Specialty Column - The Constitution in a Modern America (and why nothing will change)

The United States of America has been experiencing heightened political polarization, including ideological divisions between Democrats and Republicans. This polarization is regularly displayed in Congress, the media, and public discourse. The dominance of the two-party system has been a large area of criticism. Many would argue that this system significantly limits the diversity of political representation and makes it more difficult for alternative voices to emerge.

The most pressing central question is: Would significant changes to our political or electoral institutions make America’s democracy work better? Furthermore, should these changes be actively pursued? These questions can prompt us to thoroughly examine the existing structures and processes that justify the United States political system.

The Constitution was first written during the Constitutional Convention in 1787, where a group of influential people like Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison shared ideas and created and agreed upon the document that would be our United States Constitution. In the 236 years between then and now, the constitution has only been amended twenty-seven times, the last time being in 1992.

There are two ways that a new amendment can be proposed. The first way this can be done is by Congress collaborating on an idea for an amendment and getting approval from three-fourths of the states to have it approved. The other route that can be taken is to call an Article Five convention which would allow the states to convene and propose the amendments they want to be added. Both of these options require approval from the states. But it's not certain all of the trouble would be worth it.

Several things should be amended or added to the constitution, such as laws restricting gerrymandering, increasing rights for immigrants, and having a process to enforce repercussions for abused presidential power (other than impeachment). But the idea that a new constitution would bring any more human rights than the ones we enjoy now can draw skepticism.

The divide between parties could lead to us having a more difficult time securing rights than we do now because of issues like partisan gridlock which would prevent any legislation from passing. An example can be made of the presidency of Barack Obama where many people refused to accept his legitimacy as president which led to many of his proposals being shot down by opposing party members.

Amendments could also be impacted by constitutional interpretation, so even if a constitutional amendment did pass, its interpretation and enforcement would be subject to partisan bias. If it were to set us back, this would completely negate the point of a more modern constitution.

Moreover, Some people don't agree that our country’s political system is broken. They argue that those who go against it don’t fully grasp the many challenges the country is facing. These figures often use other democracies as examples to prove that the U.S. and its constitution are both strong and adaptable.

David R. Mayhew, a Yale political scholar, believes that, aside from the many complaints about political gridlock, the system has remained functional. His research showed that there was no correlation between significant laws passed and unified and divided party governments from the years 1946 to 2002.

Though Mayhew’s views seem optimistic. Times have changed drastically and what may not have been necessary in 2008 may very well be necessary now to make changes and ensure functionality within the United States political system. After the global financial crisis, and the great recession, that was coming to an end during the start of Obama's presidency, the issues that linger must be addressed by the U.S. rather than accepted. If they won't address these economic issues, we need an amendment giving clear instructions on what to do in these cases, as well as information on who has the power to do anything.

The answer to our primary question: Would significant changes to our political or electoral institutions make America’s democracy work better? Yes, many changes would make America's democracy work better. However, opening the door to these good changes can also open the door to changes that would only further restrict us and potentially land us and our country in a far worse position than what we are already in.

Many people within both parties have both intentions to better our country for the future and to mold and force our country to conform to the standards of the past and that is a very significant risk we’d be taking.

The answer to the secondary question: Should these changes be actively pursued? These changes should be pursued using the two methods that we have available before any attempts to fix those methods are proposed. It is fair to say that we already know the methods of amendment don’t work but to prove that they don’t work they have to be used over and over again with proof of continuous failure. 

Even if we find new ways to amend our constitution that make it easier and more effective for potential amendments to be presented, the large majority of the states still must agree on the amendment for it to pass, as these are the rights of the states.

With how polarized politics are in the United States, it would be just as hard to get things done with potential changes to the Constitution as it would without simply because of the two-party system that forces voters to pick a side and leads politicians to turn down any policy their opposing party touched without actually weighing the importance, significance or potential benefit of it.

Politics have certainly changed since the first constitutional convention. It is fair to say that the founders did not have the modern world in mind while writing the Constitution. So, we should not have to abide solely by something that was not created with us in mind. Until politics become more partisan, it is unlikely that anything of significance will be able to get done.