Erwin Chemerinsky — a legal scholar and the dean of the University of California-Berkeley School of Law — believes that the U.S. Constitution is outdated and presents a threat to our democracy.
As Chemerinsky argues in his forthcoming book, "No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States," the document was created at a different time for a vastly different country. The result, in his view, is a series of issues that only begin with the Electoral College and extend to the U.S. Senate and Supreme Court.
"There were choices that were made in 1787 that were necessary then, but that have come to really haunt us," Chemerinsky told KCUR's Up To Date.
"The Electoral College makes no sense as a way of choosing the president. But in the 20th century, not once was the person who won the popular vote the loser in the Electoral College. But there have been population shifts and partisan realignment. So already twice this century, in 2000 and in 2016, the loser of the popular vote became president."
He also believes that the way the U.S. Senate is organized is fundamentally undemocratic.
"In order to secure approval of the Constitution, it was decided that each state would get two senators in 1787, when the difference between the largest state and the smallest state was 12 to one," Chemerinsky says. "Now, the difference between California and Wyoming is 68 to one. In the last session of Congress, there were 50 Democratic senators and 50 Republican senators. The 50 Democrats represented 42 million more people than the 50 Republican senators."
- Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law
