Electoral College reform (Re: Enron

John Mage jmage at panix.com
Mon Jan 14 15:32:51 PST 2002


Doug wrote:

> Let me be even clearer: to *hell* with the Constitution. It's a

> deeply

>> undemocratic tissue of cockamamie reactionary kludges which no

>> Eastern European country in their right mind would tolerate. Put

>> the damn thing in a museum where it belongs, and start over with

>> a people's assembly.

>

>

> Which it would literally take a revolution to do, since the Senate can't

> be abolished without the unanimous consent of the states - something

> Montana and Vermont would never consent to.

>

The obstacle is not the wording of the Constitution. There's nothing in Article V that says that Article I cannot be amended by the Convention to change the manner in which the two Senators "from each state" are chosen - a clause that has already been amended incidentally - so as to require their choice by, say, a global electorate, or a local electorate qualified by having been prosecuted by the previous regime for the possession of controlled substances, or by two-thirds vote of the Board of the Pacifica Foundation. But overcoming the obstacle via a revolution rather than through Constitutional Interpretation seems much the more attractive idea. Let's.

john mage



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