Be Polite.
Nicely argued.
But I can't agree with all your suggestions. You are correct about why the Founding Fathers wanted a Senate, but that body is tied into too many other clauses in the Constitution to be easily gotten rid of. Ratification of treaties, for example.
Just repeal the 17th Amendment. When Florida has a GOP governor and legislature, why does it have a Democratic Senator?
As for voting age and eligibility, I want voters and office holders to pass the same test that naturalized citizens have to. Place of birth is meaningless when the voter is ignorant of the smallest part of Civics, and kept that way by the public school system.
And I still want term limits.
Even for federal judges.
Lloyd, thanks for bothering to respond. You have a few logical errors that I wish to point out.
1. With regard to the Senate, I already mentioned that we were amending the Constitution. The whole thing isn't so long that the task of eliminating every use of the word "Senate" is in the "too hard to do" box. Assign all those duties to the assembly and you are done. I didn't think it was necessary to actually write the legislation to do it.
2. I am OK with the concept of voter qualifications being amended on a lot of levels. Mine is a basic answer. Feel free to add your own. The problem with tests of "intelligence" is that they are run by the bureaucrats who then use it to exclude the opinions of voters they don't like. Example, test questions requiring belief in global warming and Marxist economic theory.
3. As for Florida's senator being Democrat. Why does any state have a Senator. They in no way do what they were intended to do, represent the states. And since the end of the civil war, it is arguable that the states have any power at all. The Senate is just a jobs program for wanna-be aristocrats and their sycophants. Zero balance the lot of them.
4. Repealing the 17th amendment isn't enough. That Amendment was passed for a reason. Many Senate seats were left unfilled by governors and state legislatures. My solution is to make all the seats vacant, and the seats, offices and parking spaces of their staffs vacant too. Everything they do is already replicated by the house of representatives.
Roci needs to come back and run for President. We don't have any good candidates :-(
Roci, like your points, particularly #2. We've needed to get away from jus soli for a long time.
I think all these pushes for amendments are just because Congress doesn't have the sac to proscribe the SCOTUS's jurisdiction to certain issues, as they are permitted by the Constitution. Instead, since Marbury, the SCOTUS has acquired more and more power and has legislated from the bench, requiring an Amendment to undo their activism.
Although, as you say (and I agree), clear and unambiguous language is no barrier to those in power to do what they want. Which begs the question: why bother with an Amendment if no-one really pays attention to what the letter of the law says anyway?
As for the 26th, I'd way restrict voting, starting with eliminating anyone who directly receives any kind of money from the gov't.
This would automatically sideline the unproductive half of the electorate who parasite on the productive half. They vote to have government take someone else's money and give it to them. Small wonder why. That it is dangerous to allowing someone to vote themselves bennies from the public chest should be axiomatic by now.
Good points, but you don't need to change the constitution to make the illegal immigration go away. Maybe just amend it to update the language, since the 14th amendment only gives citizenship to those people "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States." Those subject to the jurisdiction of the USA are legal immigrants and citizens, not illegals.
You could also lower your drinking age ;) After all they can just hop on over the border if they're THAT thirsty :)
Before Mothers against drunk drivers, each state set their own drinking age.
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