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Partisan Advantage and Constitutional Change: The Case of the Seventeenth Amendment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Ronald F. King  and
Susan Ellis
Ronald F. King
Affiliation:
Tulane University
Susan Ellis
Affiliation:
University of Michigon
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Extract

A constitution is a set of rules written by current political actors designed to bind future political actors. As fundamental law, it stipulates basic rights and duties, defines collective goals, establishes institutions and procedures, and makes claims regarding both identity and allegiance. In their effort to control the future, constitutional founders usually include special provisions regarding change. Alterations to the fundamental law are more difficult to accomplish than alterations to more ordinary laws. Founders often require super-majorities, even special, repetitive, or con-current super-majorities, as a condition for amendment. In this sense, even democratic constitutions impose conscious constraints on the exercise of democratic will. The intention is to limit the pace of adaptation and also to bias the pattern of outcomes.

Type
Articles
Information
Studies in American Political Development , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , Spring 1996 , pp. 69 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

The authors would like to thank Tulane University's Murphy Institute of Political Economy and the University of Michigan's Rackham Travel Fund for their financial support. Christopher Achen, David Brady, Nancy Burns, Douglas Dion, Eileen McDonagh, Norman Ornstein, Douglas Rose, Charles Shipan, Eric Uslaner, and Stephen Weatherford offered helpful comments. We give special thanks to Walter Dean Burnham for encouragement, assistance, and generosity with his data set.

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