Local opinion: A new constitutional convention is needed

The experiment in democracy, in self-government under a constitutional republic called the United States of America, is over. The evidence for the failed experiment is clear. Start with the rally that President Donald Trump organized on Jan. 6, 2021, and then directed to physically attack the Capitol building to stop the legal counting of Electoral College votes as required by the 12th Amendment. Fast forward to 2024 and the Supreme Court’s decision in Donald Trump v. Norma Anderson: “The Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates …” The United States Congress shows no sign of enforcing Section C of the 14th Amendment.

Next, the Supreme Court ruled, in Donald Trump v. United States, that presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for all official acts. The Supreme Court turned the president into a king.

The Electoral College met on December 17 and voted to elect Donald Trump as President. The Electoral College gets its moral authority from Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Essay 68: The electors are men “most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice.”

Candidate Donald Trump clearly fails this test. In addition to organizing the insurrection, Trump’s officials told the public consistently that he is not fit to become president and that he is a Fascist. The Electoral College failed this test of its moral authority.

Ben Franklin warned us that we have a republic, if we can keep it. The failure of the judicial branch, the Electoral College, and the United States Congress to prevent a king or dictator from taking over the federal government is now clear for everyone to see.

The idea of democracy as an experiment in self-government goes all the way back to ancient Greece and Rome. Both started out as republics, practicing self-government, and both turned into empires run by dictators.

Any experiment is part of the scientific method, which proceeds logically in steps: observation, theory of cause and effect to both explain the observation and generate predictions (hypotheses) of future observations, experiments, data that either corroborate predictions or contradict them, conclusion. In the case of the United States, the observations were simple. Never in the past had any democracy resisted the descent into tyranny.

What makes the United States different? The framers wrote the Federalist Papers to explain this and make predictions about the new federal government. The federal government would not become tyrannical over states or citizens because of three key features. First, the government is divided into three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial, each checking the others. Second, the president does not have much power outside the role of commander-in-chief, and the president must be a civilian, retiring from the armed forces to become a candidate for president. Third, the United States is based on the Rule of Law, with lifetime appointments for all federal judges, and the judiciary lacks any real power, including the power of money and the power of the military. The anti-federalists were not persuaded by these arguments, so the first Congress passed 10 amendments that we now call the Bill of Rights to protect both states and citizens from the police power wielded by the federal government.

Since the entire federal government is about to lose its legitimacy, there is only one possible legal solution: 34 states must pass an Article Five resolution that sets in motion the process of creating a new constitutional convention that will adopt a series of amendments to be ratified by 38 states. An Article Five convention would likely pass commonsense amendments that would easily pass the 38-state threshold. The 28th Amendment will likely remove criminal immunity from all future presidents and federal officeholders. The 29th Amendment will likely give abortion rights back to all women. The remaining amendments will likely deal with the problems brought about by the Internet and globalization over the past 35 years. The 30th Amendment will likely give the federal government the right to tax corporations and end corporate personhood, thus overturning the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United.

The federal government has failed to protect citizens from the extreme effects of globalization on the poor and middle class in our economy. Consequently, voters around the world have elected strong-man, authoritarian leaders to protect them from the extremes of globalization. The United States fits this political pattern over the past decade, and this has led to the failure of our constitutional republic.

It is now time to approve an Article Five convention so that we, the people, can produce the amendments to fix the structural flaws in our political system. We need to update political theory to show that we no longer need to fear people because educated individuals are now the majority of the country. Thus, we may no longer need the Senate. For the House of Representatives to truly represent citizens, we need a number at least double the current 435, somewhere between 1,000 and 5,000 members. We may no longer need the Electoral College as a filter for the popular vote. We are well-positioned today to become the new framers of the federal government.

Marriah Star is a native of Tucson. He graduated from Harvard University and has a Ph.D. in political science from the City University of New York. He can be reached at marriahstar@yahoo.com