A "better" U.S. Constitution

Okay, that's fair but I'm not convinced that Congress shouldn't have the power to exempt itself on occasion. The founders made it possible for a reason and the fact that it may have been abused doesn't make the principle unsound.

I would make exceptions for Congress for oversight reasons. For example congress should be able to look at top secret documents I shoudn't be able to look at it. But outside that there aren't many laws Congress should exempt themselves from.
 
I'd actually like to see a stronger commitment to women and minority rights in the Constitution. I'm not saying 60s style anti-discrimination stuff, but something to prevent the backsliding that occurred in OTL in the 100 years after the revolution. Maybe something about voting being an absolute right to all citizens and citizenship being an absolute right to everyone born free within American borders and of age.

Ideally, I'd like to see something about limiting freedom of speech and the press. It seems far too easy to lie without consequence so long as you throw up a few vague qualifiers. Though that issue has only become apparent in the last couple of decades so it probably is asking too much for the founders to see the potential for the problems we're experiencing.
 
I'd actually like to see a stronger commitment to women and minority rights in the Constitution. I'm not saying 60s style anti-discrimination stuff, but something to prevent the backsliding that occurred in OTL in the 100 years after the revolution. Maybe something about voting being an absolute right to all citizens and citizenship being an absolute right to everyone born free within American borders and of age.


If that was anybody's fault, surely it was that of the First Congress, for not adding them to the Bill of Rights, rather than of the Framers.

And if the Framers had included such a provision, in order for the Constitution to stand a chance of being ratified it would have to be binding only on the Federal Government, not the States which in those days were the level of government where it would have mostly mattered.
 

jahenders

Banned
In other words doing their job. The various government agencies are supposed to answer to the US Congress. That is the way elected officials have any control whatsoever over the beurocracy.

True and sometimes it's necessary. However, some Congressmen and their staff essentially use this as a way of pestering agencies they don't like or simply of demonstrating their self-importance.
 
Ideally, I'd like to see something about limiting freedom of speech and the press. It seems far too easy to lie without consequence so long as you throw up a few vague qualifiers. Though that issue has only become apparent in the last couple of decades so it probably is asking too much for the founders to see the potential for the problems we're experiencing.

That was already possible. The Sedition Act was never struck down by the courts. And later on, in 1917 the Government had no trouble suppressing publications critical of the War.

Sounds as if the CONUS gives the government too much latitude rather than too little.
 

jahenders

Banned
I would make exceptions for Congress for oversight reasons. For example congress should be able to look at top secret documents I shoudn't be able to look at it. But outside that there aren't many laws Congress should exempt themselves from.

Two things there:
1) Only a few, very select and necessary members of Congress should be able to look at sensitive documents. Simply put, we cannot trust the 535 people we have at any given time -- some of them are wackos who'd leak the first secret document they saw to the press to make political points

2) There are few, if any, laws they should be able to exempt themselves from and there should be no assumption that they're immune from anything -- speeding, parking tickets, etc. They have extensive staff and have far less reason than you or I to ever double park for instance.
 
One thing would be good:

"A Natural-Born Citizen shall only be a person born within the territory of the United States, or one of the several States, or to two citizen parents."

That will clarify things to future generations who try to wiggle around things if they aren't spelled out. I think Garfield wasn't a NBC, if I remember right.
Without the or clause there you risk damaging our vibrant immigrant nation. Especially the requirement for both parents, that's basically a recipe to delay integration of immigrant communities in the the societies fabric
 
True and sometimes it's necessary. However, some Congressmen and their staff essentially use this as a way of pestering agencies they don't like or simply of demonstrating their self-importance.

Something that can't be corrected by the constitution. That is human nature.
 
I can see someone like Jefferson saying that. However, I can see many others saying something like, "The people need a nation of laws and constancy that they can trust. We do not want to be a mindless rabble, tossed about by every mood of the times, like those mad men in Paris."

It's not a cast-iron certainty, or else it would be OTL. But its plausible, and there is a plausible mechanism whereby it could happen.
 
Two things there:
1) Only a few, very select and necessary members of Congress should be able to look at sensitive documents. Simply put, we cannot trust the 535 people we have at any given time -- some of them are wackos who'd leak the first secret document they saw to the press to make political points

2) There are few, if any, laws they should be able to exempt themselves from and there should be no assumption that they're immune from anything -- speeding, parking tickets, etc. They have extensive staff and have far less reason than you or I to ever double park for instance.

1) True enough, they should be screened and part of the correct commitee.
2) Agreed, the laws they exempt themselves from should be very few and far between.
 

jahenders

Banned
1) True enough, they should be screened and part of the correct commitee.
2) Agreed, the laws they exempt themselves from should be very few and far between.

In fact, it'd be great if they had to get some kind of public referendum to exempt themselves. So, then WE could all say, "No, Congress -- sorry that 55 mile per hour speed limit DEFINITELY applies to you."
 

jahenders

Banned
It's not a cast-iron certainty, or else it would be OTL. But its plausible, and there is a plausible mechanism whereby it could happen.

Obviously it's not a given, but IFF a strong case was made for easy, continual change, a similar counter argument would almost certainly be made.
 
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