The National Constitution Center recently convened three ideological “teams” (libertarian, progressive, and conservative) to see whether they could come up with ideas for amending the constitution that might draw consensus support from all three teams. (If this idea sounds familiar, it’s because the NCC last year convened three teams to think about how to bolster the guardrails of democracy; more on the results here.)
This time the libertarian team consisted of Ilya Shapiro, Timothy Sandefur, and Christina Mulligan. The three teams managed to agree on five proposed constitutional amendments. Here’s the rundown, with a few comments on how Cato has been involved in the conversation on each over the years:
1) Eliminate the natural-born citizenship requirement for the presidency. Cato scholars commented on the requirement’s relevance in the case of Ted Cruz (who, unlike former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, qualifies as is.)
2) Give Congress the constitutional power to enact legislative vetoes to nullify executive and regulatory actions, as it had done in many laws until the Supreme Court struck down the practice in INS v. Chadha (1983). Regulation magazine featured some of the seminal coverage of the Chadha decision at the time, from Theodore Olson, Michael Davidson, and James C. Miller III.
3) Alter the grounds for presidential impeachment and the numbers of votes needed. The first would be done by replacing “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” as cause for impeachment with “serious criminal acts, or for serious abuse of the public trust.” The second would be accomplished by changing thresholds needed for action to three-fifths in each house, from the current one-half of the House to impeach and two-thirds of the Senate to convict. The effect would be broadly to make impeachment somewhat easier to accomplish under a clarified standard. I think that’s broadly consistent with the direction Cato writers led by Gene Healy have long urged.
4) Set Supreme Court terms at 18 years, with one vacancy opening up every two years. While Cato has taken no position on this plan, we did have Yale professor Akhil Reed Amar outline his blueprint for it when he delivered the B. Kenneth Simon Lecture at our most recent Constitution Day conference. Amar also discussed the idea in this Cato Daily Podcast with Caleb Brown.
5) Make it a bit easier to enact new constitutional amendments, and create a new alternative track for instigating amendments that would be more favorable toward populous states. While we have not addressed the latter issue of an accommodation for more populous states, Cato scholars have broadly urged the first point in publications over the years, as here and here.
One lesson the National Constitution Center points out: it’s a good bit easier these days to assemble a cross-ideological consensus for structural and procedural alterations than for reforms couched in terms of individual rights.
