THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 9, 1997 TAG: 9702080033
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Perry Mogan
LENGTH: 70 lines
Knowing that in time many Americans would come to consider themselves constitutional lawyers, the founding fathers made amendments to the charter easy to offer and hard to enact.
Some 10,000 amendments have been introduced in Congress; 26 have been adopted, one (Prohibition) canceled by another as people tired of bathtub brewing.
Many early amendments seem silly now. One would have stripped citizenship from any American who accepted a gift from a king. Another would have guaranteed the ``literal construction of the Constitution'' - a farcical lick against Supreme Court justices recasting the document according to their own lights.
But not all the failed amendments lacked merit, and one in particular seems to have been coined for our times. This diamond among the discards would have restricted the proposing of amendments to every 10th year. The intent, one assumes, was at once to denote constitutional change as a solemn matter, and to discourage the sort of promiscuous agitation so evident now in the Virginia legislature and the U.S. Congress. It's commonplace for newfangled amendments to be advanced and rejects refurbished as a means of propagandizing partisan pieties. This exercise is all the more enjoyable for being done at public expense, and for the opportunity to avoid the drudgery of addressing specific problems with concrete terms.
The limelight seldom falls on tinkerers with fine print who struggle to adjust laws to changing times. It's so much more exhilarating to take an expansive view, getting more into the Thou-Shalts and Thou-Shalt-Nots of constitutional construction. Which, ironically, makes necessary the very judicial interpretation that conservatives habitually deplore.
No advocate could spell out the effect of the noble-sounding parental-rights amendment to the Virginia Constitution recently defeated in the Senate on a party-line vote, or even specify what ill the amendment was designed to cure.
Asked about that, the sponsor, Sen. Stephen H. Martin, R-Chesterfield, said nothing came to mind: ``There are no specific concerns . . . that would prompt this amendment.'' Still, Attorney General James S. Gilmore hailed as a ``very mainstream idea'' the amendment which, in varying forms, has failed of passage in all 28 states that have considered it.
But the Christian Coalition's for it, and, presumably, for Chesapeake Sen. Mark Earley's amendment making it unconstitutional for the General Assembly to pass any laws legalizing casino-style gambling. The sentiment's fine, but why stop with forestalling this issue when so many other vexations could be placed beyond the reach of elected officials?
The really big show, of course, is the balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This amendment gives over to appointed judges some portion of the bedrock powers of the Congress so that legislators can have a free pass for unpopular spending or taxing decisions.
The Supreme Court surely must abhor the idea of being involved in budget-making, but ultimately the choice will be between an amendment defined by judges or an amendment unenforced and the Constitution flouted.
Where is Spiro Agnew now that he's needed to rail against the pusilanimous pussyfooters in Congress who, to borrow from Walter Lippmann, want their hands cuffed to stop their trembling?
Another hardy perennial amendment seeks to get back at a lout who burned a U.S. flag and whose kind doubtless will burn more if they can also mock a Constitution that forbids their doing so. The market doesn't offer a cheaper ticket to notoriety.
Most amendments offer their sponsors dreams-for-sale appeal at the polls, which accounts both for the cottage industry of amendments and for the high barriers erected against them by the framers. MEMO: Mr. Morgan is a former publisher of The Virginian-Pilot.Mr. Morgan
is a former publisher of The Virginian-Pilot.