Photo composition showing the US constitution with a “B-, Needs Work” legend overlapped. Photo: Orinoco Tribune.
By Neal Resnikoff – Dec 4, 2022
The U.S. Constitution, a product of the rich capitalist ruling class, has a number of serious problems of lack of democracy, some of which plague most of us to this day. Here are a few instances which expose the fallacy of the argument that the U.S. government stands for democracy vs autocracy in the world.
First, it is important to remember that the earliest version of the U.S. Constitution did not allow Blacks, Indigenous people, women, or poor white males to vote. And it supported slavery.
Another example is how the Presidential election results are not based on the popular vote, but on the Electoral College, which gives special decision-making powers to smaller states and the political maneuvers of politicians in state legislatures or Congress.
We have been reminded about the anti-worker Constitution in discussions of the railway workers’ demands in contract negotiations with the highly profitable rail corporations. Congress and the Supreme Court—a tool of the rich ruling class–have used the Constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce (Article 1, Section 6) to intervene in railway labor contract struggles some 18 times to stop the workers from exercising their right to withhold their labor in order to achieve their needs and demands.
US Senate Votes to Force Rail Workers to Work Without Sick Leave
Congress has now gone along with this in the workers’ current struggle to have some time off for their life’s needs and paid time for any sickness that comes up. We should note that so-called social democrats such as AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) and Bernie Sanders have gone along with imposing a government settlement on the workers and violating their right to decide on deals with their employers.
And, current cases in the undemocratic Supreme Court, with decisions made by various political appointees regardless of popular public opinion, also show clearly anti-working class aspects of the Constitution. Article II, involving the Electoral College and method of choosing the president says: “Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which a state may be entitled.” We know that legislators are generally backed by big money from the rich ruling class, and vote their way.
There is a case coming up before the Supreme Court on December 7, Moore v Harper. If it passes, it will support allowing legislators in each state to disregard the results of the popular vote in a presidential election and send in a set of electors pledged to their favorite, instead. If this passes, ultra-reactionary control of government is virtually guaranteed, legal experts say, since this is the character of key state legislatures at this time.
The Supreme Court was set up by the Constitution in Article 3, section 1 which declares that the country’s judicial power lies in the Supreme Court. The politically chosen Supreme Court has generally made decisions based on its reading of the Constitution.
Recently, showing how the Supreme Court can be quite anti-people, it has been striking down many decisions by lower federal courts, without debate or discussion. These include, according to an opinion piece in the New York Times, issues ranging from voting rights, to suing Donald Trump for profiting from his hotels when he was president and not allowed to, to throwing out work requirements for Medicaid recipients, to stopping the House of Representatives from claiming Trump violated his power in appropriations for the Border Wall, to stopping return of asylum seekers to Mexico, to the stopping of the governor of Tennessee from blocking abortion procedures. 12.2.22 (Opinion | How the Supreme Court Is Erasing Consequential Decisions in the Lower Courts – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
There is an obvious need for us to change the current capitalist ruling class system into one in which the working class and majority of the population is empowered to make decisions of, for, and by the people. And to change the Constitution to reflect this and the need for peace and justice.
NR/OT
Neal Resnikoff
Neal Resnikoff is a Chicago based long-time anti-war activist and member of the Chicago Anti-war Coalition (CAWC). Resnikoff is also an organizer for the community group Albany Park, North Park, Mayfair Neighbors for Peace and Justice.
