Question For The Class: Wouldn't This Be The Perfect Moment To Re-Introduce The ERA ???

[CTyankee]

35. Scalia's argument is monumentally stupid, IMO. To argue, in effect, that you somehow have

a better shot at securing rights when they aren't written into the Constitution just doesn't make sense. Any constitutional rights can be trampled upon if not strongly defended through the political system. Aryeh Neier, my boss at the ACLU, has observed that the Wiemar Republic did not fail because it granted too many rights (a fashionable argument in some quarters back in the 70s), but because those rights were not enforced through the rule of law.

I see the effects of Bush v. Gore and Citizens United as major threats to our constitutional democracy. If your vote essentially doesn't count and elections are simple bought and sold to the highest bidder, it probably doesn't matter what the Constitution says. However, that is no reason to not have a Constitution that can build on the rights of the people, rather than whittling down what we do have, because we somehow give legitimacy to the notion that every decision about Constitutional rights must be decided in light of the era in which it was written.

You might want to do what I did and read some of the Constitutions of other countries mentioned in the NYT piece. I read the one from South Africa and will study the Canadian next. It would be my pleasure to discuss them with you. But if not, it does at least get one to thinking about the possibilities.

Again, my question is WHY the democracies mentioned in the NYT were deciding NOT to model their constitutions on ours. They must have had their reasons...