The U.S. Constitution is more than two centuries old. It hasn't been amended for three decades. Is it finally time for a rewrite?
Some Republicans have been pushing for a new constitutional convention for "more than a decade," said NC Newsline. North Carolina legislators in December voted to ask Congress to convene a convention to address congressional term limits, adding to a "pile of requests" already in the hopper. A conservative group called Convention of States is pushing a broader effort to call a convention for amendments to "limit federal power and rein in reckless spending." That could put America in uncharted territory. Amendments have been passed over the years, but the convention method of changing the Constitution has "never been used," said NC Newsline.
Democrats worry about a "'runaway convention' where anything and everything is on the table," Hayes Brown said at MSBNC. There is a precedent, after all: The original Constitutional Convention in 1787 was called to amend the Articles of Confederation. The founders instead "abolished the articles" and came up with the Constitution instead.
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How would a convention work?
"A simple line" in Article V of the Constitution lets Congress call a convention "if two-thirds of state legislatures have called for one," said The New York Times. It's possible the threshold has already been met. Scholars say most states have "long-forgotten requests on the books" that could trigger the provision if Congress chose to act. (Twenty-eight states have asked for a convention just to pass a balanced budget amendment, for example.) Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) has introduced a bill that would require the head of the National Archives to track already-passed applications. But it is "not clear how seriously Republicans would pursue a convention," said the Times.
An Article V convention is "one of the few provisions of the Constitution that has never been implemented," the Congressional Research Service said in a 2016 report. Because of that, there are no precedents to show how a gathering could and should work — instead, there is a "wide range of policy and procedural questions" that would have to be settled by Congress before the work begins. If a convention does occur, any amendments would have to be approved by 38 states. That "arguably acts as a deterrent" to any big changes.
What are the cases for and against a convention?
The Constitution needs "significant, even drastic, revision" to function properly in the modern era, University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson said in the Journal of Legislation & Public Policy. A convention would make it possible for Americans to "imagine what kind of system would make the most sense for 21st-century realities."
Many Democrats disagree. California State Sen. Scott Wiener (D) is sponsoring a bill to rescind his state's call for a convention. There's a danger Republicans could change the Constitution to "restrict voting rights, to eliminate reproductive health access and so forth," he said to the Los Angeles Times. The lack of clear guidelines poses a risk, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Berkeley Law School. "There's no way to know" what choices Congress might make about how a convention would work, "since it's never happened."
