Problems with the U.S. Constitution

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that, although Article 1, Section 2 and 3, of the constitution sets out the length of the term of office of a member of the House of Representatives and of the Senate, it does not say how many terms a member may have; given their distrust of the legislative branch of government and their suspicions of government in general, it is very likely that the intention of the framers was to have a congressman serve his term and return to his civilian occupation not to become a professional politician as is the case today. The author points out that the framers of the constitution intended for the judicial branch to act as a check on the power of the other two branches; they did not anticipate that the judicial branch would take it upon themselves to legislate from the bench. The paper stresses that the Electoral College is a cumbersome situation, currently giving some states little or no decision in the outcome, and should be replaced with election by popular vote.

From the Paper:

"Section 1 of Article 3 of the Constitution states that, "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." Nowhere in this entire article does it spell out the power of the courts to declare laws of the legislature unconstitutional. It may be that the Framers intended for the courts to have this power, but they did not explicitly provide for it. "There is little doubt that the Framers intended the Supreme Court to have the power to declare state legislation unconstitutional, but whether they intended to give it the same power over national legislation is not clear.""

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