An Amendments Amendment

[A18]

My reluctant answer is yes.

Our Constitution has twenty-seven amendments, most of them of little consequence. Article V supermajorities can be assembled to patch things up here and there, but fundamental reform has proven to be almost entirely out of reach.

The first ten amendments were of course passed by Congress at the dawn of the new federal government (along with what became the Twenty-seventh Amendment), essentially as a minor concession to the Constitution's critics. After that, the Fourteenth and Seventeenth Amendments are the only revisions of great importance. And even the Fourteenth Amendment--likely the most dramatic constitutional change (of the formal sort, anyway)--would not have been adopted without a number of legally-questionable antics on the part of its supporters.

This might be fine and well, if it actually entrenched the original constitutional regime. But that is mere theory, rather than practical effect. Instead, the near-impossibility of formal amendment has led to general ambivalence toward constitutionalism generally, followed by outright disregard of crystal-clear text. At the same time, blatant judicial overreaching has been shielded from any prospect of political correction.

So what should the rule be? I don't have a definitive answer. But perhaps a mere three-fifths of each house of Congress should be required for proposal, and ratification by two-thirds, rather than three-fourths, of the states should be sufficient.