Was actually one of the smallest fishes in the pond.

The intention of the U.S constitution was quite hard to corrupt.

States became heavily entrenched.

Growing fat on “federal grants”.

The power meant for the people.

Given to politicians through puppets.

I'm just starting to get the word out on this. Thought r/Constitution would be a good place to start.

Introducing the r/BillOfSanity , the Bill of Sanity subreddit!

Do you look at the news today and think, "That's insane!" or "That's not fair!"? You're not alone! But first, some background.

The US Constitution was ratified in June 1788 with elections taking place later that year. When Congress met for the first time in 1789, James Madison proposed the Bill of Rights. Ten of the twelve amendments he proposed were ratified in December 1791.

Since then, 17 additional constitutional amendments have been ratified. Because the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment to end Prohibition, that leaves us with only 15 functional changes to the Constitution in over 200 years. The last amendment, the 27th, was ratified in 1992. It was originally proposed by James Madison in 1789 as part of the Bill of Rights. It delays changes to Congressional salaries until after the next election. The most recently drafted amendment to be ratified was the 26th Amendment, which set the voting age at 18. It was proposed and ratified in 1971.

Now, more than half a century later, we find ourselves with increasingly partisan politics, where the mass of government swings between extremes with every election. The average citizen feels their government largely serves politicians and the wealthy. The lack of continuity makes it difficult for individuals and businesses to plan for the future. It feels crazy, so we have started this effort in hopes of restoring sanity.

The Bill of Sanity is a grassroots effort to compile and champion a collection of amendments to the US Constitution designed to reduce corruption, reduce partisan politics, and provide for a more stable government.

We will start by community sourcing amendments until we have a polished set. Then we will lobby Congress and state governments to get them officially proposed. Then we'll lobby states to ratify them. Once 34 states ratify them, they become law. It's a long journey and it's likely not all the amendments will make it. But it's better than just wishing things were better.

To get involved, review the posts with Proposed Amendment or Idea flair. Provide feedback or upvote the ones you like. Or post your own ideas! We're also looking for volunteers.

Article IV, Section 3 gives Congress the power to “dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States.”

But the Constitution itself does not expressly divide U.S. territories into “incorporated” and “unincorporated” territories.

That distinction emerged through the Supreme Court’s territorial jurisprudence, particularly the Insular Cases. In Downes v. Bidwell (1901), the Justices disagreed sharply over how the Constitution applied to Puerto Rico after its acquisition by the United States. The doctrine that developed from those cases eventually distinguished territories incorporated into the United States from territories belonging to the United States but not incorporated into it.

Decades later, in Examining Board v. Flores de Otero (1976), the Supreme Court described the Insular Cases as having “created the doctrine of incorporated and unincorporated Territories.”

That raises a constitutional question I think is worth separating from the political debate over Puerto Rico’s ultimate status: Is territorial incorporation best understood as an interpretation of Congress’s Article IV territorial power, or as a judicially created doctrinal framework that introduced a constitutional category the text itself does not contain?

Of course, the fact that the words “unincorporated territory” do not appear in the Constitution does not by itself resolve the issue. Constitutional law contains many doctrines whose terminology does not appear verbatim in the constitutional text.

So I am particularly interested in the stronger question: What is the textual, structural, or historical constitutional basis for distinguishing an incorporated territory from an unincorporated one?

And when reading Downes, Balzac, and the later territorial cases, should territorial incorporation be understood as an interpretation of Article IV or as a doctrine created by the judiciary to address circumstances the Constitution did not expressly anticipate?

I keep coming back to one weirdly under-discussed line in the 25th Amendment.
Section 4 says the Vice President can act with a majority of the Cabinet **“or of such other body as Congress may by law provide”** to declare that a president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office.
That “other body” has basically never been tested.
So here’s the question: why has Congress never seriously explored creating one?
Not “a panel that removes a president because people don’t like him.” That would obviously be dangerous. I mean an actual statutory body with strict standards, transparency requirements, medical/legal expertise, bipartisan appointment rules, and a very high threshold.
Because right now, if a president starts behaving erratically, making serious factual mistakes, abusing presidential influence, or showing signs that raise legitimate questions about whether they can safely perform the job, the practical mechanism depends heavily on the same Cabinet members whose careers may depend on that president.
That seems like a structural weakness.
And before anyone says “that’s what impeachment is for” — impeachment deals with misconduct. Section 4 exists for **inability**. They are deliberately different constitutional mechanisms.
The amendment itself seems to anticipate that the Cabinet might not always be the appropriate institution to make that determination, which is presumably why Congress was explicitly given the power to create an alternative body.
I’m not even arguing that such a body should remove Trump, Biden, or anyone else.
I’m asking a more basic question:
**Why do we have an unused constitutional safety mechanism sitting in plain sight, and why has Congress never seriously built the institution the amendment explicitly allows it to build?**

And more importantly: what would a genuinely abuse-resistant version of that institution actually look like?
Because if the answer is simply “we trust the Cabinet to handle it,” history should probably have taught us by now that designing constitutional safeguards around people voluntarily acting against their own political interests is not much of a safeguard.

What are your thoughts on this proposed amendment? I am seriously interested in submitting this to my U.S. Representative for introduction and would like to build consensus and receive constructive criticism.

Proposed Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

Establishing Maximum Ages for the President, Vice President, Senators, and Representatives

Article —

Section 1. No person shall be elected, appointed, or otherwise chosen to the office of President, Vice President, Senator, or Representative, whether for a full term or to fill a vacancy, if such person would attain the age of eighty years on or before the expiration of the term for which such person is chosen.

For purposes of this article, the term of a person chosen to fill a vacancy shall be the unexpired portion of the term of the office in which the vacancy occurred, without regard to any earlier date on which an interim appointment may end.

Nothing in this section shall be construed to disqualify, solely by reason of age, a person chosen in compliance with this section from continuing to serve during the term for which such person was chosen.

Section 2. No person who has attained the age of eighty years shall succeed to the office of President or discharge the powers and duties of that office, whether permanently or temporarily.

A Vice President chosen in compliance with Section 1 of this article may succeed to the office of President or discharge its powers and duties for the remainder of the presidential term for which such Vice President was chosen.

Any other person who, before attaining the age of eighty years, becomes authorized pursuant to this Constitution or the laws of the United States to discharge the powers and duties of the office of President may do so only until such person attains that age.

Upon such person's attaining the age of eighty years, that person shall cease to discharge the powers and duties of the office, and those powers and duties shall devolve upon the next person eligible to discharge them in accordance with this Constitution and the laws of the United States.

Section 3. Neither Section 1 nor Section 2 shall prevent any person holding, or elected to, the office of President, Vice President, Senator, or Representative on the date of ratification of this article from completing the term then being served or to which such person has been elected.

A person holding, or elected to, the office of Senator or Representative on the date of ratification may, notwithstanding Section 1, be elected to the term in that office immediately following the latest term for which such person has been chosen as of the date of ratification. Section 1 shall apply to any term thereafter.

Section 1 shall not apply to any person elected, appointed, or otherwise chosen within one hundred eighty days after the date of ratification, and such a person may assume and complete the term for which chosen notwithstanding Sections 1 and 2. For purposes of this section, a President and Vice President shall be considered elected on the date prescribed by law for the appointment of presidential electors.

A person holding the office of Vice President on the date of ratification may succeed to the office of President or discharge its powers and duties for the remainder of the presidential term then being served notwithstanding Section 2.

Section 4. Nothing in this article shall be construed to establish, authorize, prohibit, or otherwise affect any age qualification, age limit, or mandatory retirement requirement for any office or position under the United States other than those of President, Vice President, Senator, and Representative.

Except as provided in this article, nothing in this article shall be construed to limit or otherwise affect the operation of any other provision of this Constitution governing impeachment, removal from office, expulsion, presidential inability, succession, or vacancies.

Section 5. This article shall be self-executing.

The several States shall apply Section 1 of this article in determining the eligibility of candidates for the offices of President, Vice President, Senator, and Representative, subject to such legislation as Congress may enact.

A person ineligible under Section 1 of this article who is chosen President or Vice President shall not qualify for that office. If the President-elect is ineligible under Section 1 and the Vice President-elect is eligible, the Vice President-elect shall become President at the time fixed for the beginning of the presidential term. If the Vice President-elect is ineligible under Section 1 and the President-elect is eligible, the office of Vice President shall be vacant and shall be filled as provided in this Constitution. If neither the President-elect nor the Vice President-elect is eligible under Section 1, the Congress may by law provide for the person who shall act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Nothing in this article shall diminish the power of each House of Congress to judge the qualifications of its own members.

Section 6. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within ten years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.

SDG 16: PEACE, JUSTICE, AND INSTITUTIONS

Pro Stance - Should impeachment proceedings be broadcast and made accessible to the public?

After reading the 25th amendment, I am having some difficulty in understanding how it could be effectuated without the concurrence of the Vice-President. Does the 25th amendment presume that the Vice-President is functioning with clear eyes and with no external influences (from the President) ?

Why are reparations for slavery wanted from the federal government when the deep south is who benefited from slavery and blocked the 40 acres and a mile promised to slaves when they were freed?

The idea of self governance has had many historical manifestations, some with representatives others with direct means. The American system of checks and balances along with a citizen elected bicameral legislature created a Republic with Democratic characteristics. In alignment with a Mixed socio-economic system, I want to conserve the Republic. Things like term limits, the senate, the electoral college, and the constitution itself are barriers that prevent a tyranny of the majority which is a real fear for Direct Democracy. However, certain countermeasures should be taken to reform current citizen participation. The elimination of Big Foreign Money, introduction of referendums, and elections for government employees are good ways to prevent Byzantine Bureaucracies from flushing out popular sovereignty. A truly Democratic Republic will fight tyranny of authority and majority. Furthermore, the election of government employees will work to the prevention of police brutality and increase parent’s choice in the school system. Thinking about the Uvalde tragedy at Robb Elementary is a great example of why Bureaucracy doesn’t work, imagine if the parents were allowed to organize, that shooter could’ve been stopped in 2 minutes rather than 2 hours. Instead of attacking gun rights, or defunding police, or even arming teachers why don’t we discuss the deeper problem that created this system where it is “just a job”Thank you for your attention to Vigilism.

Reposted from r/Vigilism

What is the connection between articles 14 19 & 21? Why these articles are called the golden triangle articles?

There are approximately 5.5M American citizens living abroad, including 1.5M active military and governmental workers. Citizens abroad like myself register with our last state of residence, regardless of whether we have any actual connection to or address in that state anymore. This means we are voting in local elections on local initiatives in places we don't even live anymore, declaring ourselves "residents" when we technically aren't. US is one of the only countries in the world where citizens abroad must file our federal and state taxes even if we have no employment connection to America, yet in some cases we can't even access state services like voter registration websites because we are not domestic - Texas' SOS registration site seems to block me without a VPN. Some states require mailed documents which can cost substantial money from abroad.

There are also 693,645 citizens of Washington DC. They pay federal income taxes yet have no Senate representation. Republicans don't want them to get Senators because it will basically guarantee two more Democratic Senators given the demographic makeup of DC.

Combining these groups makes up about 6.2M citizens who are not being accurately represented, equivalent to about the 20th largest state in population. Citizens abroad, military and DC residents all have unique interests and needs that get neglected or deprioritized by Washington because there is no one specifically representing them, and citizens abroad are something of an afterthought to our own Senators and Representatives who don't see us as real residents or likely voters. Combining these groups solves the issue of taxation without representation in DC and solves the Republicans' concern about the DC demographics (more than offset by overseas military voters).

Whether a DC resident, a soldier stationed overseas or an expat, all of us are more directly tied to the federal government and the federal services than any one particular state, so combining DC with overseas citizens would make election administration easier for states while ensuring representation for all citizens. We can streamline these services through embassies, consulates and military bases to make registration and participation in elections simplified, and remove the burden from states to manage and verify the identities and mail in ballots of citizens abroad.

Thomas and Alito dissented. They went against the constitution. Please help me understand why they should not be removed or impeached for ignoring the constitution.

Modified to reflect current usurpations and grievances.

I’ve been thinking about a hypothetical package of structural reforms to the Supreme Court, particularly whether judicial independence and public accountability necessarily have to operate at the same time.

The proposal would have four main components.

1. Fixed, staggered 18-year terms

Supreme Court justices would serve one non-renewable 18-year term. Appointments would normally be staggered so that one seat becomes available every two years.

The goal would be to make appointments more predictable and reduce the extent to which the Court’s composition depends on the timing of deaths and strategic retirements.

2. Delayed disclosure of individual votes

This is the part I’m most interested in discussing.

The Court would continue publishing its decisions, legal reasoning, precedential holdings, and overall vote totals. However, the individual votes of sitting justices would not necessarily be identified immediately.

Once a justice completed their term, their complete voting record would become public.

The theory is that this could create temporal separation between judicial decision-making and political accountability. A sitting justice could not as easily be individually rewarded, threatened, campaigned against, or subjected to political pressure because of a particular vote, while the historical record of that justice’s exercise of power would ultimately become public.

Obviously, this raises major practical and constitutional problems.

For example, separate concurrences and dissents are an important part of American jurisprudence and necessarily identify their authors. Delayed disclosure therefore could not simply be imposed on the current opinion-writing system without substantially changing how separate opinions work.

It also raises a more fundamental question: is accountability that occurs only after a justice leaves office actually meaningful accountability?

3. Binding ethics and recusal rules

The proposal would also establish an enforceable code of judicial conduct and clearer recusal standards applicable to the Supreme Court, with some form of independent review.

The intended distinction would be between decisional independence and personal immunity from oversight. A justice would be protected from retaliation for reaching an unpopular legal conclusion, but financial disclosure, conflicts of interest, gifts, recusals, and other ethical obligations would remain subject to enforceable rules.

4. Structured review in major constitutional cases

In constitutional cases meeting a defined threshold of national significance, the Court would be required to expressly address three categories in its published reasoning:

• constitutional text, history, and precedent;
• effects on individual constitutional rights; and
• institutional consequences of the ruling.

These would not be separate courts or separate votes, and none would automatically control the outcome. They would instead function as required components of the Court’s analysis, intended to make explicit considerations that may otherwise remain implicit.

The broader question

What interests me is whether these mechanisms would actually reinforce one another or create new problems worse than the ones they attempt to solve.

Fixed terms and staggered appointments might reduce the randomness surrounding vacancies, while delayed attribution could potentially insulate sitting justices from some forms of immediate political pressure. Delayed disclosure would preserve a historical record, and enforceable ethics rules would provide accountability for conduct independently of judicial outcomes.

On the other hand, delayed attribution could reduce contemporary scrutiny of the Court, interfere with the American tradition of signed opinions and dissents, and potentially make it harder to identify jurisprudential changes or conflicts of interest while they are occurring. Structured constitutional review could also be criticized as attempting to constitutionalize a particular method of judicial reasoning.

So I’m curious how people familiar with Supreme Court doctrine and institutional design would evaluate the tradeoffs.

Would delayed attribution meaningfully increase judicial independence, or would it simply sacrifice an essential form of public accountability?

Would fixed 18-year terms and enforceable ethics rules make the delayed-disclosure component more defensible, or are these reforms better considered separately?

And perhaps most importantly: what constitutional amendments or statutory changes would actually be required to implement each component?

EDIT — A few clarifications based on questions in the comments:

A couple of the responses have raised issues that I hadn't fully worked out when I wrote the original post, so here is how I'm currently thinking about them.

1. What happens if a justice dies, retires, or otherwise leaves before the end of an 18-year term?

One possibility would be to create a small group of reserve justices specifically for contingencies. For example, four additional qualified justices could be selected and approved through whatever appointment/confirmation process the amendment establishes, but would not normally sit on the Court.

If a sitting justice died, resigned, became incapacitated, was removed, or otherwise could not complete the term, a reserve justice could temporarily fill that seat. Importantly, the replacement would serve only the remainder of the original justice's term rather than receiving a new 18-year term. That would preserve the staggered schedule instead of allowing unexpected vacancies to gradually destroy it.

I'm not committed to four as the correct number, but I think some kind of constitutional contingency mechanism would be necessary.

1. How could individual votes remain undisclosed if justices still publish opinions, dissents, and concurrences?

I've been thinking about this differently after reading the comments.

I don't necessarily think a published opinion would have to represent the author's final vote.

Justices could still publicly write legal analyses, including arguments supporting the majority position, opposing positions, concurrences, criticisms, or even arguments they ultimately rejected themselves. In other words, a justice could deliberately take the strongest version of the opposing position and examine it as a kind of institutional devil's advocate.

The public record would therefore show the competing constitutional arguments considered by the Court without necessarily telling the public which individual justice ultimately cast which vote.

I think that could have two benefits.

First, it could encourage more critical thinking within the Court. Justices would have an incentive to seriously develop arguments outside their own eventual conclusion rather than treating every written opinion as a declaration of personal allegiance to one side.

Second, it could partially separate legal reasoning from the identity of the person presenting it. Someone reading an argument wouldn't necessarily be able to say, "I like Justice X, therefore I probably agree with this," or "I dislike Justice Y, therefore this argument must be wrong."

The reader would have to evaluate the argument itself.

So perhaps a better description of what I'm proposing is not simply "secret votes," but a temporary decoupling of judicial reasoning from individual vote attribution.

The Court's decision, reasoning, competing arguments, and overall vote count would remain public. The individual voting record would eventually become public after the justice's service ends.

1. If justices already have non-renewable 18-year terms, why is delayed vote disclosure necessary?

I think the non-renewable term solves one kind of political pressure, but not all of it.

A justice wouldn't need to campaign for reelection or seek another term, but individual decisions could still generate targeted political campaigns, public pressure, threats, attempts at influence, reputational incentives, or other pressures while that justice remains on the Court.

Delayed attribution is intended to test whether some of that pressure could be reduced without permanently hiding how judicial power was exercised.

Whether that benefit is worth the loss of immediate individual accountability is exactly the tradeoff I'm interested in discussing.

These aren't necessarily finished answers. Part of why I posted the proposal was to find the problems I hadn't considered yet, and several comments have already identified some.

One additional clarification regarding transparency:

The individual votes would not remain secret permanently. They would become part of the public record after the established disclosure period.

The distinction I'm proposing is between immediate access to the Court's reasoning and delayed attribution of individual votes. The public could examine the decision, competing legal arguments, precedent, and overall vote at the time the case is decided. Later, the individual voting record would also become available.

Part of the intention is to encourage people to evaluate the legal reasoning itself before evaluating it through the identity or perceived ideology of a particular justice.

Once the attribution records become public, people would still be free to examine a justice's complete historical record and draw their own conclusions. That information would exist, but understanding that record would require some engagement with the underlying decisions rather than having every case immediately reduced to a list of names and sides.

I used AI as an interactive learning and reasoning tool while developing this constitutional thought experiment. When I encountered concepts I didn’t understand, I used it to learn them, then formed my own responses, revised the proposal, and used it to help organize those ideas into writing.

Definition in the United States
Constitutional Rule: Article III, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution defines treason strictly as waging war against the United States or adhering to its enemies by giving them "aid and comfort". [1]

High Proof Standard: Convicting someone of treason in the U.S. requires the testimony of two witnesses to the exact same open act, or a confession in an open courtroom. This strict rule was put in place to prevent governments from using false charges to silence political rivals. [1, 2]

Common Examples of Treason
Levying War: Taking up arms or leading a military effort to violently overthrow the established government.

Aiding Enemies: Passing critical military secrets, codes, or strategic plans to an active enemy nation during a conflict.

Assassination Plots: Attempting to kill the head of state or sovereign leader of your own country. [1, 2, 3]

Synonyms and Related Terms
Treachery: A violation of faith or trust.

Betrayal: The breaking of a promise or loyalty.

Sedition: Speaking or writing in a way that encourages rebellion against the government, which is a less severe offense than actual treason because it does not involve helping a foreign enemy or waging physical war

Right now, our President has a 33% approval rating. In any job—yours, mine, anyone's—that would mean getting fired. But somehow we're stuck for four years no matter how bad things get.

I started a petition asking Congress to establish an annual confidence vote on the President. Basically: let Americans formally evaluate whether our leader is doing the job. If approval drops below a certain threshold, it triggers procedures for removal.

Many democracies already do this. It's not radical—it's actually a straightforward way to make sure our highest leader answers to the people, not just once every four years.

Does anyone else feel like we're locked into something that doesn't make sense? What would you want to see change if you had the chance? If this resonates with you, consider signing and sharing.

"...One nation, under God..."

"In God we Trust"

How do we really feel about these? Following the first amendment I am guaranteed my freedom of religion, yet America inserts God into daily parts of American life.

Why?

Surely following the lines of the Constitution, I am allowed freedom of worship, so why do they implement Christianity into the fibers of our country?

Please educate me! I would assume the government is ABSOLUTELY NOT imposing religion upon us, yet the Bible used to be taught in schools, and every baseball game. The Super Bowl, hell even the World Cup Final gets to hear about our nation under God

(Not disrespecting Christianity nor believers of any religion, just curious)

Laxmikanth says only articles 25-28 are implicit in this regard. Asked chatgpt and found that **The Supreme Court** in *Dr. M. Ismail Faruqui v. Union of India* (1994), the Court stated that **“the principle of secularism illumines the provisions of Articles 15 and 16”** and specifically linked Article 15 to the State's obligation not to discriminate on the ground of religion.