Educator Sal Khan and Jeffrey Rosen of the National Constitution Center brought together a bunch of law professors to talk about what-ifs:
Political polarization, the conventional wisdom goes, has made our Constitution unamendable. The supermajorities required to propose and ratify constitutional amendments — two-thirds in both houses of Congress plus three-fourths of the states — are now unobtainable. As a result, as Jill Lepore reported in the New Yorker, the United States has one of the lowest amendment rates in the world. …
- The 28th Amendment would eliminate the natural-born citizenship requirement for the presidency. If the amendment passed, Henry Kissinger and Arnold Schwarzenegger could run for president.
- The 29th Amendment would allow for legislative vetoes of executive and regulatory actions. [WaPo]
And on through a 32nd amendment. Band-aids on a 20 inch gash through the femoral artery, I fear. The law professors, regardless of persuasion, are trying to fix a problem through minor adjustments to the Constitutional foundation without paying attention to political forces, right and left, that are desperate for power, whether its gaining it or protecting it, and operate regardless of facts on the ground, truth, and reality.
That goes for left & right.
It’s what their training dictates, of course, but it would seem to have little relevance to the problems of what amounts to political arrogance and lust for power.
