Welcome to a Constitutional Convention

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

Constitution-21 is a remodel of the 1789 Constitution for the 21st Century.  The 1789 Constitution of the United States was written in another time – in another world – for thirteen ex-colonies.  No one should be surprised that the Constitution of 1789 is a poor fit for the superpower US of the here and now.

The United States lacks coherent strategies in the areas of international commitments, energy, the environment, and the twin deficits of budget and foreign trade.  It is the thesis here that these functional problems are systemic – i.e., that the structure of the government no longer works.  Two symptoms of system failure: (1) Congress almost never passes important legislation without the initiative from the White House; (2) the courts inherit many too many important matters that ought to have been debated in Congress or in the state legislatures.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Constitution-21 is the draft of a complete remodel of the structure of the government.  It restates the Bill of Rights and includes provisions on the budget, federal revenue, health care, and social security.  The radical ideas in Constitution-21 concern the reorganization of Congress and procedures for nominating and electing the President and members of Congress.

Constitution-21 assigns the Senate and House of Representatives different organizations to serve different and unequal roles but keeps the staggered six-year terms for Senators and the two-year terms for Representatives.  The Senate is the national legislature; it has only twenty-one members and almost a monopoly of legislative authority; the small size is determined by the way Senators are nominated and elected.  The House works in committees to reflect the interests of the electorate; it has a large membership and very limited legislative authority.  

The Electoral Branch, a new fourth branch of government, refines the rules for nominations, supervises elections, manages a biannual national Federal Nominating Convention, sets standards for voter registrations and voting procedures, defines the rules for drawing the Districts of Representatives and Senators, regulates the raising and spending of campaign money, and enforces provisions designed to encourage voting.  Presidential Primaries[1] are eliminated.

The proposals in Constitution-21 are integrated.  The national Federal Nominating Convention implements the small Senate.  At this convention two caucuses[2] (and possibly a third caucus) each nominate a candidate for President every four years and a slate of seven candidates for the Senate every two years.  The nominated Senators then run for election in large districts.  To be selected by a caucus, a Senatorial nominee must have national stature; to be elected from a large district, the nominee must have regional appeal – which dual requirement limits the size of the slate of Senatorial nominees to seven and thus the size of the Senate to twenty-one.

The Senate is the national legislature that passes all laws and approves treaties and major Presidential appointments.  With only twenty-one members, the Senate should be an effective counterweight to the President.  Each Senator will be an important person known nationally, and a joint statement from three or four Senators is likely to be the leading news story of any day. 

The House of Representative will have between 900 and 1,000 members elected from districts within the states.  A computer program defines the districts after every census to have nearly equal population and a minimum perimeter.  Elected from a relatively small district, each Representative should be able to voice the interests of constituents. The House works in committees to draft legislation and to investigate the operations of the Executive Branch.  As a body, the House can propose laws and reject laws, but it cannot amend laws passed in the Senate.

Senators no longer represent their states as political entities – a necessity if the Legislature is to have a national perspective.  While the archaic theory that the federal government is created by a compact among the states is abandoned, the states remain vital elements in the federal system.  State legislatures select delegates to the Federal Nominating Convention, and a long Article in Constitution-21 describes in some detail the division of responsibilities between the federal and state governments[3].   

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The purpose here is to inspire ideas about how to reorganize the government to meet current and future conditions.  Different provisions of Constitution-21 will offend one group or another.  This document is a draft in a website designed as an on-line forum, a modern Constitutional Convention.  Visitors to the site are invited to participate – to criticize and to offer suggested improvements.   

Recently two distinguished professors of political science have published books[4] proposing changes to the Constitution.  The two books focus on the Senate as both undemocratic and a choke point in the functioning of the federal government; both admit that any amendment fixing the Senate is impossible, and both refer to the possibility of a new Constitutional Convention.

A national catastrophe that creates a call for a new Constitution is no longer impossible to imagine. The existing governmental structure is most dangerous in the most critical areas: geopolitics and world economics.  The United States – and the world – needs a US government that can make well considered long-range strategic choices.

The author greatly appreciates the contributions of others[5], but Constitution-21 states his idiosyncratic ideas on how the government of the United States might be remodeled.

PoliSys, Los Angeles, California, revised September 2008

Footnotes: