Although the Constitution of the United States is generally praised as an effective document for both government organization and the protection of constituents’ rights, it is undeniable that there should be room for revision. After all, the Constitution was written hundreds of years ago and clearly, our society has been anything but stagnant since then.
The executive branch of government in particular lends itself to the discussion of Constitutional revision/clarification, especially regarding the following four issues:
1. The Electoral College
2. Whether or not natural born citizens should be the only people permitted to run for president
3. The relative generalizations mentioned in the presidential oath
4. Generalizations regarding impeachment
While some may believe these issues to be irrelevant (“don’t fix it if it ain’t broken”), we must realize that the executive branch is the United States’ face to the world—if our most visible government officials are disorganized and unsure of their own positions, how are we supposed to be taken seriously by other world leaders?
The Electoral College Problem; mentioned in Article II of the US Constitution
Like most people, the Electoral College was something I was suspicious about but didn’t understand very well until I watched this short video by CommonCraft: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok_VQ8I7g6I
According to the basic explanation in the video, the Electoral College is supposed to give more power to more populous states. This seems contradictory to me since individual states generally want equal representation in the federal government, so they would probably want to be equally represented in electing the president. I have to admit that I am no political expert, but wouldn’t the election process even out without the Electoral College? If the majority of people in a state already like a certain candidate, that candidate would still get a lot of votes from that state regardless of the Electoral College. Yes, we live in a representative democracy but during every election a common voter complaint is that some people can’t find candidates they truly believe in because our elections are limited to two parties. By simplifying the election process, the Electoral College doesn’t allow for other parties to enter the political arena while simultaneously forcing people to “waste” their vote on a candidate they do not fully support (that is, if they choose to vote at all).
Amendment Twelve addresses the Electoral College and its’ reorganization since post-Revolutionary times, but it still seems as though the actual people who are being represented (i.e. NOT politicians) have little say in who their president will be since the Electors seem to act as the middlemen of the election process.
It seems like a better idea to hold popular elections since that would allow people to fully express their opinions as voters. We would also be able to have more variation in political parties since voters do not have cohesive views as solely being Democrats or Republicans. Having said that, if we were to actually implement this change, the government would have to establish a relatively speedy way of doing as to not interrupt an election that would fall in the middle of the deliberations. Also, the new way of voting would need to be carefully planned so that it would actually work and be proven accurate before it would actually be used in an election.
Only a Natural Born Citizen Can Become President; Article II of the US Constitution
Having a natural born American citizen as president is a very symbolically patriotic belief, and it is understandable why the framers of the Constitution would want to specify the country’s leader as such as to ward off foreign invasion/influence after the Revolutionary War. However, immigration to the US has grown exponentially since the 1700s and it would be ignorant to say that every single current naturalized citizen of the US would act against his new home country. Therefore, it seems exclusionary to prevent naturalized citizens from becoming President; after all, they chose to abandon their own cultures to assimilate into the greater American melting pot, so why should they be denied the same opportunities?
The counter argument to this would be that allowing a naturalized citizen to be president would cause a series of sociopolitical problems since a person’s personal cultural ties could influence his or her decisions in the executive office. While admittedly, there is no guarantee that this wouldn’t occur, the same could be said for a natural born citizen as well—just because someone was born in the US, does not mean that they completely identify with America.
By allowing people who were naturalized to run for president we wouldn’t necessarily be putting our country in any more danger than it is already in, we would just represent our population in a more accurate manner. Presently, someone in our country could have ideas as to how to fix the issues we face as an American society but isn’t allowed to achieve his goals simply because he or she was born outside our borders. By allowing naturalized citizens to run for president we would open doors to new ideas and new viewpoints to represent the American public.
There would still need to be rules as to who could and could not run for president, however. It would be necessary for a person to fully assimilate both culturally and socially into the American way of life to ensure that he or she would be in touch with the constituents. To make it as fair as possible, a naturalized citizen should be a full citizen of the United States for a minimum of 30 years (five less than the necessary age to run for president). In this way, there would still be an age limitation so that wealthy “off the boat” immigrants couldn’t form some kind of conspiracy theory against the US (if such a thing was to happen) and so that natural born candidates wouldn’t have an age advantage over naturalized candidates.
The Presidential Oath; Article II of the US Constitution
The presidential oath is rather open to interpretation when read carefully:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
“Preserve”, “protect” and “defend” are very generalized verbs that could be successfully interpreted to mean many things (things that an individual in power could use to his or her advantage…). This isn’t to say that US Presidents are bound to morph the oath into something sinister to take over the world, but there is room to specify what exactly his responsibilities are. A few more sentences could be added to aid this, maybe something like:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. I will preserve the liberties of the American People; protect their livelihoods and maintain their safety, while defending the Constitution of the United States in a just and fair manner. "
The benefit of adding more detail to the Presidential Oath might not be the most important change to the constitution, but it would allow people to actually know what their president promises to do for them first and foremost. This is important since people commonly believe that politicians, including the President, are “bought off” by lobbyists and corporations. With this change, symbolically people would be able to hold their president accountable for his actions as their elected leader.
Reasons for Impeachment; Article II of the US Constitution
“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
Considering the fact that impeachment is one of the most embarrassing things that could happen to a president, it is shocking to see how general the rules for impeachment actually are. While bribery, treason, and high crimes are relatively straightforward, “misdemeanors” are things that could practically be interpreted as anything unfavorable but not necessarily political.
For example, President Clinton committed a “misdemeanor” when he cheated on his wife and then lied about it to the American people. While his character might have been tarnished in doing so, he didn’t actually do anything that affected the American people directly. No wars were started over Monica Lewinsky and no one suicide bombed a major city in Hillary Clinton’s honor.
“Committing misdemeanors” should be further specified by including how the said misdemeanors would affect the American people, since it is the President’s job to act on their behalf. A more accurate phrase could possibly be something like, “…Misdemeanors that endanger the United States and the American People.”
With this clarification, bitter senators who may not agree with the President’s policies will not be able to attack him or her on topics irrelevant to the actual act of running the country.
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