Thu 5 Jan 2006
… in today’s NYTimes Op-ed.
Sounds sensible to me. Let’s package this together with an amendment allowing foreign-born citizens to run for President … probably the least defensible current Constitutional provision.
One Response to “Williams Profs on 22nd Amendment Reform”
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Not that I necessarily disagree with this position (surprisingly, I have no opinion on this… yet), but I think that caution is required in amending the Constitution, particularly with regards to the text of the document Itself and the Bill of Rights.
When Scalia spoke to us at Mason this year, he mentioned the 17th Amendment, which required direct electon of Senators after it was enacted in 1913, as a change that had numerous unanticipated consequences. He pointed to the sharp increase in the pace of centralization and increase in Federal power at the expense of the States as a consequence of Senators who were not accountable to the states themselves (through their election by state legislatures) but instead chosen directly by the people. In response to this change, the argument that the political process protects States’ interests because congressional power is apportioned by state rings much more hollow.