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Written by Mark R. Levin and published by the Penguin publishers, “The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic” probably stands out as one of the most incisive publications in the analysis of American electoral politics. Mark R. Levin has developed the case, in several bestselling books that the philosophies undergirding our social order and governmental system are untying. In The Liberty Amendments, he refers to the founding fathers and the constitution in a hatch shell for guidance in reestablishing the American republic. The representatives of 1787 Constitutional Resolution and the delegates to every state’s ratification convention anticipated a time when the Federal government may breach the Constitution’s limits and instigate oppressing the people. Agencies including the IRS and EPA and programs for instance Obama care validates that the Framers’ fright was prescient. Consequently, the Framers submitted two methods for revising the Constitution. The second was envisioned for our current circumstances, endowing the states to dodge Congress and call for a convention for the tenacity of amending the Constitution. Levin reasons that we, the people, can evade a perilous aftermath by seeking alternative, using the technique called for in the Structure itself. The Framers embraced ten constitutional amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, which would preserve discrete rights and state power.Levin lays forth eleven precise prescriptions for reinstating our founding ideologies, ones that are reliable with the Framers’ design. His proposals including term limits for members of Congress and the limits of Supreme Court justices, as well as limits on federal spending and taxing, are pure common sense, thoughts shared by many. They elucidate on the wisdom of the Founding Fathers including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and many lesser-known but fatefully important men in their value and in the method of relating them to the present state of the nation.Question 1 According to Mark R. Levin, it’s high time for creating amendments to the United States Constitution. For a while the people who made the alterations may have believed they were strengthening the nation, the reality is that the changes have gone against the very wise philosophies upon which the state was built, and the practical consequences have changed to be nothing but negative. To be specific, the changes have left the state with nothing but always increasing taxes, daily-mounting debt, and unending, soft tyranny for particular with ever-reduced autonomy for everyone else (Mark chapter 1). Mark alludes that the reform we want runs further than legislation-deep. It is a reform that is to transpire at the very source: it is the structure itself that must be restructured. Only radical constitutional alteration can undo the radical and erroneous reform that has come earlier. Specifically, Levin recommends 11 constitutional modifications. They include; term limits for members of Congress; the Senators’ election to be returned to national legislatures; limits of terms for Supreme Court Fairness (and the prospect for federal and state-owned legislatures to supersede Supreme Court verdicts with a supermajority); limits on federal expenditure (with an eye to shortening federal debt); limits on taxation; limits on the amount of power Congress may delegate to the central bureaucracy; limiting the federal regime from meddling with economic doings that do not pertain to interstate or global trade; necessitating the government to reimburse property owners for the depreciation of property caused by rules; permitting the states to modify the constitution unswervingly (without having to pass through Congress); permitting states the right to downturn the laws and protocols of Congress with a supermajority; calling for voters to avail photo identification at election cubicles (Mark chapter 1). Ideally, the federal government could not be expected to make the anticipated changes itself (since numerous amendments entail restraining this government’s power). With gratitude, though, it does not necessitate; for as the writer points out, provisions are present under Article five of the constitution that permit the document to be revised not just at the initiation of Congress, but at the instigation of a nation led convention which is precisely what Levin is advocating for here.Question 2 Mark is not calling for a constitutional resolution. He's suggesting that we have a state dialog with the objective of revising the Constitution under its Article five. As the writer points out, Article 5 offers for two approaches of amending the Constitution, but none of the case does this process highlight for a constitutional convention. The first method is for the Congress to pass an anticipated amendment then afterward forward it to the state senates for ratification a process that has happened 27 times. The alternative and the one Mark are suggesting involves the direct solicitation of two-thirds of the state legislatures for a convention for suggesting amendments, which, if recommended, would equally have to be approved by three-fourths of the states. This technique has been tried but never successfully in our past (Mark Chapter 5). In his article, Mark says that the misunderstanding of others about this procedure lay in the account that the language entails the word "convention," but it's perilous to comprehend that this is a convention not for particular de novo constitution but for the suggestion of specific and clear amendments. Of course, there are some risks in opening up even this restricted type of convention, but this risk is alleviated by several factors that Mark outlines and is warranted, in any occasion, by the earnestness of our present state of affairs. The most significant check, to which Levin already alluded, is that none of this could occur without the authorization of three-fourths of the states. We equally should derive some ease from the realism that the Framers themselves incorporated this amendment process since they knew that they could not expect every difficulty the republic would bump into and that only experience and antiquity could serve that purpose (Mark Chapter 5). Finally, the probability, that this procedure could be hijacked by those antagonistic to our founding ideologies, is greatly abridged because Congress' role in the formal application process that Mark is suggesting would be marginal and ministerial. Most prominently, Mark is not advocating a new constitution or any form of revision of our founding principles. He pursues to restore our undying founding values and shore up the constitutional construction to preserve them.Question 3 Originally, under Article one and three, Clauses 1 and 2 of the Constitution, every single state legislature voted its state's senators for a term of six-years. Each state, irrespective of size, is eligible to two senators as part of the Connecticut Compromise amid the small and huge states. This juxtaposed with the House of Representatives, a body chosen by popular vote, and was termed as an uncontroversial verdict to make; James Wilson was the only advocate of popularly nominating the Senate and his suggestion was defeated. There were many benefits to the original system of electing senators. Proceeding to the Constitution, a state body was one where states efficiently formed nothing more than perpetual treaties, with citizens retentive of their loyalty to their inventive state. Nevertheless, under the Constitution the alliances were subordinated to a central government; the senators’ election by the countries reassured Antifederalists that there would be some security against the swallowing up of nations and their influences by an always-expanding federal government, providing a check on the supremacy of the federal government (Mark Chapter 3). In addition, the longer terms and evasion of popular election revolved the Senate to a body to "temper" the populism of the House. Because the Representatives were in a two-year direct appointment cycle, the senators would afford to "take an additional detached view of matters coming before Congress”. State governments also retained the hypothetical right to "instruct" their senators to pick out for or against suggestions, giving them both direct and indirect image in the federal government. The Senate as well provided formal bicameralism, with the participants of the Senate and House in authority to completely distinct constituencies; this aided defeat the challenge of the federal government being the focus on "special interests". Members of the Constitutional Concord also saw it as a correspondent to the House of Lords, covering the "better men" of humanity; it was expected that they would deliver more coolness and constancy than the House of Representatives owing to the senators' status. Amendments to Inaugurate Term Limits for Members of Congress By itself would make the condition worse, for these subsequent reasons; It would change even more power to staffers and petitioners, who would endure in place, gathering power and proficiency, as members came and departed. Additionally, it would inhibit members, who classically arrive without even the proficiency to decide who the authorities are, from procuring such expertise. Finally, it would avert members from accruing the connections and favors that would otherwise enable them to be effective (Mark Chapter 3).Question 4 The Congress or people being able to overturn a decision by the Supreme Court would only make the procedure of selecting judges more politicized than it is, and confer the Congress more power over Supreme Court decisions than it ought to have (Mark Chapter 4). What is desirable in judges is greater fidelity to the Constitution as formerly meant and understood, and the forces to get re-elected push the Congress away from constitutional loyalty. They currently pass legislation with open disrespect for its nonexistence of constitutionality; perhaps on tenterhooks the Supreme Court will spend it. The solution, as I propose, would be to hire them not to a particular court, but to a solitary pool of federal judges where they would be drawn arbitrarily to serve on specific courts for only a single term.Question 5 Article 5 establishes two approaches by which the Constitution might be amended: Either two-thirds of mutually Houses of Congress suggests the amendment or two-thirds of the states call a constitutional agreement. Amendments suggested by either method “shall be lawful to all Intents and Resolutions, as Part of this Constitution, when sanctioned by the Legislatures of three-fourths of a number of States, or by Convention in three-fourths thereof”A state that approves an amendment reaches a decision to be bound once three-fourths of the states have equally agreed. There is no direction in the text of Article Five or from concurrent expressions of its draftsmen that discourses whether a state may withdraw its ratification (Mark Chapter 4). Congress acknowledged the 17th Amendment ratified on April 8, 1913, with a proclamation issued by the Secretary of the Senate regarding the same on May 31, 1913. At this point, the 17th Amendment became part and parcel of the United States Constitution. There was no additional action that would be taken by a state legislature concerning this matter after the approval. A constitutional revision “by lawful proposal and sanction, has become a part of the Constitution and has to be respected and given weight the same as other requirements of that instrument The Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution recognized direct election of Senators in the United States by popular vote. The revision supersedes Article I, and 3, Clauses 1 and 2 of the Constitution, where senators were voted for by the state legislatures. It also alters the process for filling posts in the Senate, permitting for state legislatures to license their governors to make provisional appointments till a special election can be done. Under the original requirements of the Constitution, senators were voted in by the state legislatures; this was envisioned to prevent the federal regime from indirectly escaping with the powers and resources of the states (Mark Chapter 4). By altering the technique of electing senators, the states lost the representation they had in the central government and that, in addition to disrespecting the unnamed able state suffrage section of Article V, this has led to the gradual "slide into humiliation" of state legislatures, same as an overextension of central power and the rise of special interest categories to fill the power vacuum previously occupied by state legislatures. In addition, worries have been raised concerning the supremacy of governors to assign temporary replacements to fill unoccupied Senate seats, both in terms of how this endowment should be interpreted and whether it ought to be permitted at all. Accordingly, renowned public figures have expressed a wish to reform the Seventeenth Amendment while a small number of politicians have called for absolute repeal of the amendment.Question 6 Mr. Levin also in his article discusses about Amendments to Limit Federal Spending and Taxation that is; limiting the federal government to outlays not exceeding 17.5% of Gross Domestic Product, and regulating total state tax collections from any foundation to no more than 15% of a person's pay (Mark Chapter 5). This either would not work, for underlying reasons such as; Neither Gross Domestic Product nor "income" is well-defined and may not be properly used as a determinant in a constitutional revision; Putting a cap on assortments or spending would only make every spending something the Supreme Court would have to choose, and it is not fitted out to do that. Finally, if there were an exemption for a state of war, then Congress could get around it by protecting the country in a perpetual state of war. The reform wanted is to forbid fiat currency to be utilized as legal tender. It is debated at "Flaws in Balanced Budget Amendment (Mark Chapter 5).

Work Cited

Levin, Mark R. The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic. New York, 2013. Penguin press.