The kinds of questions you’ll debate
Sample Proposals
Six sample amendment proposals in the style of the October docket — organized around the structure of government, powers & accountability, and rights. Each carries a founding anchor, a why-it-matters-today note, and a balanced brief.
How to read a proposal
Like the Constitution itself, each proposal is numbered text that says what changes — never why. The “why” is your job as a delegate. The proposals are drafted for debate; they are not pending before Congress. Prepare every proposal on both sides — you won’t know in advance which side you’ll argue, and perfecting amendments may improve any section.
Structure of government
SG-1 — An Amendment Establishing Congressional Term Limits
Founding anchor: The Articles of Confederation (1781) limited delegates to three years of service in any six; the 1787 Convention debated “rotation in office” and chose to trust elections instead. The Twenty-Second Amendment (1951) later limited the presidency.
Section 1. No person shall serve more than twelve years as a Senator, nor more than twelve years as a Representative.
Section 2. Service of less than half a full term shall not count against the limits established by this article.
Section 3. This article shall apply only to terms beginning after its ratification.
Why it matters today: Congressional incumbents are re-elected at rates above ninety percent, and majorities across party lines tell pollsters they favor term limits — while critics answer that experience is an asset and that voters already hold this power.
Both sides at a glance
In favor
- Rotation in office is a founding idea: the Articles required it, and Jefferson championed it.
- Open seats lower the barriers that keep teachers, veterans, and engineers from serving.
- The Twenty-Second Amendment shows term limits can work without crippling an institution.
Against
- Voters already impose term limits at every election; the Constitution trusts them with that choice.
- Expertise matters: forcing out experienced legislators shifts power to unelected staff and lobbyists.
- The framers considered rotation in 1787 and rejected it — a reasoned choice, not an oversight.
SG-2 — An Amendment Providing for Direct Election of the President
Founding anchor: The Electoral College emerged from one of the Convention’s hardest puzzles — James Wilson urged direct popular election, others objected, and the Committee on Postponed Parts produced the elector compromise (Article II; Federalist No. 68).
Section 1. The President and Vice President shall be elected jointly by the direct vote of the people of the several States and the District of Columbia.
Section 2. The ticket receiving the greatest number of votes shall be elected, provided it receives at least forty percent of the votes cast; failing which, a runoff election shall be held between the two leading tickets.
Section 3. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Why it matters today: Two presidential elections since 2000 were won without a national popular-vote plurality, renewing a debate the framers began — between counting every vote equally and preserving the states’ structural role in choosing the executive.
Both sides at a glance
In favor
- One person, one vote: every American’s ballot should weigh the same wherever it is cast.
- Campaigns would court the whole country rather than a handful of swing states.
- Wilson’s direct-election argument lost in 1787 partly for reasons — slow communication, no national ballot — that no longer exist.
Against
- The Electoral College is part of federalism’s architecture: the states, not one national electorate, choose the executive.
- It rewards coalitions that span regions and keeps less-populous states from being ignored.
- Nationwide runoffs and recounts could deepen, not calm, contested elections.
Powers & accountability
PA-1 — An Amendment Requiring a Balanced Federal Budget
Founding anchor: The republic’s first great fiscal fight — Hamilton’s 1790 plan to fund the national debt as “the price of liberty,” against Jefferson’s warning that public debt lets one generation bind the next.
Section 1. Total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed total receipts for that fiscal year, unless three-fifths of each House of Congress shall provide by law for a specific excess.
Section 2. The provisions of this article may be suspended during a declared war, or upon a declaration of national emergency approved by three-fifths of each House.
Section 3. This article shall take effect in the fifth fiscal year after its ratification.
Why it matters today: The national debt now exceeds the nation’s annual economic output and interest payments rival the defense budget — while economists warn that rigid balance rules can deepen recessions.
Both sides at a glance
In favor
- Jefferson’s point stands: perpetual borrowing taxes citizens who cannot yet vote.
- Nearly every state balances its budget under a similar rule and governs soundly.
- The escape valves — supermajorities, war, emergency — preserve flexibility for true crises.
Against
- Hamilton was right that borrowing capacity is a national asset — it built the country’s credit and carried it through wars and depressions.
- Mandatory balance forces spending cuts or tax increases in recessions, exactly when they hurt most.
- Enforcement is a trap: it invites judges into budget line-items the Constitution assigns to Congress.
PA-2 — An Amendment Establishing Eighteen-Year Terms for Supreme Court Justices
Founding anchor: Article III grants judges tenure during “good Behaviour.” Hamilton defended life tenure in Federalist No. 78 as the shield of judicial independence; the Anti-Federalist Brutus warned of judges accountable to no one at all.
Section 1. Justices of the Supreme Court shall serve terms of eighteen years, staggered so that one term commences in each odd-numbered year.
Section 2. Upon completion of a term, a Justice shall continue in judicial service on a court of the United States, as provided by law, with undiminished compensation.
Section 3. This article shall apply to Justices appointed after its ratification; Justices then in office shall retain tenure during good behavior.
Why it matters today: Justices now commonly serve three decades, confirmation fights have become national crises, and the timing of vacancies turns on chance — prompting term-limit proposals from scholars across the political spectrum, and equally broad warnings against unsettling judicial independence.
Both sides at a glance
In favor
- Regular, predictable vacancies lower the stakes of each confirmation and cool the wars over them.
- “Good Behaviour” was written when tenure was naturally short; eighteen years restores the framers’ proportions.
- Section 2 preserves independence: judges keep judicial office and full salary for life.
Against
- Hamilton’s logic holds: any clock on a Justice’s service invites rulings made with one eye on what comes next.
- Scheduled vacancies make the Court’s composition a guaranteed issue in every campaign — politicizing it further, not less.
- Two tracks of Justices and contested transition timing would generate new constitutional litigation of their own.
Rights
R-1 — An Amendment Securing Religious Conscience
Founding anchor: Article VI’s ban on religious tests for office (1787), and Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance (1785), which argued that the duty owed to conscience “is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.”
Section 1. Neither the United States nor any State shall deny any person public office, employment, licensure, or benefit on account of religious belief or the absence thereof.
Section 2. Government shall not substantially burden a person’s sincere exercise of religion unless the burden is the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling governmental interest.
Section 3. Nothing in this article shall be construed to establish any religion or to deny any person the equal protection of the laws.
Why it matters today: Section 2 would write the “compelling interest” standard — announced in Sherbert v. Verner (1963), narrowed in Employment Division v. Smith (1990), and partially restored by statute — into the Constitution itself, settling by amendment a question courts and Congress have traded back and forth for decades.
Both sides at a glance
In favor
- Madison’s claim — conscience precedes the state — deserves the Constitution’s strongest protection, not a statute any Congress can amend.
- A single clear national standard ends decades of whiplash among courts, Congress, and the states.
- Section 3 preserves non-establishment and equal protection in the text itself, answering the chief objection directly.
Against
- A constitutional “compelling interest” test would let objectors seek exemptions from neutral, generally applicable laws — from public health to civil rights — case by case.
- Smith’s rule has a republican logic: democratically enacted laws that apply to everyone bind everyone equally.
- Freezing a contested judicial standard into constitutional text is exactly what amendments should avoid.
R-2 — An Amendment Securing Privacy in Personal Data
Founding anchor: The Fourth Amendment (1791), born of colonial fury at general warrants and writs of assistance — James Otis’s 1761 argument against them was, John Adams later wrote, the spark of American independence.
Section 1. The right of the people to be secure in their personal data, communications, and digital effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.
Section 2. No warrant shall issue for such data but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the data to be searched and the persons or things to be seized; nor shall this right be diminished because such data is held by a third party.
Section 3. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Why it matters today: Most of a modern life’s “papers” — messages, locations, finances, health records — sit on third-party servers, where the “third-party doctrine” has long limited Fourth Amendment protection. Carpenter v. United States (2018) narrowed that doctrine but left its boundaries unsettled.
Both sides at a glance
In favor
- This is the Fourth Amendment’s original promise translated: your “papers and effects” now live on servers.
- Ending the third-party doctrine by amendment gives durable protection no shifting court majority can erode.
- Otis’s objection to general warrants applies precisely to bulk data collection.
Against
- Rigid text ages badly amid fast-moving technology; courts adapting the Fourth Amendment case by case — as in Carpenter — can keep pace.
- A blanket warrant rule for all third-party data could slow urgent investigations — missing persons, fraud, cyberattacks — where speed saves victims.
- Key terms (“personal data,” “digital effects”) are undefined and would breed decades of litigation.
On balance
The briefs above are written to be equally strong on each side. Including a topic is not an endorsement of any position; the aim is good-faith debate, with every delegate prepared to argue either way.
Next: the Delegate Guide turns a brief like these into a three-minute speech, step by step.
