Although it is not my personal preference, I think the best thing that could be done at this point (given conflicting opinions of what the Constitution says) is to use the maps we voted on as the basis for the first Senate election, and then have the Senate fix the maps.
Sorry for creating confusion...
Basically I set up the vote NOW because the Constitution needed, and needs, to be settled NOW. We simply ran out of time for changes. There's this twenty-day declaration deadline in the Constitution, and I wanted the Constitution passed before that line.
The reasons I set up the separate Amendment vote are twofold:
One, if they're called Amendments they should be Amendments. The US Bill of Rights are Amendments too, they were discussed at the Constitutional Convention, in fact some of the most important framers (Dickinson, Mason, Randolph if I remember correctly) refused to sign because they weren't included, Congress and the states then passed 'em two years later, Virginia only ratified the Constitution because her Federalists promised to fight for them.
Two, it provided a quasi-COnstitutional framework (with a bit of logic-twisting) of holding a final regions and preferential voting vote. I'm sorry for providing Demrepdan with a good constitutional argument by not apparently reading that amendment text too closely, otherwise I'd have written something about "but without the silly ten-states requirement"...I very much doubt the vote result would have been any different.
As to the proposal quoted at the beginning, I strongly second that.
