"People or Parchment?"

[handmade34]

http://aeon.co/magazine/society/the-cult-of-the-us-constitution/?utm_source=Aeon+newsletter&utm_campaign=66fd5beae3-Daily_newsletter_January_30_20151_30_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-66fd5beae3-68622033

"...the fact that Americans must genuflect in the direction of the founding fathers every time they want to change so much as a comma actually works to enhance the sacredness of the whole... In effect, the amending clause contained in Article V says that any change, no matter how minor, must be approved by two-thirds of each house of Congress plus three-fourths of the states. This is daunting, certainly. But growing population disparities render it even more so since the three-fourths rule means that 13 states representing as little as 4.4 per cent of the population can veto any change sought by the remaining 95.6 percent of the population...

...If this isn’t a broken system, what is? Since economic polarisation is a global phenomenon, a sclerotic 18th century Constitution can’t be entirely to blame. But an increasingly unrepresentative system obviously doesn’t help. Thanks to a Senate that gives equal representation to all 50 states even though the largest (California) is now some 65 times more populous than the smallest (Wyoming), US government is arguably more undemocratic now than it was even in the 19th century...

...In the 114th US Congress, 67.8 million people voted for senators who caucus with the Democratic Party, while 47.1 million voted for senators who caucus with the Republican Party. Yet those 67.8 million votes elected 46 senators while the 47.1 million votes elected 54 senators. Call this what you will, but representative it’s not. Thanks to a bizarre filibuster system that allows 41 senators (representing as little as 11 per cent of the population) to prevent any bill from reaching the floor, it has never been more unfair. Yet a fix is impossible... While other countries have succeeded to a degree in bucking the trend toward financial oligopoly, the US has given it free reign...

[PoliticAverse]

1. The filibuster problem can actually be ended at any time by 51 votes in the Senate. n/t

[quadrature]

2. Parchment ...nt