the country in which i live was built on compromise, a quality that we seem to have forgotten today. during this month when we celebrate the birth of our country, it is fitting to think of one of our founding documents, the constitution. we speak reverentially of our constitution. it is a remarkable document. some, including one of the members of the committee investigating the january sixth insurrection at the capital and one of the witnesses that appeared before it, have gone so far as to say that it was divinely inspired. to proclaim divine inspiration for the constitution of the united states is to place it on an undeserved pedestal.
our constitution made our country possible. it is a brilliant work, but it is flawed, as we have seen in recent times. in order to secure the support of the former colonies for a strong central government, its writers made essential compromises. they allowed slaves to be counted as part of each state's population, giving states with large slave populations more power than their voting residents justified. one of the ugliest parts of the constitution declared a slave was only three-fifths of a person, relegating those held in bondage against their wills to sub-human status for political purposes. without this compromise, southern states that thought slavery was necessary for their economic well-being would not have ratified the new constitution.
another compromise was the electoral college system for choosing presidents, rather than a direct popular vote. smaller states were given more power than their populations justified in order to secure their support for the constitution. this system gave each state a number of presidential electoral votes equal to the number of its members of the house of representatives plus its number of senators. every state has two senators, regardless of the number of residents, while the number of representatives is based on population. thus states with large populations had fewer votes relative to their population than did smaller states. in the early days of the constitution's adoption, this compromise allayed the fears of states with fewer residents than the larger states, like new york and virginia, would have too much power in the election of a president. this system has proven to be unfortunate in today's presidential contests, as we see elections decided, not by the will of the people, but by states whose population is small but whose power in the electoral college thwarts overwhelming majorities of voters.
now we have a supreme court on which the majority of justices were appointed by presidents with less than a majority of the popular vote. our disgraced former president appointed three of those justices, and those appointees have swung the court toward radical right-wing decisions which threaten the country. they have reversed gains in women's rights that were won half a century ago, they have gutted the administrative power of the executive branch to enforce the laws passed by congress, and they are poised to endorse a radical theory that gives state legislatures inordinate power over elections while stripping state judiciaries of their power to review election laws passed by the state legislatures. one of the conservative justices has suggested that the right of people to marry the person they love should be revisited and possibly done away with. since the constitution grants supreme court justices lifetime appointments, the only remedies for the current situation is for congress to adopt laws that counter the extreme rulings of the court or to increase the number of justices by act of congress so that the conservative majority becomes a minority. supreme court decisions are final and become the law of the land unless altered by congressional action or constitutional amendment, so we are in dangerous, untried waters with the decisions of the present court.
the writers of the constitution were wise in placing mechanisms for amending the constitution as new situations arise or as provisions of the original document are seen to be in need of revision. unfortunately, our current political landscape makes it unlikely that the constitution will be amended to correct problems that have developed in recent times, since conservative majorities are in control of too many state legislatures. it is these legislatures that must ratify changes to the constitution. the republicans who control many state legislatures have devised means for remaining in power through their drawing of congressional maps, even when the majority of the people in their states vote for democrats. if the supreme court increases the power of these republican-majority legislatures, their control will be all but impossible to undo.
may our people awaken to the damage they do when they cast protest votes for republicans because of temporary economic conditions for which the party in power, now the democrats, is blamed. may we see that electing a republican majority in the congress will further limit our ability to protect the rights of women, gays, minorities, and all those who are disenfranchised. may we work together to strengthen our freedoms and make it convenient for every eligible voter to cast a ballot. shalom.
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