New Constitutional Convention Discussion

[Peter]

The present draft that I am working on keeps all laws, resolutions and judicial rulings in full force, unless contradicted by the Constitution, future laws, resolution or judicial rulings.

Beyond the amendments that I consider necessary to fix the logical contradictions in the Constitution, there are the following amendments presently floating around:

1. Balanced Budget
2. Repeal of the Original Districts amendment
3. Swap New Mexico and Montana.
4. The Tax Amendment.
5. Line Item Veto.
6. Raise the Standard

That brings us up to 15 amendments, since we already have nine (in only 7 months I might add), which already span 5 sides of A4, with the Constitution spanning about 7 sides. For those of us who use the Constitution on a regular basis, it is becoming more and more problematic to work out which bits of the Constitution remain, and also as I use it more and more, I continue to see the logical contradictions.

In order to fix a lot of these, it will require amendments such as "The nth sentence of Article X Section Y Clause Z is hereby repealed". A lot of these, and the Constitution will become incredibly confusing for anybody that tries to read it, for this reason alone I think it needs a rewrite.

With all the amendments on the table at this time (including the ones that I would want to put on the table), we have a mass of constitutional amendments necessary - the only sensible way without amending the Constitution to a stupid degree to deal with this backlog is by Constitutional Convention.

[Peter]

Now this is a change that I'd support enthusiastically.
Given that current praxis is based on precedent and an unclearly worded constitutional provision, it could probably be done by a simple law.

You cannot change the way that Constitutional Amendments are voted on by simple statute - whatever the Constitution says outranks that Statute. The Senate has already imposed an arbitrary time limit on constitutional amendment public polls of one week via an SPR; I don't know where they managed to get this authority from - but the Constituion is not decided upon by Senate Procedural Resolutions.

Due to the Constitution's silence, all votes on amendments remain theoretically open forever until they have gained a majority of ALL registered voters. Its too much work to bother to check, but I doubt that all if any of the present amendments "passed" have actually gained a majority of registered voters. This causes a pretty extreme problem which can only be resolved by overthrowing the Constitution and writing a new one.

[Peter]

A question that needs to be addressed is what we are going to do with all the Constitutional Amendments that are presently floating around. I've already built the language necessary to include them in my draft, but I think that the Senate needs to stop considering them if there is going to be a Convention, especially if, as I believe, the Amendment procedure is broken.

[Peter]

I assume that this discussion has died.

I still believe a Constitutional Convention is necessary to creating a sound legal framework for our Nation, but if the forum does not choose to agree with me, then so be it.