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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   26209 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 22, 2024

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Can you imagine a US Constitutional amendment that, if proposed, would actually get passed these days?

The relevant part of the US Constitution is:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

So, either 2/3 of both the House and the Senate, or 2/3 of the states must propose it, and then 3/4 of the state legislatures or conventions in those states must support it, for it to become part of the Constitution... as I understand it at least.

What sort of possible amendments could you imagine would actually pass and become part of the US Constitution in today's political climate, if they were proposed?

I find this to be an interesting question because it is a barometer of what the various factions of US politics actually agree on, despite their various differences, and also a barometer of how much polarization there is in today's US political situation.

I have often fantasized (ever since 2004) about a Republican winning the popular vote and losing the electoral college and galvanizing support on the right for an EC reform amendment or more states signing into the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, but realistically I can't assume that Democrats would continue to be interested in such a reform after the EC turns out to benefit them, even if I can promise that I personally would.

Once Trump is gone, one way or another, there might be bipartisan interest in clarifying the scope of some executive privileges that he has laid claim to, but that all needs to be far enough in the rear view mirror, like FDR's four terms, for it to not get polarized.

The concept of contingent elections, where state delegations of House representatives choose the president in the case of no electoral college majority, will not last long after the next time one happens.

If a foreign adversary tries to take advantage of US weakness during a chaotic lame duck session, for example if Trump wins after a campaign promising to dismantle NATO and China thinks it's a good time to make a move on Taiwan while the US is distracted, we might get a new amendment like the 20th that shortens the lame duck period.

But I doubt you'd be able to pass anything more than boring no-brainer kind of amendments like the 27th. Maybe one that requires Officers of the US (maybe clarifying that to include the President) from trading stocks, but again, only after the immediate controversies with a partisan valence are well in the rear view mirror.

I like the EC but prefer the Maine approach (ie overall winner gets the two votes; rest is district by district)

Why would you want gerrymandering to have more influence?

Why do you want machine politics to have more influence?

Yes, gerrymandering impacts races. But so do machine politics (and fraud). By making elections district level you limit the impact of machine politics and fraud. In addition, you change the nature of the presidential elections. Texas is now ripe for democrats to campaign in. Ditto California.

But this does it in a way that doesn’t create real incentive to cheat and still maintains some geographic overbalance for small states.

If nothing else, the electoral college shields the country from various shenanigans that would happen if you opted for "sum vote totals from fifty different systems": Every state is incentivized to muck with its vote totals, especially with plausible deniability, and it's unclear what enforcement mechanisms the states would have to keep each other honest. IMO voter ID rules and election hardware security become even more contentious when every vote cast nationwide effects the outcome, and, say, Alabama "accidentally" certifying totals with three extra zeros at the end probably doesn't violate their laws. At least right now, the EC bounds state voting issues to only their own electoral votes.

Everyone adopting the Maine system is tolerably close, and doesn't have this problem. I think it's a reasonable choice.

The problem (which the Maine plan addresses quite well) is also that it heavily favors large states. California has 54 electoral votes, equal to 6 Alabamas. What this means is that winning California is hugely important, where a state with only 3 votes for all practical purposes doesn’t matter. And thus the concerns of states with huge EC counts have an outsized effect on federal policies— especially those that affect other states more. I think that’s why our regulations on land use end up wonky. They’re designed to work in urban areas where a wetland isn’t on simeone’s working farm, but on land that nobody wants or uses. If the president had to appeal to rural Alabama the way it has to appeal to LA, those kinds of things would be less likely.

You're conflating federal policy with House of Representatives party politics.

In American federal political terms, both California and Alabama are equally irrelevant, not important, because neither are particularly competitive in presidential campaigns. Presidents don't disproportionately consider the views of states that will go for them regardless, but rather for the states they need to woo to win.

Similarly, the Senate is infamously a body which gives disproportionate favor to smaller states. Flat voting weight regardless of population lets small states like Alabama extort larger states if the larger states want agreement- or at least a non-fillibuster- of their interests. The Senate is where most of the extortion-pork in budgets comes from, because it's the Senators who must be appeased.

In the House, disproportionate weight doesn't come from the voting strength (which is proportional), but rather the number of committe seats. Large states- particularly large mono-party states- can leverage their strength as a voting block to vote their members into key positions that mutually reinforce. What makes California so central in the House is the point that the California Democrats have so many of the votes not just in the Congress, but within the party.

The Maine system is arguably even better to this end since it even further decentralizes things. No matter how sketchy the results are in Milwaukee or Atlanta or Detroit, there's a cap on how much damage you can do.

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