The Modern Bill of Rights
Reimagining the Constitution for a new generation of Americans
The proposal: create a new Bill of Rights that addresses the outstanding flaws of modern democracy while working to ensure a more perfect, and just, union.
As pandemics rage against populations; as state violence cripples entire communities; and as trust in government craters to new lows, it is altogether fitting that America recommit itself to the values and ideals it holds dear.
Submitted below are seven fundamental amendments to the Constitution designed to provide redress to a citizenry left behind in the growing chaos of antiquated and failing institutions. Chief among these modern rights are new safeguards to the most basic ideal of direct representation; new protections of both life and liberty; and a commitment to our national health.
XXVIII: Abolishing the Electoral College
Direct representation, being the most desirable goal within a free and just democracy, necessitates that the people choose their own leadership; not the ill-defined whim of partisan Electors or magistrates. Such was the urgent need and justification for the 17th Amendment, so too is the need for this proposed 28th.
The Electoral College, itself a compromised model of Executive selection, serves little purpose in modern America. Its fundamental compromise, that smaller population slave-states be given a larger say in the election of the Executive, has clearly run its course. No longer is America held back by its racist underpinning of counting humans as fractions. Instead, we should allow the people, and only the people, make the determination of their leadership. By increasing the size of the House, as proposed in Amendment XXIX, even the smallest of populations will be still ensured an equitable and just say in their government.
Currently voters in Wyoming, with its three guaranteed Electors and population of nearly 579,000, receive one Electoral vote for every 192,000 people. Meanwhile, voters in California with a population 39.5 million receive one Electoral vote per every 607,000 people. Thus, voters in Wyoming are triple represented in the current Electoral College, and voters in California are wrongfully disadvantaged.
America was founded on the democratic ideal of ‘One Man, One Vote.’ Abolishing the Electoral College applies that ideal to our highest office.
Section 1: Article II, Section I, Clause II of the Constitution is hereby repealed.
Section 2: The President of the United States and Vice President of the United States shall be elected popularly by the people thereof.
XXIX: Ensuring Direct Representation by Repealing the Reapportionment Act of 1929 and Enactment of the Wyoming Rule
In conjunction with the necessary Constitutional goal of direct representation, it stands to reason that each citizen be appointed sufficient representation to make sure that no one bloc is unduly promoted or promulgated.
The so-called Wyoming Rule apportions Representatives such that the Representative-to-Population ratio is that of the smallest such entitled unit, which as today, is the State of Wyoming. Each state would be apportioned Representatives equal to the relative size of Wyoming; thus a State with twenty-times the population, would be apportioned twenty-times the Representatives. Should a Census deem another state or District the smallest such entitled, Representatives would be then apportioned relative therein.
Among global democracies, the United States is unique in its massive disparity between Representatives and citizens. Our House of 435 Representatives means that each seat represents some 754,000 Americans — only India (a country of 1.34 billion) and the multinational European Parliament have a higher disparity in Seats-to-Population.
The United Kingdom’s parliamentary House of Commons has 650 total members (1.5x that of the American House) for a population of just 63,000,000 (1/5 the size of the U.S.). Each MP represents roughly 104,000 people; nearly 1/7 the number of people represented by each American Representative.
The size of the American government simply has not kept pace with the size of America — and too many Americans are paying the price by being woefully underrepresented in the halls of Congress.
Section 1: The Reapportionment Act of 1929 is hereby repealed. No further laws shall be made to limit the total number of Representatives within the House.
Section 2: Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States and Districts according to their respective numbers relative to the smallest such entitled, rounding down to the nearest such Representative; counting the whole number of persons in each State.
XXX: Enacting Congressional Term Limits
Such was the need for the 22nd Amendment, so too is the need for this proposed 30th. It was Thomas Jefferson himself who famously argued for Presidential term limits:
“If some termination to the services of the chief magistrate be not fixed by the Constitution, or supplied by practice, his office, nominally for years, will in fact, become for life; and history shows how easily that degenerates into an inheritance.”
So too was it modern Conservative thinker George F. Will who argued, with support of Framer James Madison in Federalist 48, that a longstanding Congressional body ‘self-marginalizes itself’ and ‘warps its own power’ by ‘altering the incentives’ of service. Thus, he posited, term limits would ensure Congress remains a robust, effective, and necessary check on the Executive agenda, by ensuring their own power is focused not on reelection, but rather on proper governance.
Section 1: Representatives duly elected shall serve no more than 5 complete terms of office, totaling no more than 10 years in such Office.
Section 2: Senators duly elected shall serve no more than 3 complete terms of office, totaling no more than 18 years in such Office.
Section 3: Representatives and Senators specially appointed or elected to complete an unfinished Term of a previous Office holder shall not have that partial term be included in their Term, unless they have served greater than half of the original elected Term.
XXXI: Reforming the Federal Election Process to Safeguard Free and Fair Elections
The American experiment is predicated on equal access to government — that is, everyone in America should be free to vote for whomever they please; free to run for whatever office they feel they could dutifully fulfill; and be safe in the knowledge that their elections are free from undue politicking, interference or disenfranchisement.
Across America, states have put into place any number of voter disenfranchisement laws designed specifically to target individual communities, parties, or peoples. Until recently, Illinois effectively knee-capped third-party candidates for office by imposing radically different and more stringent sets of requirements than those of the two major parties.
In Georgia’s most recent gubernatorial election, in which Secretary of State Kemp (now Governor Kemp) oversaw an election he himself was participating in, rampant suppression efforts including a purging of the voter registration rolls and closing down polling places in districts and communities most likely to vote for the opposition were apparent.
Most notably, in 2016, America faced a new challenge: that of intentional foreign interference in the political process. Russian agents fomented discord and sowed disinformation across the country, leading to a contentious and criminal series of actions by American candidates.
Defending America’s right to vote is a primary objective in safeguarding a bright future for all Americans. Only by opening up elections to independent candidates; ensuring all voters have the ability to have their voices heard; and protecting our institutions from both internal and external pressures can democracy be carried on for generations to come.
Section 1: Congress shall make no laws designed to inhibit the natural process of democracy nor provide undue obstacles to its free exercise.
Section 2: Neither Congress nor the Executive shall take any action designed to disenfranchise, revoke, or rescind the proper voting rights of all such eligible citizens.
XXXII: Abolishing the Selective Service
A free people need be free to choose whether to embark in the defense of their liberties and nation. Indeed, involuntarily serving a government that may not defend or protect your own freedoms is an injustice too great to bear. Military conscription removes from the citizens this most basic freedom of choice.
During the Vietnam era, black Americans were more likely to be drafted; were underrepresented on official Draft Boards; and were oftentimes subject to racial mistreatment and segregation. Nothing can be more unjust than being forced to die for a country which hardly recognizes your rights or humanity in the first place.
Section 1: The Military Selective Service Act of 1948 is hereby repealed.
Section 2: Neither Congress nor the Executive shall take any action enabling the involuntary conscription of citizens for the purposes of enacting war.
XXXIII: Revising the Second Amendment
As the Framers debated the Second Amendment, one idea was shared among them all: that a free people should have the means to counteract even the most violent of federal overtures. Each believing that tyranny was only a stones’ throw away understood the intrinsic value in rebellion and the necessity of a states’ defense.
In this vein, America needs to continue this protective amendment while also understanding the modern context of firearms and what has changed since the Framers first took action.
Just as the First Amendment has been effectively tailored to match modern society through internet freedom laws, libel revisions, and checks on hate speech, so too must the Second Amendment be tailored to account for the growing violence in our nation. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have been killed by the unlawful use of firearms in this country. School children, dancers, church-goers and service members — no one is immune from this scourge. With an eye on defending the most precious right of rebellion, America must revise the Second Amendment to make clear that private ownership of firearms is not necessary to such a defense, but rather, as intended, enshrine the right of the peoples to form a well-regulated militia with controls for these dangerous weapons.
Section 1: The Second Amendment is hereby repealed.
Section 2: A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, and defined as a state-organized function of common defense, the right of the people to bear arms in service of such militias shall not be infringed.
XXXIV: Providing Universal Healthcare for All Citizens
“You have the right to a doctor — if you cannot afford a doctor, one will be provided to you.”
Just as the Assistance of Counsel Clause of the Sixth Amendment deemed effective, state-provided legal assistance vital to the assurance of liberty, an inalienable right, so too should this government deem effective medical care vital to the assurances of life, another such inalienable right.
Nothing can be more inalienable to Americans than the right to live free within her borders. There is a great moral failing when a just, wealthy nation fails to provide the most basic standards of care for its citizenry.
America stands alone among global democracies as the only nation not to provide universal healthcare to its citizenry. So basic is healthcare to the foundations of society that the World Health Organization declared access to care “a fundamental human right:”
“The right to health for all people means that everyone should have access to the health services they need, when and where they need them, without suffering financial hardship.”
Section 1: The right of the people to have and be provided as sufficient health care as necessary to enjoy a meaningful and practical life shall not be infringed.
Section 2: Neither Congress nor the Executive shall take any action to impede the assurances of this right to proper medical care, including in cases of reproductive or psychological health.