, is also has enough economic potential that it could secede and survive perfectly well on its own, and already is the leader in various industries, not only tech, as well as continuing to be a leading agricultural producer in numerous categories.)
We need more natural and obvious “social” kinds of boundaries for the states (watershed boundaries, sometimes large rivers, “spheres of influence” of large metro areas or combinations of them), rather than arbitrary lines. Arbitrary lines are no good in Afghanistan-Pakistan and no good here, either.
That alone sets off the alarm (and hints at altering the Senate if you’ve encountered this stuff before). It’s similar to a more abusive misuse of the word “fairness” when referring to tax policy, a clear signal normally that progressive taxation is sought.