Among the last things the radical -- and very industrious -- Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow accomplished before recently passing into "the breath of Yahh" at 92# was to draw up a proposal for a U.S. Constitution that he considered absolutely necessary given the many existential challenges currently facing the country. He provides numerous reasons for thinking a new fundamental law is now absolutely necessary, including "the needs of a multiracial, multigender, multireligious society" and the fact that we live on a planet "on the dangerous verge of self-destruction."
Never one for false modesty, Waskow considers some of his proposals "startlingly inventive." And it can't be denied that his proposals for limiting Senatorial duties to blowing up a handful of laws each year (pursuant to "actual debates") and for creating a counsel of 21 "Earth Commissioners" between the ages of 18 and 29 who by a three-fifths vote can "cancel" laws they consider harmful to the "web of life" seem like they grew out of one or another Star Trek episode.
Nevertheless, most of the suggestions here are likely to be smiled upon by progressives. A national popular vote is substituted for the crazy system we now have for electing Presidents, taxes are increased dramatically on the rich, a (fairly harsh) redistribution scheme is put in place, Executive war-making powers are severely diminished, ranked choice vote and proportional representation are required everywhere, immigration and naturalization are made quicker and simpler, SCOTUS members are given term limits, fossil fuel burning is ended forever, voting is declared both a right and a duty, etc., etc., etc. One could easily pen a new DSA "My Favorite Things" out of his plan without much help from either Rogers or Hammerstein.
I won't deny that I would like to see a number of similar proposals enacted myself, but that's really beside the point. The question that should be asked is which of the many proposals here belong in a foundational document. Waskow obviously wants all of them included because he recognizes that most of them haven't the slightest chance of ever being passed, given our current scheme for enacting laws. The thing is, authentic democrats will not want Rabbi Waskow making public policy just because he considers it absolutely necessary to the continuing existence of our country, any more than they want Trump to have that sort of power. Outcomes are one thing, process is another.
It may be objected that if I make suggestions for any constitutional provisions, indeed, if anybody does, the same thing will have to be done: choices will be made concerning, e.g., the correct methods for producing public policies. That's true, but it is also the central trick to constitution-writing. If one wants to live in a democratic society, one has to ensure that only provisions supporting truly majoritarian law-making mechanisms are implanted in any foundational law. In fact, although one should expect there to be fewer of them, such principles should be largely unamendable, since significant alteration would mean that real democracy has disappeared in that jurisdiction. This means that, to the extent that anything finds its way into a constitution involving taxes or fossil fuels, the authors must have substituted their judgment for choices that really must be made by the people if that constitution and the polity for which it is the legal foundation are to be deemed democratic.
Getting this stuff right is extremely difficult, and I spend a good deal of time and space whacking away at these issues in my book on democratic theory. No doubt some will conclude that I ought to have whacked harder or with more accuracy. I may have gifts, but perhaps they are not special ones, and I had no obvious help from The Spirit. It may be worth mentioning in this context not only that Reb Waskow believed that he did have such assistance, but that he included a vivid (to me, even a little scary) description of an acid trip in his autobiography. Perhaps that experience also helps explain why he took the (entirely understandable) position that the goal of living in an authentically democratic polity ought to be placed below things like saving the earth from utter destruction, preventing every penny in the country from ending up in the hands of a few oligarchs, and ensuring that America accepts the wretched from abroad who are yearning to breathe free.🗡
I absolutely get the point of demoting democracy from the top tier in such dire situations, but if one is going to do that, I doubt there's much point in having a constitution at all. After all, Hitler simply ditched the Weimar version when he got the chance, since he believed that he knew best. Mao and Stalin were also sure. And we can see from the current GOP platform and the sorts of mischief the current administration in DC gets into every single day that Trump is not terribly interested in revising our Madisonian relic.
The moral I am pressing is that there are an awful lot of people around who feel they should be given the last word on policy picking, and such mavens can be found on the left as well as the right. On the other hand, those who exalt democracy will, indeed must, resist all such partisan pleas -- wherever they happen to fall on the left-right political spectrum themselves. Maybe it's too late for such purists to have a say. It's possible that no citizenry as a whole is now smart enough or good enough to take the helm, even if they could be or once were. I hope not.
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#Pictured here between Channing Phillips and Topper Carew at the first "Freedom Seder" in 1969. That was when Waskow could first be seen wearing a yarmulke. I believe this choice was based partly on his empathy for people, from Birmingham to Saigon, whom he took to be receiving the same sort of treatment he believed had been received by Jews for millenia. I discuss Waskow's autobiography in Waskow I.
🗡In fact, however, there are several provisions in Waskow's draft that I would consider explicitly anti-democratic, partly because of what seem like random choices of numbers. These include requiring seven years of residence before naturalization, a voting age of 18, and various super- and sub-majorities required for this or that sort of enactment or veto. Such choices don't always seem to have been inserted in order to prevent imminent catastrophes. Some of them just seem capricious. He's also left alone a significant number of existing provisions that are poor, even arguably silly.
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