A loud minority of Texans call for Independence, which is not really possible as far as I know, BUT could the Rest of the USA just kick another state (Not necessary Texas) out? Or is this also not possible?

  • kirklennon@kbin.social
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    8 months ago

    And yet that provision is itself still part of the constitution so really an amendment just needs to have an initial sentence to override that limitation first. If there’s actually support for a change, anything can be changed.

    • bitcrafter@programming.dev
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      8 months ago

      If it were really so easy to bypass that restriction, then what was the point of putting that sentence in in the first place?

      • dhork@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Because Congress has wide latitude to set its own membership by passing laws to that effect. The size of the House, for instance, used to increase on every Census, until Congress passed a law to fix it at 435. (A huge mistake, IMHO, and part of the reason why our politics are so wacky today.)

        This ensures that the Senate can never re-make itself to be anything other than the body with equal representation among states, unless the affected states also agree.

        • bitcrafter@programming.dev
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          8 months ago

          This ensures that the Senate can never re-make itself to be anything other than the body with equal representation among states, unless the affected states also agree.

          Yes, that is exactly my point: if this restriction could itself be eliminated through the amendment process, then it effectively does not exist.

          • dhork@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            No, you don’t get my point, if that specific clause weren’t in the Constitution then Congress could enact a law to change how the Senate is constructed. The clause serves a purpose, even if it can be itself changed via amendment.

            • bitcrafter@programming.dev
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              8 months ago

              If the purpose of that clause were to restrict the kinds of laws that Congress can pass instead of the kinds of amendments that are allowed, then why does it appear in Article V, which relates to amendments, rather than Article I, which relates to Congress?

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          8 months ago

          Sure, but once there is enough determination to deprive a state of equal representation in the Senate that there are sufficient votes to amend the Constitution once in order to do this–which, as you have pointed out, is a very high bar–then it is no harder to go through the amendment process twice in order to first drop that sentence.

          • kirklennon@kbin.social
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            8 months ago

            Indeed, the limitation in what can be amended is in practice totally powerless. I think of it as a rhetorical flourish to emphasize the importance they placed on representing states rather than people. For what it’s worth, I advocate for the full abolition of the Senate. It’s an anti-democratic institution. There’s no way to fix it without making it a clone of the House so let’s just do away with it entirely.

            • bitcrafter@programming.dev
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              8 months ago

              Indeed, the limitation in what can be amended is in practice totally powerless. I think of it as a rhetorical flourish to emphasize the importance they placed on representing states rather than people.

              It isn’t worded as a “rhetorical flourish”; it is worded incredibly clearly and explicitly as a prohibition:

              Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

              In fact, taking your reasoning a step further: are you likewise arguing that when the prohibition against banning the slave trade prior to 1808 was included here, that it was also understood to be a “rhetorical flourish” with no teeth behind it? If so, then why did they go to so much trouble to put it in? It seems like a lot of wasted effort in that case.

              • kirklennon@kbin.social
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                8 months ago

                it is worded incredibly clearly and explicitly as a prohibition

                And yet it’s inherently non-operative. I’m unconcerned with how it was intended since that’s totally irrelevant to what it actually is.

                • bitcrafter@programming.dev
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                  8 months ago

                  If, as you say,

                  I’m unconcerned with how it was intended since that’s totally irrelevant to what it actually is.

                  Then why did you waste time describing what you believed was the intention behind it earlier when you said,

                  I think of it as a rhetorical flourish to emphasize the importance they placed on representing states rather than people.

                  Regardless, the other point that I made that you haven’t addressed still stands: they put that prohibition against banning the slave trade in there for a reason, and that reason was presumably not “as a rhetorical flourish”, so either the people who insisted that it be present were horribly incompetent at writing legal language that would preserve their own interests, or your personal opinion as to how Constitutional law works in this case is missing something important.

                  • kirklennon@kbin.social
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                    8 months ago

                    Then why did you waste time describing what you believed was the intention behind it earlier when you said

                    I never said that was the intention. I said that’s what I think of it as. In practice all it does is underline a point. These same people also totally screwed up how we chose the president and vice president and failed to provide a proper mechanism for replacing a dead president.

                    horribly incompetent at writing legal language

                    Horribly incompetent? No. Flawless, or even particularly prescient? No. They got a lot of big stuff right; they got a whole lot wrong.