For a party that professes love for the Constitution, the Republicans sure want to change a lot of it. They are not even limiting their desire to remold the foundations of government to the Constitution itself. They are also interested in tampering with the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and filibusters in the Senate.

A short list:

1. Constitutional Amendment banning abortion.
2. Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage.
3. Constitutional Amendment to permit Arnold to run for President.
4. Elimenating filibusters in the Senate, a tactic made available by the founders which has remained intact with few changes for over 200 years.
5. Elimenating the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to hear a case addressing the constitutionality of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act.
6. Constitutional Amendment banning flag burning.
7. Constitutional Amendment granting the right to use the word "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.
8. Constitutional Amendment elimenating the Senate's right to "advise and consent" to Presidential appointments.

Why play by the rules when you can change them?

Umm...what?


Nobody is proposing a constitutional ammendment banning abortion. You do realize that not all laws are in the constituton, right?


This is one of the things you are right about, but its important to remeber that this NEVER would have come about if a couple activist courts did not step in and try to take matters into thier own hands.


Most republicans, including myself are against this. Not because I wouldnt like to see arnold be president, but because I cannot say I want the next non-citizen to be president. Its wrong. And the majority of americans, nevermind republicans are against it.


These are senate rules, it has NOTHING to do with the constitution. The senate can change them all they want to. The problem here is that the democratic party is using fillibusters as a means of not allowing a vote on judicial nominees. If you are appointed by a president to do a job, the senate needs to put you up for a vote. This, while prefectly legal in the senate, is an inproper use of filibustering.


I admit to knowing nothing about this, so i will not pass judgement on this.


Dear god, is this 1995? When did this come up again?


I believe this word is ALREADY IN the pledge of allegiance, and for 200 years has been constitutional. An ammendment to the constitution to grant the use of the word, is absurn and unneccesary.

Again, WHAT?! How do you even make this stuff up?

WTF is an Amedment?

Apparently something that should be elimenated.

He asked me to spell it for him, I warned him!!!!

The proposed Amendment regarding abortion is to declare that life begins at conception and that the 5th and 14th amendments apply to unborn children. The legal effect would be to ban abortion. This was actually proposed in the last congress and its supporters would like to revive it since even with Bush's win, Roe is so entrenched that they are not confident at all that no matter who he appoints, it will ever be overturned.

As for gay marriages and "activist" courts, I don't see why Georgia or Alabama care what folks in Mass. do. Marriage has always been a state matter, why change? Besides, I don't see why "acitivism" is, by definition, wrong. Judicial activism got rid of segregation so its not always a bad thing. I guess activist decisions people agree with are okay and activist decisions they don't are an affront to democracy. Makes sense. Leave it alone and if the people in Mass. have a mind to, they can amend their state constitution and that will be that. No need to go nuclear.

I don't know what most republicans want regarding Arnold, I do know it is Republicans behind the effort. The Arnold Amendment we'll call it. Nothing like rewriting the constitution to suit the political ambitions of one man or one party.

I never said the Senate rules were part of the constitution, they have however been a part of the fabric of our government from the very beginning and were agreed to by those we now identify as the founding fathers. Why is filibustering a Presidential appointment an abuse? It was done to Lyndon Johnson when he nominated Abe Fortas. There would have been more but Presidents usually withdraw nominees rather than face the embarassment of a filibustered appointment. Either that or they simply nominate a non controversial Judge so they don't have to worry about it. The President signs treaties and the congress later approves them by ratification. I don't see how that is at all different that its advise and consent. Should we not allow filibusters there either? Filibusters have been used and used and used. If the founders wanted to limit them, they could have easily done so. They didn't. It is a fundamental altering of the Senate's power and the way it serves as a check against extremism. If you think it is warranted, fine but call it what it is.

The Defense of Marriage Act is an end run around the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution which requires states to give full faith and credit to the legislative and judicial orders of sister states in certain areas. In general the rule in marriages has always been that a marriage good in one state has to be recognized in another. Thus a if two people get married via common law marriage legal in their home state and later move to state that doesn't have common law marriage, the new state has to recognize that marriage as legal. The Defense of Marriage Act lets states not recognize a gay marriage legally entered into in another state. Problem is that the Act is very likely unconstitutional under the Full Faith clause. Even with a conservative court, gay marriag opponents are worried that the Defense of Marriage Act is so blatantly unconstitutional that the Court, if they ever hear the case, will strike it down. Their remedy is to pass an entire const. amendment restricting the Supreme Court's jurisdiction over constitutional cases dealing with this one single piece of the constitution. To me, it is the equivalent of passing a const. amendment to get a stop sign put up at the intersection down the street.

The worry on the Pledge was that the Supreme Court might uphold the 9th cir. ruling that got everyone so upset with regard to the word "God" in the Pledge. The remedy of course, a constitutional amendment. Fortunately that proved unnecessary since the Supreme Court overturned that ruling. I put some of these in not as a list of current proposals though most of them are. I think even the ones that have been dropped, like this one, are proof that the Republican Party is waaaaaaay to quick to go after the Constitution whenever they lose on something.

I am not making that last one up. The proposal is to place Presidential nominees immediately into position, providing the Senate with 120 days to reject the nominee before the appointment is automatically permanent. This Amendment eliminates the advise and consent power of the Senate. It puts the appointee in without that consent and keeps them there unless there is this "rejection" vote and even then, it has to happen in 120 days or else the appointee is in for good without the Senate ever having voted in anyway. We can argue all day as to just how badly that emasculates the Senate, loss of one testicle or two. Either way it edges that body just a little closer to a useless rubber stamp.

Arnold IS A CITIZEN... he just wasn't a natural born citizen, that's all!!

Personally, I would really like to see Arnold as President... he's much more moderate and fiscally responsible than the crazy people we have running the country now!

The fears of a takeover of the government by a citizen not born here has long past... let the Constitution reflect the changing time.