2min chapter

We the People cover image

The NCC’s Constitutional Convention Reports: The Proposed Amendments

We the People

CHAPTER

What Struck You About the Final Amendments?

Caroline frederickson, head of team progressive. A team progressive had a broad set of proposals that would have made it easier to amend the constitution and would have made the constitution more democratic. Some of those found their way into the final version. Do you agree that it was structural reform that was an area of convergence? And what do you want our friends to know about absolutely.

00:00
Speaker 1
Thank
Speaker 2
you so much for that and for your services to the convention. Caroline frederickson, head of team progressive. A team progressive, in its proposed amendments, had a broad set of proposals that would have made it easier to amend the constitution and would have made the constitution more democratic. Some of those found their way into the final version. What struck you about the final amendments? Do you agree that it was structural reform that was an area of convergence? And what do you want our friends to know about
Speaker 3
absolutely. Well, first of all, i want to echo ilan in thanking u jef in the national constitution center for convening this great project. I am also want to thank elan, who just really did a great job in herding cats, the proverbial herding of cats, and kept us on ace and kept us going with people with many other commitments. And i am really pleased that we 're here and that, you know, we are here to be able to actually celebrate constitution day with some amendments that we were able to come to by a consensus. Amd, i am surprised and pleased a couple of things. I think you would think that a being able to have, you know, such a divergent set of people agree to amendments would mean that the amendments themselves would be pretty anodyne and pretty meaningless. And i actually think some of the things that we came to agree on are very significant. And one of the areas i wanted to highlight was the ability to amend the constitution. We have a notoriously hard constitution to amend, a the fct. That there was a shared agreement that it needs to be easier was very significant. And as well as the agreement by the different teams that we needed to make it possible to change the composition of the senate, which in the con in the constitution as it now exists. Many people don't know this, i can't change the equal representation of states in the senate through the article five amendment process o. It's one of those things that is unchangeable, unamendable. So i think that, for me, is really significant, as well as the impeachment standard and some of the other provisions. But the fact that we were able to come together and form a consensus that the constitution really well, a great and important document in american history, is not perfect. A needs to be improved. And one way it needs to be improved is by making it easier to continue to improve it through the amendment process.

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