Progressive Constitutional Amendment

How about a constitutional amendment in the United States that says that once a law has been passed making something legal, liberalising regulation or advancing progressive values, it cannot be repealed ?

This would get round the problem of the ultra-conservatives always trying to turn back the clock and revoke laws they don't think should have been introduced. It would kill the abortion debate and leave it as it is in Europe, as something which had been debated, decided and introduced.

To me it seems as if it would be a viable balance between federalism and state rights - sure, the state can have its power but it cannot use that for backwards and reactionary aims

Grey Wolf

It depends on what it is you make legal. Also what is progressive depends on one's values.

SOME of the motivation for Prohibition was progressive. I can well believe that some liberals (maybe including me)

if we lived in an ALT where the 18th amendment was never passed and currently illegal drugs were legal

Might be persuaded to support prohibition as a solution to domestic violence and some other abuses.


On the other hand, to take an extreme example, if there were a move to legalize "honor killings" it would be incombent on progressives to oppose it.



I believe, on balance, that the law should say that abortion - at least in the first trimester- ought to be wholly decided by the woman concerned. I know, however, of genuine progressives who oppose abortion, nuclear weapons, capital punishment and eating dead animals.

Hmm, I see your point about Prohibition. I guess the amendment would also need to say that anything that is ALREADY legal cannot be made illegal, although controls for a variety of non-ideological reasons could be possible

Grey Wolf

I dunno... just who's to say if something is progressive or not. On the face of it, it seems as if this proposed amendment is biased massively towards liberalism.... once they get something passed, it never never goes away.... to be sure, the example you name, abortion, is favored by the majority of the US today, but that could change in the future....

Who gets to decide whats reactionary? Who gets to decide whats "liberalising regulation or advancing progressive values"? What happens if the Government makes a mistake? Seem to me that constitutional arthritis will set in pretty quickly.

wait a minute, every thing legal cannot be made illegal? that would mean no new laws of any kind because anything that has not been made illegal is de facto legal.

Maybe laws could be made unrepealable on a case-by-case basis.

But that would quickly add up a ton of restrictions on any government, making each less powerful than the previous one.

Grey, there are two big problems with this scenario. First, it assumes that everything liberal is good and everything conservative is bad; that may be your opinion, but it's hardly the basis for good policies. Second, as so many on here have said, how do you determine if something is progressive; or more important, who gets to do it? I see this as being open to abuse. To use the example you name, abortion, I could present anti-abortionism as being progressive: it would save thousands of lives, at a mere 9 months of inconvenience for the mother, and if the child isn't wanted, well there are thousands of couples who want to adopt, and you'd be bringing joy and happiness into their lives (sure, it's a facetious arguement, but with a conservative Congress, you could pass it through). BTW, anti-abortionism in the US isn't a conservative only cause... there are people on both sides of the aisle who believe it. Also, it's not as if it was favored only by a tiny minority of ultra-conservatives... to be sure, the majority of Americans are pro-choice, but the anti-abortion crowd is a substantial minority (60-40 or 70-30, IIRC)...
The biggest obstacle is that the amendment is so biased towards liberals... how would you ever get such an amendment passed through the nation anyway (would require 3/4 of the states to vote in favor of it)?