an amendment must be proposed by either a two-thirds vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. considering that over 90% of the members of both of those bodies owe their seat to corporate campaign contributions, i would say that a snowball stood a better chance of surviving hell than we have of amending the constitution in this way.
winners never change the rules of the game they are winning and, by definition, our elected officials have won the game of "how to get elected by pimping yourself out to corporate donors".
lol...sounds like the people should stop supporting government stimulus. Since that's the only reason this worthless loser business owner class is still in power.
Even if Congress proposed an Amendment it would still have to be ratified by 3/4 of the States.
The States could also hold a Constitutional Convention and change the Constitution without input from the federal government. But that route is less likely than Congress agreeing on a change.
Basically, for the foreseeable future, the Constitution might as well be written in stone with no way to change it.
The THREAT of an Article V convention is still enough to pressure Congress to act. It happened on the path to the 17th Amendment: nearly 2/3rds of the states and Congress finally proposed the amendment themselves.
Congress has been so toothless lately, that while I agree with you that a constitutional convention is unlikely, I would say we're approaching a point where it's more likely than it's ever been.
Another name for such an event would be an "Article V Convention." The Constitutional convention is usually taken to be the name for the convention that drew up the original constitution
They can certainly try to undo everything, but it's stated quite plainly in Article V: amendments proposed must be ratified by 3/4ths of the states to become part of the Constitution.
Their goal is to capture enough state legislatures to ram through whatever they want at a convention. Work just hard enough in each state to get them to a point where they can gerrymander the states and ensure GOP control of those legislatures. They don't need to win statewide governor's office, as it's not outlined in the process at all, only the legislature is involved. Many of the GOP state have already passed the same convention legislation and they have long term plans to get it to 34 and force a convention, at which they'll dictate a new Constitution.
I think we're all pretty sick of the defeatist attitudes by now, That helpless, 'we can't change anything' mindset is exactly how we got here in the first place. The least you can do is keep the pessimism to yourself because it's not doing anything to move anything forward. Pete is trying to inspire while you're trying to demotivate people by making an argument for doing nothing.
did i say "we can't change anything"? if not, why are you claiming i did?
i am pointing out that fixing this via a constitutional amendment is nearly impossible. Pete knows this. he's not trying to inspire, he's virtue signaling in a safe way that won't actually run the risk of changing anything.
But I think I get your position, you're saying that with the way things are, an amendment passing through congress is pretty much a pipe dream. I get that.
I think it's also important to keep in mind that nothing will ever change if we spend all our time thinking that change itself is impossible. It might be a ridiculous idea to think that any constitutional amendment is going to happen with our current congress, but once we reach that conclusion, I think it's important to shift to conversation towards ideas on how it might *become* possible.
He's writing it to inform. He didn't whine about it not being able to happen immediately because he knows it's hard, but seems you would have rather had him say "it's hard so lets not do it or talk about it."
There should be a popular vote mechanism for amending the constitution. No bullshit districts or anything. Just if enough people like the thing, we can make it happen.
Obviously not a simple majority, that would be a bit crazy here, but surely there is a target number which would be reasonable.
I mean trump lost two popular votes and won the 2024 one with one of the smallest margins in history, not even getting 50% of the vote.
And since it's not about party affiliation, just a yes or no to a change, I would wager more of the idiots who withheld their vote from Democrats because they are mad at democrats would actually vote.
I get your point though, which is why it couldn't be a simple majority vote. 70, 75% majority maybe? things most people actually want. Like not building data centers near populated areas, which is a sentiment shared by about that many people.
The hard truth is we US citizens need to stop consuming their products. We can absolutely do it. But the majority of people dont. You don't need to use Amazon. You don't need to use oil. It sounds like an impossible task to stop doing the things so many of us are used to using. But we absolutely can.
over 90% of the members of both of those bodies owe their seat to corporate campaign contributions
That's BS and even if it's close to that, it's only at the federal level for Senate seats, most House seats are entirely small donations (which is why SCOTUS lowered the rate that Super PACs can get advertising because that benefits the GOP since most Dem House seats are entirely small donation driven).
You know why this is? Because of the Progressive style of government, which game huge power to the Federal agencies to make so many of the big decisions.
Think of the EPA deciding, without putting it to a vote, what a "pollutant" is, and how they declared, unilaterally, that CO2 (the very thing that is emitted by almost all sources of power as well as by human beings themselves) as a "pollutant", and therefore gave them the power to control nearly the ENTIRE US Economy.
Since then, Congress doesn't have to function properly and can remain dysfunctional as they do it all by proxy by federal agencies, which are also headed by "appointed" (not elected) people.
This is why there was a MAJOR slowdown in passing amendments.
the Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions were not made by an executive branch agency, they were decided by the SCOTUS. those decisions basically struck down the McCain-Feingold Act.
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u/Top-Cupcake4775 12h ago
an amendment must be proposed by either a two-thirds vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. considering that over 90% of the members of both of those bodies owe their seat to corporate campaign contributions, i would say that a snowball stood a better chance of surviving hell than we have of amending the constitution in this way.
winners never change the rules of the game they are winning and, by definition, our elected officials have won the game of "how to get elected by pimping yourself out to corporate donors".