Our Imbecilic Constitution

[NJCardFan]

Ignore, for discussion’s sake, the clauses that helped to entrench chattel slavery until it was eliminated by a brutal Civil War. Begin with the Senate and its assignment of equal voting power to California and Wyoming; Vermont and Texas; New York and North Dakota. Consider that, although a majority of Americans since World War II have registered opposition to the Electoral College, we will participate this year in yet another election that “battleground states” will dominate while the three largest states will be largely ignored.

I take it this Levinson considers himself a scholar and maybe even a Constitutional expert. If he does, then he doesn't get the reason for the electoral college. He mentions at the end of the above paragraph that larger states go relatively ignored on the presidential election stage while some smaller "battleground" states have strong influence. Well, that's the freaking point. If the popular vote was used to elect the president then California, NY, Pa., Mass., would dominate every election. The Founders didn't want that and we don't have that today. If we used the popular vote, Ohio, Florida, or Michigan wouldn't matter.

[DumbAss Tanker]

So everybody read the paragraph but no one read the article.

Kind of a 'No, duh!' moment there. This isn't 'The Retread Blog,' so very few of us are going to spend time haring off after links anyone puts in a post to see what a poster was really trying to say, we're going to go with what you actually put up here.

As far as the Texas Constitution goes, a Texan friend once described it to me as having been written by a bunch of guys with a whole lot of whiskey writing down everything they thought there ought to be a law about and then calling it a 'Constitution.'

[Retread]

Kind of a 'No, duh!' moment there. This isn't 'The Retread Blog,' so very few of us are going to spend time haring off after links anyone puts in a post to see what a poster was really trying to say, we're going to go with what you actually put up here.

As far as the Texas Constitution goes, a Texan friend once described it to me as having been written by a bunch of guys with a whole lot of whiskey writing down everything they thought there ought to be a law about and then calling it a 'Constitution.'

Never meant to offend but I was taught never to post an article that is copyrighted in toto but excerpting was legal. If the law has changed, I had not heard.

I agree fully in re: the Texas Constitution but even more on the requirement of amending it semi-annually.

All I was looking for is a discussion of the pros and cons of a constitutional convention for the country.

I promised personal thoughts in the OP so here 'tis.

Not on your life. In the current environment the document would be gutted by the activity - mostly by DU types with some level of power.

And NJ is perfectly right re: the college. The actions by states choosing how to cast those votes due from the state are causing problems but it is the state's right to choose how that action occurs.

[DumbAss Tanker]

No bad intent in my comment, by the way, hope it didn't offend.

Some sources are very touchy about quoting even a single paragraph intact (Like AP), and the 'Fair Use Doctrine' in US copyright law is extremely vague, so unless you're dealing with AP articles, most boards have a three-paragraph rule in their TOS, this one used to but I haven't looked it up since SR and SLW took over so I'm not posititve it still says exactly that.

I agree that a Constitutional Convention would probably turn into a total Charlie Foxtrot and we'd end up with either an absolutely unworkable disaster or, probably worse, a third of the population getting an extra Christmas that year at the expense of another one-third, who would be screwed, utterly disaffected, and enraged at the result.