The results of a new political revolution in America

A major and fundamental political reform in the US could easily lead to calls and demands for a new Constitution as an essential element of ground-up infrastructure necessary to address the convoluted legislative bloat that is the anachronistic modern American Legislative and Judicial system. As a lead in to these considerations, I'd like to offer the National Constitution Center's efforts looking at several aspects of democracy and a variety of Constitutional documents they have generated from a variety of modern mainstream US political perspectives.

While I am most intrigued by the Center's Progressive Constitution ideas, it really should probably be looked at in comparison to their ideas regarding Libertarian and Conservative constitutional ideas¹.

To be honest, there is much to like, and hate, in all of these perspectives but though I've always considered myself to be a primary proponent of democracy in the abstract, one of the more troubling issues of reading through these considerations is the questions they've raised in myself regarding how to balance the freedoms of as much democracy as we can tolerate with the personal and societal responsibilities that must be tied to such freedoms in a mature and sustainable society

A few teasers

-from the Libertarian Constitution

Quote:

- This was probably an easier project for us than for our conservative and progressive counterparts because the current United States Constitution is fundamentally a libertarian or, more precisely, classical liberal document. So much so that, at the outset, we joked that all we needed to do was to add “and we mean it” at the end of every clause. - Unfortunately, many parts of our fundamentally libertarian constitution, particularly those that limit federal power, have been more often ignored or cleverly evaded, than honored, especially by court decisions that have perverted the actual meaning of the document’s text. Our task was therefore largely to clarify and sharpen those provisions— most notably the Commerce Clause, which has been transformed by legal interpretation into a charter of expansive federal power far beyond what the framers envisioned. - Then there were some technical fixes. We updated capitalization and punctuation, and we incorporated today’s amendments into the text rather than appending them at the end. Of course, we didn’t include all of today’s amendments; libertarians generally agree that most Progressive Era changes were no good, so you’ll find no equivalents to the Sixteenth (income tax), Seventeenth (direct election of senators), or Eighteenth (alcohol prohibition) Amendments here.

From the Conservative Constitution

Quote:

- As conservatives, we were tempted to leave the Constitution largely unchanged, amending only those provisions most obviously in need of alteration. However, in the spirit of the NCC’s project, we attempted to think more boldly and propose changes that we believe would improve the Constitution to meet the exigencies of our era. Above all— and this is the real point of the exercise— we hope that our efforts will spur constructive discussion of the purposes of a constitution for a free people dedicated to the experiment in self-government. - Today, we still confront the perennial conundrums of popular government, of which the problem of faction yet constitutes the disease “most incident to republican government,” as Madison warned. Simplistic adherence to pure democracy, unleavened by constitutional checks and balances, is therefore still undesirable. The good of the people is all too easily hijacked by self-interested and ideological factions that promote their own objectives at the expense of the long-term interest of the whole. In short, the goal of refining and enlarging the public views to achieve what Publius called “the reason of the public,” is not working as our Founders hoped it would. - We also sought to revise or extend some provisions to accommodate modern practices where the Constitution does not speak clearly to such practices. Most radically, we sought numerous institutional and structural changes— to the Senate, to presidential selection, to judicial and executive appointments, to the legislative process, to the role of the states in national affairs, and to various provisions touching modern administrative government— where we thought the Constitution has not worked as well as it could be made to work. Such structural changes, however, were made in the spirit of advancing the Founders’ own principles. In many instances, we return to ideas (or variants of ideas) that were proposed but not adopted at the time of the Founding.

From the Progressive Constitution

Quote:

- When we were asked to draft the “progressive” Constitution, we recognized that the task came with baggage. Progressives’ relationship with the Constitution has long been fraught. At various points in history, progressives have loudly complained that the Constitution ratified in 1788 was designed for an agrarian society of slaveholding white males. It created sclerotic political institutions that are frightfully ill-equipped to meet the demands of a modern, global, and pluralistic society. - With that in mind, as we embarked upon this exercise, we wanted to make clear our own view that the Constitution, as drafted in 1787, is not completely incompatible with progressive constitutionalism. Indeed, in our view, the original Constitution establishes a structure of divided government that is a necessary precondition for a constitutional democracy with robust protections for individual rights. Accordingly, we took this exercise as an opportunity to strengthen those structural protections for democratic government that we believe serve the exercise of individual rights. This draft progressive Constitution is written in the spirit of the Virginia Plan, with a recognition that debate and refinement must follow. And similar to the framers in 1787, we also are focusing on the structures of government over developing an exhaustive set of rights. We believe that embedding democracy more effectively in our Constitution will better protect rights than an explicit description of each and every right. - But even as we have recognized that the democratic process will and should be the main determinant of policy outcomes, we have in some circumstances provided for explicit protections for equality, liberty, and democratic institutions that were not contemplated by the original document or its amendments.

All commentary and discussion is welcome, I have a personal perspective, and will unabashedly share it, but I'm interested in developing a more diverse feel for the takeaways and considerations of those who don't necessarily share my own outlook.

*1. CONSTITUTION DRAFTING PROJECT
https://constitutioncenter.org/debat...afting-project

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