Another Way Stories, by Lawrence Lessig Lawrence Lessig

There’s a scholar, an activist, a leader, a former Labor Secretary, a citizen, and a friend — Robert Reich — who has been trash-talking the idea of a convention to propose amendments to our Constitution. That fact really bothers me.

The Constitution of the United States specifies the rules for its own amendment. Article V lays out those rules. An amendment must first be proposed and once proposed, adopted or, as the Constitution says, ratified.
More than 11,000 amendments have been proposed in the 230 years since the Constitution was adopted. Of those, 27 have been ratified.

This is Larry Lessig, and this is Episode 2 of Season 2 of the podcast Another Way. In the first episode, I described two ways that the Constitution allows that amendments to the Constitution might be proposed. Only one of those two ways of proposing amendments has ever succeeded. The second way — “a convention”—has never happened, though we’ve gotten close. That second way terrifies people like Robert Reich. In this episode, I describe why.

“This would be chaos.” An Article V convention would be “chaos.” Or so says the great Robert Reich in the video that has triggered this season of Another Way.

So do we really need an Article V Convention? This should be the only real question that should trouble Americans just now. Do we need a different way to propose amendments to the Constitution? Do we need amendments to our Constitution at all?

There’s going to be a train wreck unless we act now. A train wreck for the convention movement, and hence, a train wreck for the only reasonable chance that we have to fix our broken Constitution, and hence, a train wreck for this nation.