The country. C victory and concession speeches from the candidates, on cspan. But cspan now, free mobile app, and at cspan. Org slash campaign 2022. Thejust two days ago, we celebrated that 234th anniversary of the signing of the u. S. Constitution. The framers intended the constitution to be a fundamental framework of law. They did not want the constitution to be changed in response to transient winds, however, they also recognized that American Society and conditions would change overtime in ways that they could not predict in 1787. George mason said, amendments, therefore, will be necessary. It will be better to provide for them in an easy, regular, and constitutional way then to trust to chance and violence. Article five of the constitution lays out the amendment process and says 1787, more than 10,000 proposed amendments have been introduced to congress. Only 33 amendments gained enough votes to be submitted to the states for ratification, and just 27 have been ratified. So, its too difficult to amend our constitution . During todays program, our speakers will address some of the major issues surrounding constitutional reform and whether and how major reforms can be achieved. We look forward to todays conversation about these important questions. First, let me introduce our guest speakers. William trainer, the dean and executive Vice President of Georgetown University, washington, and he holds the law centers leadership professorship. He joined George Washington, excuse me, the Georgetown University law center in 2010 from fordham law school, where he had been dean of the law school since 2002, and paul fuller professor. George van cleve is deans visiting scholar, Georgetown University of law center. He was formally Research Professor in law and history at Seattle University school of law, and he holds a ph. D. From the university of virginia and aj d. From harvard law school. They are joined today by my colleague, emily roth, director of education at the robert h. Smith center for the constitution, here at montpellier. They will be monitoring the chat box throughout the discussion, so please, feel free to post your questions as we progress. Our speakers will pause for q and a periodically throughout the program. Now, i will turn this over to bill and to george. To you, gentlemen. Well, thank you very much. George . Go ahead. Okay, i just wanted to say what an honor it is to be here and i know, speaking for georgia as well as myself, to be invited to montpelier and on constitution day, is incredibly meaningful. Im really delighted to be here. Thank you for this opportunity. What were going to be focusing on at the very start is what doesnt work about the constitution. George has written, and i just want to, for our audience, making a new american constitution, really, an extraordinary book. And one of the things thats i found very compelling about it, and yours will talk about it more, is that it really challenges us with basic principles. What doesnt work about the constitution and what do we do about that . Somebody who has been in law, teaching for more than 30 years, i really welcome this, because this is a critical moment for consideration. We dont normally do it in law schools. Law schools are really classically about taking your next step or sometimes about understanding in area of the law, but not about stepping back and saying, where doesnt it work and what do we do about it, in a big picture way . Thats what this book is about. Thats really what our conversation will be about. So, let me start with what i think doesnt work about the constitution, which is, thats really our first arc here. I think the core value of the constitution is that its a document of democratic governments. It uses republican government principles, we elected representatives, we elect a president , they are the one who, in some ways, govern, but at its core, this is about democracy. All men are created equal, all people are created equal, thats our core principle. So, where do we see that doesnt work in our constitution today . I really find that what we have to focus on is where is the voting process, where doesnt it work . Issues i am very concerned about our gerrymandering, and im very concerned about Campaign Finance. Gerrymandering is, the Supreme Court a couple of years ago, in a case, said the Supreme Court doesnt intervene in gerrymandering. Its a political question. Unless there is racial inequities or other special areas, but its just if its partisan gerrymandering, and the state legislature is skewing districts so as much as possible, people will be from the legislatures dominate party, the Supreme Court is not going to intervene. That is a crucial flaw in democratic governments. The Supreme Court has said, its a part of our constitutional framework. Right now, im talking from new jersey. Hence, the new jersey map behind me. Right now, i live in maryland, and the Maryland Legislature basically had all the republicans into one district, so every other Congress Person in the state was a democrat, and you had one republican. And the Supreme Court said, thats a political question, were not going to look into that. Campaign finance. The power of money is really drowning out the power of individual choice. Again, thats a Supreme Court decision. Citizens united allowed hacks to flood social media, to flood tv and radio, without any checks on their expenditures. So, actually, i think were going to see more things in years ahead. A Supreme Court case from last term was one in which the way forward suggested you do not have to disclose who your donors are. So, there was a limited case about california rules, but the underlying logic is very broad. So, those are two areas. I think the overlying, the basic principle of the constitution as one person, one vote. Those are two areas in which the Supreme Court decisions are really undermining its value. But there are also problems that are in that constitution itself and the most powerful way. The biggest problem is really the power of the states and then it and the Electoral College. Again, going back to my map, everybody in montpelier i know, im sure you know that new jersey, at the federal Constitutional Convention, said every state should get an equal representation. In the legislature. There was a compromise, and the senate represents the new jersey point of view. Thank, the Electoral College gives a great way to the states. A part of the reason we see the number of minority president s. I start off with two things were, i think the Supreme Court got it wrong, but there are also things that are deeply ingrained in our constitution. Thats what i think the problem. George, what do you see . George bill, first of, all i really appreciate your willingness to participate in this conversation, because as your presentation shows, this is something you have given a lot of thought to. I would say that i agree with the basic point you are making about the notion that the constitution was intended to create and effective political democracy. Obviously, at that time, suffrage was limited and so on, but the core principle was to create an egalitarian republic. But the concern ive got, so, i share a lot of the concerns that youve expressed about gerrymandering, the Electoral College, and so on. But concerned ive got really goes further, because in a sense, that concerns youve described are not an off democracy. The constitution should be more democratic. The concern i have is we are in danger of losing our democracy. What do i mean by that . I think, and my book tries to show, that we face enormous social problems that are not being resolved. Just to take an example, but level of economic inequality in the United States is so substantial it is threatening the existence of the middle cloth. One thing that is very clear in democratic theory and in a recent book by the for example, if you dont have a middle class, you cant have a democracy. Really, our constitution is founded on that notion, that there will be a middle class. That economic inequality, which is far larger than it was 40 years ago, is threatening the existence of the middle class. Of course, its also far more damaging to people of color than it is to the rest of the population. And you can see that these kinds of problems, and pandemic, the treatment of people of color in the pandemic itself, there differential access to health care, they are differential exposure to disease and so on, has got a lot of people really angry about the way the country is being run by the government. The constitution is our decisionmaking framework for the government. If it isnt working, right we really have a fundamental problem. There are people at this point, and the New York Times recently quoted, usc law professor was saying that in her view, serious change isnt going to occur without violence. Thats how grave i think the problems or facing our, and i am determined to try to find a way to bring about peaceful change. That would be in order to avoid and the society for violent change i think many people are beginning to think might happen. So, as they say, i think were in danger of losing our democracy, not just having not enough democracy. Thats with structural issues he referred to at the end, one of my major concerns. We are, as a country, the constitution puts us in the position where it provides protections, and youve described, the campaign against protections, but there are structural protections in the constitution for wealthy people and politically powerful people. The constitution also structurally allows minorities to make fundamental decisions, whether its electing president s or putting Supreme Court justices on the Supreme Court for life. We dont have a full republic. But beyond that, we dont have a government that actually works. The separation of powers, which is the core of the constitution s Decision Making structure at the federal level, is broken. Im not the only person who thinks that. The New York Times had a column a couple of weeks ago, by the great writer and political scientists, in which he said that we have all of the vices of the separation of powers and none of the virtues. What he meant was, i think i want to rephrase that, because i think ive mischaracterized what he said, he compared separation of powers to the system of parliamentary democracy, and essentially said that we are now a de facto parliamentary democracy, but that we dont have any of the benefits that you would get out of having a real parliamentary democracy. Now, whats clear to me is that we cant reexamine those kinds of fundamental structure issues in the constitution. On a piecemeal basis for example, if you increase the power of the president , which the people think would be a good idea you dont think at all about the congress, you are weakening the congress it is a zero sum game as a result, youre taking away one of the pillars of the separations of power i think, if you are going to reexamine the constitution at that level, you are going to have to do it in a more systematic way than say, lets fix gerrymandering lets try to fix the Electoral College, so on i agree with you that those are all problems i think we are in a deeper political hole than that and as a result i think we need to look at a broader set of solutions when we follow up on that if you look at the arc of economic inequality here in the United States starting in the there is increasing stratification, and then starting in 1935 with roosevelt, right . Again for 40 years dramatic depression depending on the situation, roughly 1973 and then starting than, the opposite we have been compacting and now dramatic differences, right . We are starting to look more like 1875 as opposed to 1960 51 question, how does your constitutional analysis fit into that . How is it that at one point we were the middle class was growing and now it is shrinking . Is that just constitution . Is it the key to reform . What has changed . Those are all fair questions given the amount of time we have today i will have to be fairly quick and easy about the response the level of global competition that we are facing todays unprecedented and exogenous factor it plays an enormous effect on driving down leverage for workers, incomes, wages and so on so, we are stuck with that level of competition, whether we like it or not what the constitution does, in effect, makes the situation worse. It does that partially as Campaign Financing, as you described, allowing 12 people to contribute 3. 4 billion dollars to political candidates for those guys are not contributing 3 million because they want things to change you know . Most of what they are doing is saying to people, leave us alone part of the problem is Campaign Financing. The constitution itself has both political protection for wealth and Legal Protection for wealth. It is not at all clear that if a wealth tax were adopted by congress it would survive this Supreme Court constitutional review. Wealthy people know that beyond that, the political structure of the constitution which gives disproportionate power to small states. The small states around the defenders, at this point, of the traditional economy. They are not the knowledge economy they are the traditional economy they are going to try to defend it one of the ways they do that is to oppose redistribution, systematically. If someone says, no, i think we really should tax wealthy people more, most of the representatives saying, no, we need to tax less not taxing people more. Not tax anyone we end up in a situation where we dont have the political will to pay for programs that would collapse inequality by taxing someone to pay for them. Kind of a long way around but yeah, i think part of it is just world situation, right . Part of it is the political structure actually, before i would like to follow up on that i think this is an area where we have some disagreement emily vase, shes asking questions is there anything you want to bring forward . Should george and i continue with our conversations . Why dont you go ahead and continue i have a couple questions cued up please go ahead and continue. This is a great overview. George, one thing that i was doing that was really very striking to me, in advance of this conversation i went back and i looked at the 1960 president ial election. Kennedy nixon. There were a couple things that really struck me that was famously a hares breath election. 0. 1 , right . It wasnt actually that close in the Electoral College kennedy won by about 80 electoral votes its also fascinating, if you looked at what states went democrat, what states went republican, to a striking extent, it was almost a mirror image of 2020 the northeast, new york, new jersey, pennsylvania. Most cases they went democratic the south was democratic in 1960, was republican in 2020. The west, particularly the far west coast, was actually solidly republican in 1960. California what republican nixon was from california but it had been, traditionally, as much republican, more republican state than a democratic state. I guess, one question i have when i was thinking about this, one of your core points is that small states, small in terms of population, we will be anti redistribution. Isnt that kind of a phenomenon of the moment . Cant that change through politics . In other words, these are the states doing poorly economically shouldnt the argument be made to them, you know what . We really should be in favor of redistribution we are at the bottom of the economic period youre point about large shifts and pattern overtime, obviously, is perfectly legitimate the generation or two that we are looking at now running from about 1970 to the president has a configuration that has shifted into todays structure. There is every indication that that structure is more tightly aligned now than really wouldve been true probably from the prior 100 years in terms of the solidity of peoples choices, their opinions, where they are located one of the common observations that scientists make is people are geographically sorting themselves. They can do that, they are doing that on the one hand, can things change over a 100year period of time . Yes, i think they can do we need to look at how the constitution is functioning over a century period, or over a period where we are systematically failing to address Priority National issues . I think, if you look at the last 20 years, what the constitution has really given us is to minority president s both of whom people would say probably didnt do the worlds best job in office it has given a Supreme Court justices chosen by a minority of the population the jury is still out on how some of them are going to do the point is if we have a structure that systematically distorts the popular will, which is the structure we currently have it is more distorted every day because of the way the senate works if we have a structure that does that we are going to increasingly make choices that people dont want to have made if things dont work out they are going to think that they didnt have anything to say about what happened to them that is why trust levels are at historic lows for the government. There has never been a time that we know of in our history where the government has had a lower level of public trust than it does today these distortions that are built into the construct let me say one more thing in regards to states in the book i point out that many of the states at this point, as a practical matter, or in