Retired Supreme Court Justice Stevens has published “Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution ” which was just reviewed in the New York Review of Books under the title “The Refounding Father” by Harvard professor Cass R. Sunstein
According to the extensive article, the six amendments would address:
1) Gun Control
2) Campaign Finance Reform
3) Death Penalty
4) Gerrymandering of Congressional Districts
5) Sovereignty of state governments (“Anti-commandeering rule.”)
6) Liability exposure of state governments and officials for wrongdoing
Sunstein discusses each of the proposal at length and is sympathetic in large part to Steven’s concerns, but questions the need to address five via an amendment to the Constitution rather than by other means.
However, when it comes to campaign financing, Sunstein opines:
“Stevens’s strongest proposal involves campaign finance regulation. In the defining First Amendment cases, a political majority is attempting to entrench itself by censoring speech that it deems to be dangerous. The free speech principle forbids that kind of self-entrenchment. It ensures political liberty, and with respect to ideas, a kind of political equality. With campaign finance regulation, the goal is not to entrench the power or opinions of the majority, but to ensure that economic inequalities are not turned into political ones. In a society that tolerates disparities in wealth, that is not merely a worthy goal; it is essential. As those disparities continue or even grow, there is a serious risk that wealthy people will be able to buy not only their preferred goods and services, as they are certainly entitled to do, but also their preferred policies and candidates, which is anathema to a system that prizes self-government.”
In an October, 2012 article in the same publication Justice Stevens himself reviewed “Should We Have a New Constitutional Convention?” by Sanford Levinson.
Stevens seems to welcome the discussion but cites a number of reservations.
We recommend the articles and the books to those with a keen interest in the subject.
Whether by individual news laws were possible, costitutional amendments or a constitutional convention, certain issues need to be deliberated and improved upon. None is more important and more dependent upon constitutional change than campaign finance reform.
If we allow the control of elections by big money, the democracy that was fought for and so cherished will have slipped from our grip.
