The United States Constitution Has Problems
The U.S. ranks 30th as a democracy
The United States is considered to be a flawed democracy.
Twenty-nine other countries in the world are described as more democratic.
See
worldpopulationreview.com where Norway is ranked number 1.
So what is wrong with the United States? The constitution is a good place to start.
The United States constitution, defining the first democracy in the world, was developed by
a committee who had no prior experience with such a government. They could only guess how
well it would work.
Today, constitutions around the world last an average of 70 years.
Many countries have already replaced their constitutions once or twice.
The United States constitution is the world's oldest at over 200 years old.
Its flaws include the following.
- The Electoral College system distorts the votes for President by giving more weight to
voters of low population states.
For example, in the 2020 census, there were 68.5 people in California for every one
person in Wyoming, yet California had 55 electors to Wyoming's 3, giving California only
18.3 times more Electors, not 68.5.
The United States is the only country in the world with an Electoral College system.
It should be abolished and the President chosen by direct popular vote.
- Each state is assigned two Senators, instead of a number of Senators based on its
population, resulting in the Senate being very unrepresentative of the nation.
The Senate's representation of the United States population would greatly improve if
the Senate was capped at 100 Senators, with each State granted a minimum of one
Senator. The largest States would be assigned a number of Senators based on their
percentage of the national population rounded down. This would allow the small states
to have one Senator each and still provide for proportional representation of larger
states.
- There is no rule against gerrymandered political districts within states.
In some states, minority political parties have drawn political boundaries so extreme
that they have permanently captured a majority of its representatives.
States should be required to have independent Voting Commissions to draw impartial
voting district boundaries.
- The members of the Supreme Court, once approved by the Senate, serve for life.
There should be an 18 year term limit for each justice, with a new justice being
selected every two years. This would ensure justices are not out of touch with the
majority of the United States population and that no President could stack the court.
The Senate should be required to vote on each nomination within a fixed time period or
the nominee would be automatically confirmed.
- There should be a requirement that no person may run for any elected Federal office
or be appointed to any Federal office if they will turn 80 years of age before their
term expires.
- It is impossible to convict an impeached President and thereby remove him from office
because two-thirds of the Senate must vote in favor rather than a simple majority.
- The constitution is difficult to amend because the amendment process is based on
needing three-quarters of the states to ratify an amendment.
It should be based on the combined population of the ratifying states exceeding a
threshold, such as 67% of the nation's population.
- The two chambers of Congress are allowed to ignore bills passed by the other chamber
that are worthy of being discussed by the full chamber and put to a vote.
- The amendments section of the constitution specifically prevents the number of Senators
from being changed from two for each state.
- Article V of the Constitution allows two-thirds of the State legislatures to ask
Congress to call a convention to consider amendments to the Constitution.
This method has never been done, but there are no rules for such a convention and States
with a minority of the population could pass amendments not favored by a majority of
voters in the country.
Conservative States are close to doing this now, with 28 of 34 States already having
requested a convention.
The present structure of the constitution contains disincentives to making the constitution
more democratic.
The majority of States have low populations and they would have to give up some of their
power, which seems unlikely.
To understand just how unevenly the population is distributed among the states, consider
the following.
- The three largest states contain over one-quarter of the population of the United
States.
California, Texas and Florida combined contain over 26% of the national population
according to the 2020 census.
See States Ranked by Population.
- The nine largest states contain over 50% of the United States population.
That also means that the other 41 states combined have slightly less than one-half of
the nation's population.
- The twenty largest states contain very nearly 75% of the population, leaving thirty
states with 25% of the population.
These thirty, thinly populated states control 60% of the Senators, making the Senate
very undemocratic, yet it is the Senate that controls the make-up of the Supreme Court.
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