Pack the Union: Admit New States to Amend Constitution for Equal Representation

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Complete Idiocy. Yet one more high-minded attempt to finesse the system while ignoring the actual problem - this is trying to deal with the smoke while refusing to admit that there's fire.

The problem is Republicans.

This is exactly the same sort of "technically legal" abuse the Republicans are already using to attack our nation. More of it is just more destruction aimed at the fabric of our country. "Good intentions" are irrelevant. The mere existence of something this damaging and stupid gives ammunition to the Republicans. I think an actual civil war is a very unlikely, but if you want one, this is part of how you get there.

If we had a nation or government that wasn't loaded with hostile, bad-faith participants then the impact of the bugs in our two-centuries and change founding document wouldn't be critical, and could be fixed without attempting system hacks. Hacks that risk undermining the legitimacy of our already very shaky national government, and which cannot be implemented while the Republicans have a majority in Congress in any case! If the country was such that we didn't have a Republican majority in Congress then we wouldn't be in such a dire situation to begin with!

Neither does the proposed fix address the problems with our nation that are not exclusive to the Republican party, such as a government and press captured by vampire capitalism that enables rampant inequality.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Reducing the Senate's powers to something more in line with the functions of upper houses in other democracies is actually a much better idea than making it effectively House 2: Electric Boogaloo. It makes sense for a federation to have an upper house that represents its constituent entities, and there's little point to having an upper house that's selected in essentially the same way as the lower house.

[Mr. Reactionary]

This idea suffers from the same problem that packing the Supreme Court does; There is nothing preventing the Republicans from pursuing a similar strategy. If California Democrats were to create hundreds of mini-states out of neighborhoods in San Francisco or Washington DC  in order to flood the Senate and House with new, safely Democratic seats, then theres nothing stopping Republicans in say, Oklahoma, from creating hundreds of new mini-states out of small towns or suburban neighborhoods in order to counteract the influx of Democratic mini-states. Even if we limit this to territorial admission, similar proposals could be made regarding breaking up the Northern Mariana Islands or the Republican parts of Guam into dozens of mini-states.

Now, a future Congress controlled by Democrats could just admit all the Blue State proposals and dismiss the Red State proposals based off of pure partisanship. However, this would appear to the wider American electorate as a blatant partisan grab, and it would most likely damage the credibility and electability of the Democratic party. This damage may be nullified with all the additional hyper-D mini-states, but then you'd be dealing with an alienated and aggravated potential majority of the country (With disproportionate rates of firearm ownership and military enrollment) which could spiral into large scale unrest and even insurgency and civil conflict.

Additionally, the logistics of managing these new mini-states in regards to the formation of constitutions, legal codes, state governments, law enforcement and electoral proceedings show that this plan is absurd. The waste of resources, disruption and damage to the livelihoods of the affected American citizens over some ridiculous political game would be profound, and ironically may not even work if such voters as a consequence of such disruptions either move or reject the Democratic Party.

This plan is insane, not only would you risk large scale disruption of the livelihoods of many American citizens regardless of race, class and political orientation, but the stability of American society and its territorial integrity, and all for some dubious notion of "mass democracy", a principle which you would go about violating far more severely than the Electoral College or the Senate does with your goal being to provide the Democrats with a veto-proof majority in both houses of Congress and a Big Blue Wall in the electoral college when Democratic support in 2016 amongst the national electorate was a slight plurality.

Yes. The idea that a blatant partisan coup like this somehow restores "legitimacy" or "faith in the system" rather than just hastening the collapse of America is stupid. When your complaints amount to "senate is unfair because Republicans control it, and Electoral college is unfair because Republicans sometimes win it, and SCOTUS is unfair because its majority Republican appointees and gerrymandering is unfair because Republican legislators get a say in congressional districts and free speech is unfair because Republican donors run ads" no one who isn't already a partisan Democrat in California or new york is going to think this is about "muh fairness and equality". It just means the people in the majority of existing states will no longer have faith in the Constitution as legitimate. For all the complaints about Wyoming, its been a legitimate government with the same borders for almost 150 years and is physically larger than a majority of other states. Claiming a townhouse in San Francisco or DC is "totally the same thing" is dishonest and really betrays the disgusting abandonment of federalism by the few partisan hacks shameless enough to promote this. If this were attempted and "succeeded" you'd have secession movements reminiscent of 1860. (I am sure the hacks supporting this will gleefully then call for mass executions for "treason" then). This is basically the radical partisan Democrat version of the Turner Diaries ... a permanent coup where every institution is purged of the "other" and any dissent is violently suppressed ... aka Panem.

Edit: Is anyone even seeing an author identified? I can't find an author attribution anywhere in the Note. Given how disgustingly partisan the opening 2 paragraphs are I cant imagine this was authored by anyone objective. It reads like one of those "news articles" I sometimes mistakenly click on only to find out its written by Mitch McConnell or Nancy Pelosi thus rendering the article literal propaganda.

[7,052,770]

Incidentally, the Constitution of South Carolina has an anti-packing provision in it, that is of little relevance since Reynolds. New counties (which originally had one Senator each and at least one Representative in the General Assembly had to have at minimum one full Representative's worth of population and new county seats could be no closer than five miles to an existing one, thus preventing a city from breaking up into multiple counties.

Guam's population is far too small for Statehood, unless we are going to rewrite the Wyoming rule into the Guam Rule and more than quadruple the size of Congress. Congress arguably needs expanded in terms of the number of Representatives giving it hasn't increased in about a hundred years despite our population having vastly increased, but troubling or quadrupling is simply not feasible or desirable.

I think we may have discussed this exact topic before, but if the US could spend a century with Nevada having less than half the population of the next smallest state, we could also have Guam with less than half of the population of the next smallest state now.

If you add Guam + NMI (they have the same general culture, language, geographic proximity), you're above 200,000 people. If you extend the offer to the former US possessions in the region to make a state of Micronesia (something that would be a power move geopolitically considering their proximity to China), you could get above 500,000.

[7,052,770]

All three of you are misunderstanding the idea. The idea is not to add these states permanently (which would indeed be undemocratic, unfair, and just as tyrannical as the current system). The idea is to add these states temporarily solely for the purpose of passing constitutional amendments to ensure the right of all voters to equal representation under the law is respected. Once these amendments were passed, they would either render the new mini-states irrelevant, or else the new states could all simply be merged back together into one state (or more likely, merged back into the Federal District of DC).

Once the amendments were passed, adding new states would serve no purpose, since nobody would get any more (or less) representation simply by virtue of living in any particular "state" entity.

I understood completely that the "new states" would be temporary, and I bet the others did too. That doesn't mean that Republicans wouldn't one day regain control of Congress and try something else like this.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

We need to purge intellectuals. Mao was right.

[The Free North]

We need to purge intellectuals. Mao was right.

Indeed. The literature circulated in the OP is offensive.

[OSR stands with Israel]

If the Dems even packed the courts let alone this , I would be mad if the GOP obstructs the next Dem President at the level they did to Obama because that clearly would be no where enough , as the GOP in response should obstruct that Dem President at least 5 times more than they did to Obama.

If either of those things were possible with a Dem as President, I would instantly drop my Never Trumpism and would definitely vote for him again as that would show Dems are even more authoritarian than Trump and show even more disregard for the rule of law then Trump.


Thankfully though either of these things are nothing but a fantasy and due to that I wont drop my Never Trumpism

[Frodo]

I unequivocally oppose this proposal, but given the Republican Party is a bad-faith actor in our democracy more interested in trolling the opposition and hollowing out our democracy to maintain their own hold on power, I can understand where the authors are coming from, and sympathize with their sentiments.    

[OSR stands with Israel]

I unequivocally oppose this proposal, but given the Republican Party is a bad-faith actor in our democracy more interested in trolling the opposition and hollowing out our democracy to maintain their own hold on power, I can understand where the authors are coming from, and sympathize with their sentiments.    

Democrats did similar things to Bush what Republicans did to Obama:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/with-judicial-nominees-democrats-have-only-themselves-to-blame/2018/07/05/2225c65c-8067-11e8-b660-4d0f9f0351f1_story.html

https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-judiciary/343181-opinion-how-democrats-stole-the-nations-lower-federal-courts

Bill Pryor’s treatment is indicative of Democratic behavior during the younger Bush’s presidency.  Pryor was nominated to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on April 9, 2003.  A Republican Senate was unable to confirm him until June 9th , 2005 — two years later.  

Because there had never been a filibuster of a lower court judge ever before in American history, Senate Republicans prepared to endorse the nuclear option to amend the Senate rules forbidding filibusters of judges.  A gang of 14 senators then got together to save the filibuster of judges for a real emergency and in exchange Senate Democrats let Pryor, Priscilla Owens, and Janice Rogers Brown get confirmed.  They then promptly resumed filibustering Bush’s judicial nominees.

[Badger]

I unequivocally oppose this proposal, but given the Republican Party is a bad-faith actor in our democracy more interested in trolling the opposition and hollowing out our democracy to maintain their own hold on power, I can understand where the authors are coming from, and sympathize with their sentiments.    

Democrats did similar things to Bush what Republicans did to Obama:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/with-judicial-nominees-democrats-have-only-themselves-to-blame/2018/07/05/2225c65c-8067-11e8-b660-4d0f9f0351f1_story.html

https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-judiciary/343181-opinion-how-democrats-stole-the-nations-lower-federal-courts

Bill Pryor’s treatment is indicative of Democratic behavior during the younger Bush’s presidency.  Pryor was nominated to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on April 9, 2003.  A Republican Senate was unable to confirm him until June 9th , 2005 — two years later.  

Because there had never been a filibuster of a lower court judge ever before in American history, Senate Republicans prepared to endorse the nuclear option to amend the Senate rules forbidding filibusters of judges.  A gang of 14 senators then got together to save the filibuster of judges for a real emergency and in exchange Senate Democrats let Pryor, Priscilla Owens, and Janice Rogers Brown get confirmed.  They then promptly resumed filibustering Bush’s judicial nominees.

Scale and scope, my friend. Scale and scope.

[Slander and/or Libel]

I think this is a stupid idea, but kind of a clarifying one that allows us to think through *why* it's a stupid idea.

For me, the nickel summary is similar to what Ghost of Ruin said above: Fancy lawyering ain't gonna get us out of our problems. The problem is people with power seizing ever more power, clinging to that power illegitimately, etc. They're not going to look at a clever set of rule changes and say, "Oh, damn, guess I've got to surrender that power now."

I disagree with the responses that say this plan would make it so that Republicans could do the same thing, only because Republicans could do the same thing now. The next time they get the House and Senate and Presidency, we could have North Dakota, South Dakota, East Dakota, West Dakota, Northwest Dakota, Northeast Dakota, Southwest Dakota, and Southeast Dakota. 12 more Republican senators guaranteed, 6 Republican House members guaranteed, even though apportionment games might mean that they would only net 4 members or so. And those wouldn't be temporary states to pass some ambitious agenda and then fold up shop. Those would be durable states meant to preserve a lock on minority power.

[OSR stands with Israel]

I unequivocally oppose this proposal, but given the Republican Party is a bad-faith actor in our democracy more interested in trolling the opposition and hollowing out our democracy to maintain their own hold on power, I can understand where the authors are coming from, and sympathize with their sentiments.    

Democrats did similar things to Bush what Republicans did to Obama:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/with-judicial-nominees-democrats-have-only-themselves-to-blame/2018/07/05/2225c65c-8067-11e8-b660-4d0f9f0351f1_story.html

https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-judiciary/343181-opinion-how-democrats-stole-the-nations-lower-federal-courts

Bill Pryor’s treatment is indicative of Democratic behavior during the younger Bush’s presidency.  Pryor was nominated to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on April 9, 2003.  A Republican Senate was unable to confirm him until June 9th , 2005 — two years later.  

Because there had never been a filibuster of a lower court judge ever before in American history, Senate Republicans prepared to endorse the nuclear option to amend the Senate rules forbidding filibusters of judges.  A gang of 14 senators then got together to save the filibuster of judges for a real emergency and in exchange Senate Democrats let Pryor, Priscilla Owens, and Janice Rogers Brown get confirmed.  They then promptly resumed filibustering Bush’s judicial nominees.

Scale and scope, my friend. Scale and scope.

Democrats did start it though and McConnell just took it to the next level .

[Continential]

Honestly, the best argument for a Biden or Bloomberg Presidency at this point is the way the far-left has absolutely lost their mind under Trump, and the best scenario for preserving our democracy is not letting that build any longer while also not electing someone who would act on that growing lunacy.

The far left has lost their minds every where :

Remember they though Jagmeet Singh would help NDP rise again lol , and before that in 2015 who in the right mind would have thought some extreme socialist back bencher who hasn’t moved on from the Labour internal battles 80s should lead the Labour Party , and now all of this in the US.

Most people predicted a couple seat loss/gain for the NDP, and before the debates, most people thought that the NDP would fall to the teens or early 20s in their seats.

[LabourJersey]

Reducing the Senate's powers to something more in line with the functions of upper houses in other democracies is actually a much better idea than making it effectively House 2: Electric Boogaloo. It makes sense for a federation to have an upper house that represents its constituent entities, and there's little point to having an upper house that's selected in essentially the same way as the lower house.

Yeah, I basically agree. If you can amend the constitution, amend it so that the House takes up the Senate's confirmation abilities for judges and executive appointments, for instance.

[Virginiá]

Pretty dramatic and ridiculous and might fix what the constitution says, but people still have to believe in it and be willing to uphold the system and follow the law for it to work. That begins to fail when you take for granted that government doesn't just "work." It requires the faith of the governed. I would expect partisan violence from such tactics, and widespread disapproval across the board. I'm also not sure I trust such a scheme to not become corrupted by wealthy/corporate influence, either. I mean, let's be honest here. The party has a lot of work to do to free itself from the poisoned grip of America's business lobby. Also, is it even possible to force all these new 'microstates' to dissolve back into a single state that represents DC? Or would we just be hoping for it to happen, as planned?

Either way, this is way too much. Like OSR said, it's fantasy. And dangerous. There are easier ways to at least get us back on the right path than this.

[The Mikado]

Also, is it even possible to force all these new 'microstates' to dissolve back into a single state that represents DC? Or would we just be hoping for it to happen, as planned?

"Junction" would require the consent of all the states involved as well as Congress' permission. I could easily see the Governor of the Great State of Columbia Heights or the glorious Legislature of Tenleytown or whatever saying "as if" about disbanding and giving up all the perks of statehood.

Some of these "states" would have populations in the thousands and therefore end up in an absurd situation where their state legislature is the biggest employer in the state.

[Virginiá]

The fact that we're even talking about this is also quite an indictment of how ineffective and unrepresentative of the people government has gotten.

[The Mikado]

The WMATA is already messed up trying to deal with having to beg three different governments for building and funding and etc. Make it 129, see how long before the Metro just gives up completely. When you're changing state borders two dozen times just taking the Red Line from Bethesda to downtown DC.

EDIT: And the state legislative maps! You'll have apartment buildings with multiple state house districts. If you're giving a 3,000 person neighborhood statehood with a state legislature that's, say, 100 people, that's 30 people a legislator. The people in the Political Geography board will love drawing them, sure, but think about what that actually would look like!

[The Mikado]

Was just talking to Bacon King about this. My thoughts:

You're going to have "states" with a population of 3,000ish with a 100 person state legislator. Literal floors of apartment buildings will have their own legislator. Add to that that these states need their own Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Comptroller, Secretary of Agriculture (hey, there's a green belt between the two sides of the highway! Things grow there), etc. A State Supreme Court. Auditors, regulators, DMV, lower courts...

Every single person in every one of these neighborhoods will get a government job. And why the hell would you agree to go back to being a lawyer or whatever after being Governor of Farragut Square? All these statelets are going to just say "no, we're staying as states." And when Congress tries to undo them, they'll say "no junction." And then when Congress says "Well, we'll Amend the Constitution," they'll say "Hey, we're now two thirds majority of the Senate by ourselves. Stick your amendment up your ass."

Once you create these things, you have to get used to the idea of Washington as a balkanized hellhole.

[Idaho Conservative]

Great idea!  How about statehood for every county in Kansas?  Maybe Tennessee?  That means Republican control over the federal government. 
  Also, it's incredible how Dems go after the Senate so much, considering they have controlled it more than the House.  Without the Senate, Obama would've had all of congress in the hands of the opposite party 6/8 years of his presidency.   In fact, Dems have only held the house 3 sessions of the past 13.  Only one of those sessions had a Dem in the white house. 

[Bacon King]

Another perspective to think about is how easily the process could be corrupted or derailed once it has begun. There's no guarantee these neighborhoods will go along with the "plan" and these neighborhoods will become obvious targets where people will try to move and affect the process. Billionaires will start buying up homes for thousands of times their real value.

Imagine you're a home owner in one of the poorer neighborhoods of DC, barely making it from paycheck to paycheck, and then one day some dude in a suit shows up and promises to buy your tiny $40k home for $40 million dollars. You'd be insane to turn it down, it's like winning the lottery!

Hell, different factions trying to influence the process in different ways would probably be making competing bids that include increasingly large amounts of money as well as PR campaigns where each potential buyer is telling you that all the other people trying to give you money are just selfish greedy people trying to bribe you to rig the system in their own interest, whereas THEY on the other hand definitely absolutely support this list of things that you are statistically likely to support! So even if you have reservations at first you're probably going to give in once you realize that you can get rich quick AND feel like you're making a positive difference while doing so.

On top of that, if you still refuse to buy, well, the insane hyperinflation of the property market means all the land in the rest of the neighborhood is going to be reappraised at extremely high values on account of the skyrocketing prices the rest of your neighborhood is being sold for. So now that home owner is facing a choice, "do accept $100 million to move and live somewhere else, or do I stay and go bankrupt because suddenly my property tax is more than I'll make in my entire life?".

Oh, and on top of that, anyone trying to stay would also be forced to deal with some insane hypercrowding. Keep in mind that homeless people are still allowed to vote. There will be thousands and thousands of activists squatting in the streets of every neighborhood -- imagine Occupy Wall Street but covering literally the entire District of Columbia. Not to mention all the homes bought for millions of dollars would be turned into barracks, housing hundreds of dedicated activists.

The ONLY way this could be pulled off is if the federal government assumed dictatorial control, and at that point you might as well just edit the constitution directly instead of using this convoluted and impossible process to amend it

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

The WMATA is already messed up trying to deal with having to beg three different governments for building and funding and etc. Make it 129, see how long before the Metro just gives up completely. When you're changing state borders two dozen times just taking the Red Line from Bethesda to downtown DC.

EDIT: And the state legislative maps! You'll have apartment buildings with multiple state house districts. If you're giving a 3,000 person neighborhood statehood with a state legislature that's, say, 100 people, that's 30 people a legislator. The people in the Political Geography board will love drawing them, sure, but think about what that actually would look like!

Was just talking to Bacon King about this. My thoughts:

You're going to have "states" with a population of 3,000ish with a 100 person state legislator. Literal floors of apartment buildings will have their own legislator. Add to that that these states need their own Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Comptroller, Secretary of Agriculture (hey, there's a green belt between the two sides of the highway! Things grow there), etc. A State Supreme Court. Auditors, regulators, DMV, lower courts...

Every single person in every one of these neighborhoods will get a government job. And why the hell would you agree to go back to being a lawyer or whatever after being Governor of Farragut Square? All these statelets are going to just say "no, we're staying as states." And when Congress tries to undo them, they'll say "no junction." And then when Congress says "Well, we'll Amend the Constitution," they'll say "Hey, we're now two thirds majority of the Senate by ourselves. Stick your amendment up your ass."

Once you create these things, you have to get used to the idea of Washington as a balkanized hellhole.

If your objection is actually these little practical details, there are all sorts of ways to avoid all these sorts of problems.

As ought to be clear, the idea is not for these states to be permanent; they are supposed to exist only temporarily as legal entities solely for the purpose of passing amendments.

So, the question was raised, "but what if they don't want to voluntarily give up their statehood and be merged, or what if they in some other way don't want to cooperate with the plan?"

Well, first of all, there is no reason why a "statelet" needs to consist of entire neighborhood and cannot consist of only a single housing unit, and prior to deciding which housing units those should be, you pre-screen the people and only create states. At the very most, a state only needs 6 "citizens" - 2 to be Senators, 1 to be Congressperson, 1 to be a State Legislator (single member unicameral legislature), and 1 to be a State Supreme Court justice. Or you could have some people hold multiple "offices" (do you really need more than 1 person?). So although I am not sure if you even need that many (6) committed people per state to fill all necessary "offices," it ought not to be that hard to find 6 people for however many housing_unit-states are needed (I haven't done the math, but you can probably get by with less than 127).

You could also, as a condition for creating the state, have some carrots and sticks to ensure that the people in those statelets would be strongly incentivized to support their states abolition, once the purpose of the states had been fulfilled.

However, more straightforwardly, you could simply pass the entire process of state creation/dissolution/merger in a single piece of omnibus legislation, to ensure that no issue with some states not wanting to be merged can arise. Just have the legislation say "These states are admitted into the union. However, 7 days after this legislation becomes law, the states will be merged into single state of Columbia. By agreeing to these conditions for admission into the Union, these states are also simultaneously agreeing to their dissolution and merger 7 days later."

Or, you could probably even take it even further, and have the states consent within the legislation that admits them to the Union that their Senators/Representative votes will be cast in favor of the desired amendments. And now let me anticipate the objection --- you say that violates the right of Senators to cast their votes how they want? Well, remember, the Senate makes its own rules. The Senate rules can simply be set to allow Senators/Congresspeople's votes to be committed as a condition of entry of their states into the Union.

You could also have the Senators/Congresspeople consent to this at the time of admission of their states. Moreover, keep in mind, the Senators and Congresspeople could easily all be determined in advance of admission of new states into the Union. DC and Puerto Rico both have Shadow Senators/Shadow Representatives, and the historical practice for states joining the Union was that they elected Shadow Senators prior to joining. See here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_congressperson

So you would know exactly who the Senators/Congresspeople will be at the time the states are admitted.


If you did that, it could all be done (as far as I can see) in 1 single omnibus bill, passed in a single day/single vote. Have the single Omnibus Bill go through the following steps:

1) Admit all the new States.
2) 7 days after the passage of this bill, the States are automatically merged/dissolved by the same legislation (just imagine Tom Cruise getting the briefing message "this state will self-destruct in 7 days"). I guess 7 days may be too long though if it is all in 1 single 1-step bill. In principle it could be 1 second afterwards, I guess.
3) The votes of all Shadow Senators/Representatives of the States are pledged in the legislation to the passage of the amendments.
4) The Amendments are listed within the same omnibus bill, so that as soon as the Omnibus Bill is passed, the Amendments are enacted.
5) The States give their consent to ratification of the Amendments within the same omnibus bill (as a condition of their joining the Union).

I think that is all that would be needed, technically, though maybe I am missing some step or other.



So I don't think the real objection to this is practicalities of being able to string together a (contrived) process to do it. Those practicalities could all be dealt with, and if there is any minor point technically wrong with what I am saying, I am sure that some creative lawyers could figure it out given some time.



The real objection is that it doesn't "look right," or that it is a "power grab," or some objection of this kind.



So what, if anything, is the answer to that objection? I would say the answer is this.

Ultimately, what is it that determines the legitimacy of a system of government? IMO those involved with the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in fact had it right - the consent of the governed.

While this whole process of creating temporary states/passing amendments certainly appears to be quite consistent with the letter of the law/process for Constitutional amendments, it is not hard to see how one would think that it violates the spirit of the law/process for Constitutional amendments (don't forget, however, that systematic minority rule also violates the spirit of the law/Constitution, and certainly the principles of representative democracy that are supposed to be embedded in the Constitution).

That is true, and it is clear that this would be an extraordinary exercise of legal power, similar in many ways (as the article mentions) to the creation of the Constitution itself in the first place, and also to the technically questionable ways that the civil war amendments (13th-14th-15th) were enacted.


So what would be the conditions required to undertake this sort of extraordinary exercise of legal power, and under what conditions could we reasonably say that it was legitimate? I would agree that this is very much on-point:

Might fix what the constitution says, but people still have to believe in it and be willing to uphold the system and follow the law for it to work. That begins to fail when you take for granted that government doesn't just "work." It requires the faith of the governed. I would expect partisan violence from such tactics, and widespread disapproval across the board.

That is exactly correct - the crucial thing with the Rule of Law is not just that the words say the right things, but that people are willing to go along with the system and abide by it. In other words, you need the consent of the governed - or at least the consent of a critical mass of the governed. If you don't clearly have that, you will have a strong negative reaction (at least from some), likely including partisan violence/widespread disapproval, etc. Clearly nobody wants that.

For this reason, I would very much agree that this new temporary states/amendment plan (or anything at all like it) is not something that could be enacted today. Instead, this is merely a proposal, and is something that support would need to be built up for over time, obviously with extensive discussion and consideration of possible alternatives. It is something that one would need to start a long-term campaign for, to build up public support.

To a considerable degree, this is an issue with having a written constitution which is more difficult to change (amend) than can really viably be the case. Compare the USA to the UK, for example, which can suddenly start doing new things such as holding national referendums, which previously did not exist in the UK Constitutional Order. Suppose that we wanted to have a national referendum about something in the USA. Currently, there is no Constitutional mechanism for that (at least not for binding referendums). Things can only become laws by both houses of Congress passing them and the President signing them. In theory, we could change that if we wanted by passing a Constitutional Amendment, but in practice that is not viable because the requirements were just put at an unreasonably high level by people 250 years ago who had no idea what would happen in what was, to them, the distant future.

And in particular, it is not viable to pass Constitutional Amendments that, due to flawed design, make it possible for a minority to outright rule (not just to check and balance the majority to avoid tyranny of the majority, but for the minority to actually rule in place of the majority), because the minority will block any such change out of self-interest, despite lack of any legitimacy for doing so in terms of democratic principles.

But back to the topic of referendums. How could you establish sufficient consent of the governed for a plan such as this to be viable without sparking a huge violent backlash? One way might be to do it in part via a national popular referendum. Have Congress pass a law setting up a "non-binding" "advisory" referendum, which Congress nonetheless pledges it will adhere to, with the question of whether the electoral college should be abolished and the President should instead be elected by "whoever gets the most vote wins," and whether the US Senate/House should be altered and/or abolished in whichever particular way is settled on so that all voters will actually have equal representation. And if the referendum passes, then Congress has pledged to trigger this plan of admitting new temporary states so that the referendum results can be implemented within the letter of the Constitutional law.

To be sure that it has sufficient legitimacy and sufficient support/consent of the governed, IMO the threshold for any such referendum to be considered as passing ought to be set higher than 50%. Maybe something like 55%, or perhaps even as high as 60% or so, to be sure it has sufficient backing to be legitimate, and to be sure that if it passes it didn't just pass in a fluke.

While winning a national referendum vote to abolish the electoral college and do the same for the un-equal representation in the Senate/House with a 55% or 60% majority would be not be easy, it would be a hell of a lot easier than achieving the regular requirements for a constitutional amendment. And a 55% majority would be enough, I think, to ensure legitimacy in terms of the "consent of the governed," though maybe you can say it should really be more like 60%.

One can imagine different ways this sort of thing could be done, but this idea of an advisory referendum (which Congress nonetheless pledges to honor) is an example of the sort of creative thinking that could be employed to figure out the best way to fix things, and to ensure that there was sufficient legitimacy.



Ultimately, the long-dead authors the Constitution have no authority or justification to tie the hands of our generation against our own will ~250 years after the fact with a system that fails to function. They even literally said so themselves!!!! From the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

I don't think I could have said it any better myself!

When you are objecting to this plan, you are doing exactly what the Declaration of Independence expects you to do - "mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." You are simply doing what mankind is disposed to do. We are naturally scared of significant change, and would all naturally prefer to try to work things out as best as we can for as long as we can. The natural inclination is to be cautious. That is not necessarily a bad thing - we should want to be careful and deliberate, to be sure, and exactly as it says prudence does "dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes."

So the question is, when does it become too much? The question is just how long does the "long train of abuses and usurpations" need to be of installing systematic rule-by-the-minority before you come to recognize it as a "design to reduce you to living under Despotism?" How much does it take for it to not be simply a "light and transient cause," but rather a systematic problem that we can't otherwise change?

Does it take 1 President elected with minority support, over another candidate that got more votes? 2 such Presidents? 3? 50? 500? 1 Senate where the "Majority" party represents only 40% of the population? 2 such Senates? 3? 50? 500? Or is 40% too much - does it need to be the Majority party only representing 35% of the population? Surely there is some point at which anyone would recognize the problem. What is the the # where any pretense of Democracy has been sufficiently abandoned for the government to become illegitimate (I mean illegitimate in terms of fundamental democratic principles, not illegitimate in terms of its own internal legal structure)?



In those terms, note that it would actually be legitimate (in terms of the consent of the governed) to simply change the Constitution to abolish the electoral college etc without fulfilling the requirements listed in the Constitution for an amendment, provided that there were sufficient general popular support for doing so (sufficient consent of the governed). This would also be, however, "illegal" in terms of the written text of the Constitution. So it would be legitimate, but illegal.

The advantage of doing this via adding temporary states is that it would be within the letter of the law, whereas the alternative amounts to simply ignoring the text of the Constitution. So it would be legal. And it would also be clearly justified in terms of democratic principles. And if it is done, it ought to be done with sufficient consent of the governed/popular support.




If there are other ideas about what could in theory be done, I would be interested to hear those. But I haven't really seen any ideas other than "tolerate a large and growing bias to minority rule over the majority, it is not so bad!"

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Another perspective to think about is how easily the process could be corrupted or derailed once it has begun.

As mentioned above, this is a concern, and is of course something that should be talked about (these sorts of details ARE important.

However, if you want to overcome theses sorts of problems, you can do so via intelligent planning, and setting up the process in such a way that it would not be vulnerable to being corrupted/derailed in this sort of way.

So what we should really be talking about is not only what are the potential problems, but in what ways a process could be set up that could overcome those potential problems.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

The fact that we're even talking about this is also quite an indictment of how ineffective and unrepresentative of the people government has gotten.

Exactly. It is just like the Declaration of Independence says. The natural thing is to tolerate an ineffectual and illegitimate/unrepresentative system for as long as possible.

"mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

It is only after things have gotten bad for a persistent amount of the time that you start getting more and more radical ideas as to how to fix it.

And the more you let it sit without anyone trying to do anything to address/fix the problems, the more and more radical the potential solutions get, and the more the overton window moves to normalize them, until eventually something has to be done.