Legal News

End Term Limits for President? Abolish the Electoral College? You Decide

By Jennifer Forsyth

Associated Press

A salesman holds the first bottle of legal liquor to be sold after the repeal of Prohibition on Dec. 5, 1933. Photo: AP

If you’re sipping a Bloody Mary this morning, trying to work through a holiday party hangover, you can thank (or blame) in part a group called the Voluntary Committee of Lawyers. The VCL worked to “preserve the Constitution of the United States” by repealing the 18th Amendment, which ushered in Prohibition. (Here’s an article about the VCL.) Tomorrow marks the 75th anniversary of the ratification of the 21st Amendment, the only Amendment to expressly repeal another Amendment. (Here’s a website dedicated to the 75th anniversary by some folks who have reason to celebrate it: the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S.)

But we’re not so much interested in the 21st Amendment per se; rather, what it meant for the law of the land. First of all it’s the only Amendment to be ratified through state conventions, as opposed to state legislatures. Perhaps more importantly, the 21st Amendment proved that the U.S. Constitutional could not only be added to, when the public demanded it, but also retracted from. Says David Kyvig, a history professor at Northern Illinois University and an expert on Constitutional amendments: “I think the most important lesson in terms of what it tells us about the Constitution is that it can be what we want it to be. The idea that it’s too difficult to amend the Constitutional is just invalidated by the experiment of national prohibition and by its repeal.”

Today’s WSJ features, a story on the public’s views on amending the Constitution and what amendments some scholars say should be considered. Top of the list? Abolishing the Electoral College and repealing the 22nd Amendment, which limits the number of times someone can be elected President. (See a link on a recent editorial in the NYT on getting rid of the Electoral College.)

Let’s throw the question your way, LB Readers: What Amendment would you most like to see ratified? Below is a partial list of some that have been proposed but never made it into the document:

* Equal Rights Amendment
* Giving the District of Columbia voting representation in Congress
* Requiring a balanced federal budget
* Limiting congressional terms
* Banning a desecration of the United States flag
* Permitting prayer in public schools
* Requiring a two-thirds vote in the Senate and House of Representatives to raise taxes
* Banning abortion
* Banning child labor
* Prohibiting same-sex marriage

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 04, 2008 (boomark / email).