What prompts structural constitutional amendments?
Carlton started a great discussion asking what the next constitutional amendment will be and has gotten a few good responses so far. I tend to think that any new amendment will be structural rather than rights-creating. But one of the comments, talking about the chances of dumping the Electoral College, suggested that if the 2000 debacle did not prompt a serious amendment move, it is hard to see what will. Indeed, the Electoral College reform efforts post-2000 have been all about ways to get to the functional equivalent of nationwide popular election without a constitutional amendment. So this got me thinking: What has to happen to prompt a serious and successful move for a constitutional amendment, particularly a structural one? Let me suggest some considerations that, historically, appear to play into the mix, in some combination. 1) A signal event that triggers the particular structural rules and makes their defects clear. And it has to be a stark event–it took the Kennedy assassin
