Professor Guy-Uriel Charles was the guest speaker at class today. His primary area of study is law and democratic politics.
One of professor Charles’s beliefs is that the constitution is outdated because times have changed but the constitution has not. Part of the reason for this outdated nature arises because the constitutional structure was designed to uphold a certain demographic. Now, the diversity of election disputes causes the constitution structure to manage appropriately.
There are a few baseline thoughts professor Charles sought to share:
- The constitution does not provide a positive right (does not grant) to vote. It does have assumptions about how voting works and protects the right to vote as a negative right (prohibits state action against voting).
- States have the authority to regulate how federal elections occur in the state (voter qualifications, etc.).
As a result, election litigation is the mechanism of how we resolve disputes on both the state and federal level.
This leaves us with the question of, how do we address these issues and problems? Professor Charles believes this is not hopeless and suggests some specifics on how to resolve them.
- In general:
- Don’t focus on resolving election issues by litigation. Instead:
- Specific:
- Allow states to continue reform and experimentation to modernize election processes to make it easier for people to participate.
- Allow federal reform to lessen partisian relationships. That is, strengthen the parties. Both parties would be interested and therefore would move the parties to the center instead of the extremes. More specifically, Professor Charles suggests altering campaign finance laws so both parties are free to support their candidate as much as possible. Because parties love money, neither party would have an objection.
- Another suggestion is to move towards a proportional party system. This one would require altering the constitution (electoral college would need to go), while the other suggestions do not require a constitutional change. Additionally, this change is more subject to party polarization. Meaning this result would be a change set to change slowly over time.
