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1. Political parties (no)
The US Constitution is comprised of seven articles and 27 amendments that plainly lay out our system of government, our criminal justice system and the rights of our citizens. It is the shortest working constitution in the world. And it makes no mention of Republicans or Democrats, or any political party at all, though the first US political party, the Federalist Party, was founded a year after the Constitution was ratified n 1788.
2. The Air Force (no)
The Constitution talks about the army and navy, but not an air force because, duh, warplanes weren’t used until World War I. Our Founding Fathers never could have foreseen that.
3. Taxes (yes)
Article 1, which outlines the powers of Congress, gives that legislative body the ability to levy taxes, as well as pay off debt, borrow money and coin currency. This falls under the responsibility of providing for the general welfare and common defense.
4. Marriage (no)
Not a single word.
5. Slavery (yes)
The 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865, made slavery illegal in the US after the bloody and costly Civil War brought the Southern states into line. But before that, in 1861, another slavery amendment was proposed, passed the House and Senate and was signed by the president (James Buchanan, in case you’re wondering) disallowing the feds to interfere with state traditions, including slavery. The Corwin Amendment, as it was known, was intended to appease the seven states, which had already seceded. It did not work.
6. Immigration (no)
There is nothing about immigration in the Constitution, but the powers of naturalization are granted to Congress in Article 1, Section 8.
7. The media (yes)
Very few professions are mentioned in the founding documents of this country, but the media made the cut, right up front in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, which conclude that a free and unfettered press is essential to our democracy.
8. Congressional Districts (no)
The original documents left the election of representatives up to each individual state.
9. Primary elections (no)
While it lays out the powers of government quite specifically, our Constitution says nothing about how our elections should be conducted. The first presidential primary wasn’t held until 1901, in Florida. There’s nothing about the Electoral College either.
10. Guns (yes)
This one’s also in the Bill of Rights, Second Amendment, which asserts the importance of a well-regulated militia.
11. God (not really)
There is no mention of God, the Lord or the Creator — or even Jesus — in the US Constitution except for at the very end, in the Signatory section, where the date of 1787 is described as “the year of our Lord.”
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THE CONSTITUTION, Article II, Section 1
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors….”
Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states.
The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.”
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding a state’s electoral votes.
In state laws enacted since 1789, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the state-by-state winner-take-all method is used by 48 of the 50 states. States can, and have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years.
The National Popular Vote bill is 61% of the way to guaranteeing the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country.
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps of pre-determined outcomes. There would no longer be a handful of ‘battleground’ states (where the two major political parties happen to have similar levels of support among voters) where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 38+ predictable states that have just been ‘spectators’ and ignored after the conventions.
The bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.
The bill has passed 34 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 261 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 11 small, medium, and large jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
NationalPopularVote