Larry J. Sabato's Thoughts on Constitutional Revisions

Larry J. Sabato offered some good notions as to what should be revised in the Constitution. Some of his thoughts were very well thought out, and helped me think much more about how the government should be amended. I agreed with essentially every idea he presented, except holding another Constitutional Convention—that proposal doesn’t seem necessary, since most of ideas could be implemented using the “elastic clause” (which Congress so frequently uses). Some more proposals that I did not agree with were expanding the senate to 136 members to add more representation, allowing non-U.S. citizens to run for president after they have lived in the states for 20 years, expanding the Supreme Court from nine to twelve members, and finally, giving states with a higher population more Electoral College electors. Those are just some of his thoughts that I had a disagreement with, but mostly I agreed with his ideas.

I see no immediate advantage to expanding the Senate, primarily because states are equally represented, and giving more populated states more representation just does not seem like a great idea. Having more representatives from densely populated states would increase the opportunity to have either a more Democratic representation, or a more Republican representation. In the Senate currently, there are already enough Republicans and Democrats so what is the basis of having more? The only reason that I can think of is to have a more biased, and enlarged, group of people arguing about issues. What the Senate most certainly does not need are more people from larger states to argue over minute details of issues, and indecipherably present their opinion on such matters.

Most naturalized citizens do not possess knowledge of America...

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... a great tool to give the president. That would allow him, or her, the ability to edit specific provisions a bill, without out completely vetoing it. Although, if a bill needed to be passed quickly, a line item veto method would be inefficient. The president could revise it, then send it back and have it revised, and it could be a while before it becomes a law.

Preventing federal judges to serve for life is a good concept, except when the judges become too old to continue presiding. Setting term limits for judges would be a great idea, because it would add diversity to the court systems every time a new judge arrives. Some judges are just too old, and senile, to still rule on cases and do their job effectively; therefore, setting term limits would ultimately benefit the courts because it would allow for diversity, and a new judge who may have different standards.