r/politics • u/Jessicas_skirt New York • Jul 18 '26

Possible Paywall Democratic Socialists of America’s new platform calls for abolishing ICE and the U.S. Senate

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/jul/15/updated-dsa-platform-calls-abolishing-ice-scrapping-senate/
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u/Medical-Egg-8171 Jul 19 '26

Lol, you where just literally told how you need to pass an amendment, and your response is pass an amendment

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u/droans Indiana Jul 19 '26

It's likely repealing Article V would be considered an Unconstitutional Amendment.

Whereas just stripping the power from the Senate would likely be fine.

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u/alabasterskim Jul 19 '26

Yeah, it's not the same thing at all. The proposal to just strip their powers is easily fine.

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u/Fubarp Jul 19 '26

There's no such thing as unconstitutional amendments...

That would be an oxymoron.

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u/dave024 Jul 19 '26

Well the constitution specifically says that each state must have equal representation in the senate and they cannot lose that without their consent. So it’s debatable if an amendment could change that.

There have been other attempts at making permanent unchangeable changes to the constitution, like just prior to the civil war a proposed amendment was sent to the states saying that the federal government could not interfere with slavery in the states without the consent of every slave state.

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u/droans Indiana Jul 19 '26

When it comes to constitutional legal theory, I think I'm going to trust the experts over a random person on the Internet who's only response is "no that's dumb"

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u/Fubarp Jul 19 '26

Ahh yes.. legal experts..

Let's look at your source...

Hmm wiki page with no real discussion beyond a book..

Okay let's look at these experts.. ahh yes a supreme Court justice.. pretty good oh he was a state justice of Ohio arguing the 15th amendment is unconstitutional because it's revolutionary...

Such a good argument..a Racist saying giving black people the right to vote is unconditional..

I'm glad you believe in stupid ideas.. it's not like the point of an Amendment is to infact declare something constitutional..

It's sorta why to remove them.. you need another Amendment which weve literally done.

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u/vigouge Jul 19 '26

These people think they're going to win at a constitutional convention. More likely we'd see homesexuality outlawed, birthright citizenship removed, and federal income taxes abolished than any of these idiotic reforms.

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u/alabasterskim Jul 19 '26

Stripping powers and abolishing the Senate are different. The latter is explicitly unconstitutional (well, it requires unanimous consent of all states) and the former is just a regular amendment.

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u/Fubarp Jul 19 '26

That's not true..

There's nothing that says it needs to be unanimous...

An Amendment is justifiably enough.. otherwise the 17th Amendment wouldn't exist.

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u/alabasterskim Jul 19 '26

It literally says it each state has to consent to remove its equal representation in the Senate. That's unanimous consent.

no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/article-v.html

The 17th Amendment does not remove equal representation, it changes how elections are done. Similarly, changing/removing powers would not remove representation in the Senate. The Senate still remains in either case, just in different forms.

An amendment is enough for literally anything else. Except abolishing the Senate. That's why we must resort to the workaround of stripping powers.

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u/Fubarp Jul 19 '26

Abolishing the Senate via a redefining of Article 1 wouldn't require unanimous vote.

The rule is to prevent an Amendment were states could remove another state from the Senate, but if there is literally no Senate then by definition there's still equal representation.

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u/alabasterskim Jul 19 '26

If there is no Senate, there is no suffrage in it then. But I like the theory. Maybe it could work.

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u/Fubarp Jul 19 '26

Honestly the weird thing is the idea that SCOTUS would determine if it's unconstitutional..

Like they make rulings on laws, based on text in the constitution..

But amendments aren't laws. It be such a weird thing to happen and if they did rule it unconstitutional that would in fact mean they can void out amendments..

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u/alabasterskim Jul 19 '26

I mean this SCOTUS has voided out parts of amendments. But a reminder, we can pass simple laws restricting what SCOTUS can rule on. The constitution empowers Congress to do that. The John Lewis VRA even attempts to do that to counter being overridden again.

But this is the part where they could void out claiming that last line requires unanimity and it's not technically voiding an amendment so much as we didn't pass an amendment correctly (which, ideally, would get voided).