Amend It: Supreme Court Term Limits, the Electoral College, and a Bigger House

The panel put fourteen proposed amendments on the table and voted. Three made the cut: proportional representation with six votes, Supreme Court term limits with four, and a national popular vote with three. War powers and ethics were left off because nobody would argue against them. Thirty minutes each, and Carl Able took the opposing side every time.

BLOCK ONE: A BIGGER HOUSE, A DIFFERENT BALLOT

Washington gave one substantive speech at the Constitutional Convention and used it to ask for a single change, moving the House ratio from one representative per 40,000 people to one per 30,000. Today it is one per 761,000. The 435 cap is not in the Constitution. It comes from the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929. Madison argued in Federalist 58 that the House should grow with the population, and in Federalist 55 that no political question is harder to get right than the number. The first amendment Congress ever sent to the states, in 1789, was a formula to keep the House growing. It is the only one of the original twelve never ratified. On the table: the House Expansion Commission Act, H.R. 2797, and the Fair Representation Act, H.R. 4632, which pairs multi member districts with ranked choice voting. Fifty percent of Americans want proportional representation. Two percent can name it.

BLOCK TWO: EIGHTEEN YEARS ON THE BENCH

Article III says judges serve during good behaviour. It does not say for life. Hamilton defended life tenure in Federalist 78 and 79. Brutus XV answered him. Jefferson warned in 1820 about judges nobody can check. On the table: H.R. 1074 from Khanna and Beyer, and Senator Whitehouse's Supreme Court Biennial Appointments and Term Limits Act, reintroduced July 2026. Both are statutes, not amendments, and that is the fight.

BLOCK THREE: EVERY VOTE COUNTS THE SAME

Madison said on July 19, 1787 that the people at large were the fittest to choose a president, and named slavery as the reason it would not work. Hamilton defended the design in Federalist 68. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact stands at 222 of the 270 electoral votes it needs, eighteen states and the District of Columbia, forty-eight short. Whether it survives a Compact Clause challenge is untested, and stays untested until it reaches 270. Katie Chorbak changed her position on the Electoral College live on air.

PANEL

Carl Able, Katie Chorbak, John Moses, Tim Boivin.

Seventy-seven percent of Americans say the system needs major change. Twenty-seven percent think it can happen.

Operation Roll Call is September 26.

Issues over party. Straight talk over spin.