The Imperfect Constitution

David Barton, Christian revisionist "pseudo-historian", tells us that separation of church and state is a myth and that the Founding Fathers wanted the government to co-govern with Christianity. A few dozen states want to draft legislation depriving children born in this country from immigrant parents of citizenship, even though it's a constitutional right. Bobby Jindal signs a "nullifation act" prohibiting mandatory health insurance. The Virginia Attorney-General issues orders that gays rights are not protected. The Supreme Court of the United States rules that corporations have rights and can donate endless amounts of money to election campaigns.

And I received this morning an e-mail from conservatives who say that my Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness is due to end with Barack Obama.

So what do Americans really believe about the constitution since we have been treated to claims and counter-claims over the past 18 months? Penn Schoen Berland conducted a poll for the Aspen Insitute of over 1,000 Americans on the issue of the Constitution. The poll finds that Americans are quite content with the Constitution but want more direct power both in terms of electing Supreme Court justices and ending the electoral college to elect the President.

By 64 to 19 Americans endorse the Constitution's systems of checks and balances as necessary to prevent one branch from dominating the government. Freedom of Speech was seen as far and away the most important right guaranteed by the Consiitution and only 28% think the press has too much freedom. 61 to 10 believe the Constitution should safeguard even more rights. Majorities support gaurantees of geneder equality, the right to privacy, the right to own property and the right to an education. 55% support the right of equality regardless of sexual orientation, while 47% believe the right to healthcare should be constitutionally protected as well.

Mark Penn claims that the most contentious issue over the Constitution is about how to interpret it. Republicans support a literal intepretation while Democrats a more living interpretation consistent wth the times, while independents are split in the middle. Upper-income Americans believe the Constitution protects all Americans equally and lower-income Americans are not so sure of that.

51 to 41% rejects giving corporations the same rights as citizens. 44 to 39% rank protecting national security over civil liberties. 56% can see circumstances in which police should be allowed to violate civil liberties for national security--in this case torture althugh worded as "exceptional measures" to extract information.

71% are dissatisfied with the way the federal government operates today, believing the fauklt in too much partisanship. 68% believe the system today is operating worse than was intended by the framers of the Constitution.

On fixing the system. 69% call for a mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court justices and 66% favor term limits for Congress. Most worrisome, 51-34% favor popular election of Supreme Court Justices. 74% want to abolish the Electoral College and have a direct popular vote for President. And by a 49-41% margin, the public favors holding national referenda for constitutional amendments. 49% favor full representation in Congress for the District of Columbia.

So by and large, the American public favors more individual rights, including education and health, and want to tinker around the edges. However,they defer on issues of national security. So Mark Penn and associates tended to find that the American people were not the lunatics some hope they are. But stay tuned.