Series
The Second Draft
A series that takes the founding seriously enough to finish its work. The original Constitution was a remarkable attempt to bind power by structure rather than trust it to good men, and over two centuries it has been quietly rewritten, away from its own principles, into a regime of concentrated and largely unaccountable power. This series drafts the alternative, branch by branch: a written constitution for a limited, representative, commons-stewarding state. Best read in order.
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Part 1
Why Rewrite It
Proposing to rewrite the Constitution sounds like sacrilege. But we have already rewritten it, by drift and convenience rather than by amendment, into something far less bound than the original. The only question left is whether we write an …
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Part 2
The People's House
The House was built to be the chamber closest to the people, and it has drifted furthest from them: frozen at 435, districts swollen to three-quarters of a million, apportioned by residents rather than citizens, filled by careerists. The …
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Part 3
The States' House
The Senate was never meant to be a second House. It was the chamber of the states, the states’ structural check on the federal government, until a 1913 amendment cut that wire and turned both chambers over to the same electorate. The …
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Part 4
Purse and Sword
Congress holds the two powers that are most of what a government is: the purse and the sword, the power to tax and spend and the power to make war. It has handed both away, to the executive and to a tax with no ceiling. The second draft …