Sabato would erase the great compromise of
our Constitution that produced a federal union: the bicameral
Congress with the House of Representatives based on population
and the Senate based on state representation. He wants to give
the 10 most populous states two additional senators, the 15 next
most populous states one additional senator, and the District of
Columbia one senator.
Of course, Sabato doesn't like the Electoral College.
Liberals have been carping about the Electoral College system
for years, and when Hillary Clinton celebrated her victory as
U.S. senator from New York, her first pronouncement was that we
have "outlived the need for an Electoral College" and
it should be abolished.
Sabato wants to manipulate the Electoral College in a way he
claims will reduce the chances that a president will win without
a majority of the popular vote. Because of third parties, we've
had many elections (including three of the last four), when no
presidential candidate received a popular-vote majority.
Sabato can't prevent this unless he bans third parties. We
are fortunate that we now have a proven system that allows the
president to achieve an Electoral College majority that
validates his election.
Sabato would abolish the constitutional provision that the
president and vice president shall be "a natural-born
citizen." That will bring cheers from the open-borders
crowd eager to build a majority of diverse people unfamiliar
with American rule of law.
Sabato wants to elect the president and all Senate and House
members at the same time. He would accomplish this by changing
House terms from two to three years, and setting Senate terms to
coincide with presidential elections. But our Constitution was
not designed for efficiency of process in either elections or
legislation. It was designed to limit the power of government in
order to preserve liberty.
Sabato calls for giving federal judges guaranteed
cost-of-living pay increases. That's one more way to reinforce
special privilege for elitist judges.
Sabato wants to write a new procedure for a four-month
presidential primary system into the Constitution. Whatever
problems we have with primaries cannot be remedied by imposing
the rigidity of a constitutionally mandated calendar.
Sabato wants to allow the House of Representatives to be
appointed (rather than elected) in the event of extensive deaths
or incapacitation. It's a very undemocratic idea ever to abandon
the requirement that all House Members must be elected by the
people.
Sabato's proposals are a potpourri of so many bad ideas. His
proposed constitution would require two years of mandatory
national (military) service for all young men and women, and
taxpayer financing for congressional campaigns.
Who knows what mischief is lurking under the Sabato's
proposal that his new constitution would require an automatic
registration system for U.S. citizens in order to guarantee that
their right to vote is not "abridged by bureaucratic
requirements"? Is this an underhanded way to help liberals
invalidate state requirements that voters show a valid ID?
The worst of all Sabato's proposals is to call for a new
constitutional convention that would scrap our present
Constitution and start over from a clean slate. We don't see any
James Madisons, George Washingtons or Ben Franklins around
today, and we're mighty worried about the men who think they are
capable of rewriting our Constitution.
When Sabato recently gathered a few people to discuss his
proposals, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito summed up the
reaction not only of those at the meeting, but of the rest of
us, too. "I'm pretty fond of the Constitution we have
now," he said. Thank you, Justice Alito. So are we.
Phyllis Schlafly is a national leader of the
pro-family movement, a nationally syndicated columnist and author of Feminist
Fantasies.
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