Second Constitutional Convention of the United States

This article is about 21st-century proposals to rewrite the Constitution. For the Article V amendments convention, see Convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution.

Several scholars and activists from both the right wing and left wing of the political spectrum have proposed making substantive reforms to the federal government by either amending or rewriting the U.S. Constitution. Article V of the Constitution provides two methods for amending the nation’s frame of government but forbears to describe a mechanism for rewriting the document. Also, the language in Article V is vague about the required scope for called convention.

Precedent

Main articles: Constitutional Convention (United States) and History of the United States Constitution

The U.S. Constitution was written in 1787 during the Constitutional Convention. While the 1787 Convention was called to amend the Articles of Confederation, participants saw a need for an entirely new frame of government and replaced the Articles with the Constitution. Since 1787, Congress has proposed 33 amendments to the Constitution as prescribed in Article V but has not used Article V to “call a convention for proposing amendments.” However, some scholars consider the 1787 Convention as an illustration of how an Article V amendments convention could produce a new Constitution.

According to a New York Times report, different groups would be nervous that a convention summoned to address only one issue might propose a wholesale revision of the entire Constitution, possibly limiting "provisions they hold dear." Such groups include the American Civil Liberties Union, the John Birch Society, the National Organization for Women, the Gun Owners Clubs of America and conservative advocate Phyllis Schlafly. Accordingly, they are opposed to the idea of a second convention. Lawrence Lessig countered that the requirement of having 38 states ratify any proposed revision––three-quarters of all state legislatures––meant that any extreme proposals would be blocked, since either 13 red or 13 blue states could block such a measure.

Particular views

Sanford Levinson

Constitutional scholar and University of Texas Law School professor Sanford Levinson wrote Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong and called for a "wholesale revision of our nation's founding document." Levinson wrote:

We ought to think about it almost literally every day, and then ask, 'Well, to what extent is government organized to realize the noble visions of the preamble?' That the preamble begins, 'We the people.' It's a notion of a people that can engage in self-determination.

— Sanford Levinson, 2006

Political scientist Larry Sabato believes a second convention is necessary since "piecemeal amendments" have not been working. Sabato argued that America needs a "grand meeting of clever and high-minded people to draw up a new, improved constitution better suited to the 21st century."

Fewer new constitutions are modeled along the lines of the American version, according to a study by David Law of Washington University. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg views the United States Constitution as more of a relic of the 18th century rather than as a model for new constitutions, and she suggested in 2014 that a nation seeking a new constitution might find a better model by examining the constitutions of South Africa (1997), the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) and the European Convention on Human Rights (1950).

I would not look to the United States Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012.

— Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 2014