The National Constitution Center's "Restoring the Guardrails of Democracy" Initiative

First post in the Volokh Conspiracy symposium on the NCC "Restoring the Guardrails of Democracy" project.

In the wake of the 2020 election, the National Constitution Center launched its "Restoring the Guardrails of Democracy" initiative. We commissioned three teams—conservative, libertarian, and progressive—to identify potential reforms to address current threats to American democracy and strengthen its institutional guardrails. Team Conservative included Sarah Isgur, Jonah Goldberg, and David French—all of The Dispatch. Team Libertarian included Clark Neily and Walter Olson of the Cato Institute and Ilya Somin of the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. Team Progressive included Edward Foley of The Ohio State University and Franita Tolson of the USC Gould School of Law.

The three teams worked independently, but they converged in important ways. All three teams called for reforming the Electoral Count Act of 1887 (though Team Conservative's report didn't say this explicitly because, as Sarah Isgur explained during our launch program, it was so important they "just thought that went without saying"). The conservative and progressive teams both proposed reforms to the primary system. They also both described education as central to preserving democracy, with Team Conservative calling for reinvigorating history education and focusing on teaching students critical thinking skills, and Team Progressive calling for strengthening civic numeracy (whereas Team Libertarian focused on expanding foot voting as an alternative to increasing civic knowledge).

We hope that the Guardrails of Democracy Initiative, like other National Constitution Center projects such as the Madisonian Commission and the ongoing Constitution Drafting Project, contributes to a nonpartisan national conversation about the most important challenges facing American democracy and the best ways to meet them.

 

Comments

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I’m not sure I understand some of the complaints…the Electoral Count Act was invoked, in the face of great pressure, and Biden declared the winner, just the result which was supposed to happen. So what contingency are we guarding against by revising the Act?

[bernard11]

A more competent insurrection?

[Jacob Grimes]

Probably “misinformation” will come up without any understanding of what electoral news and campaigning was like in the first 100 years after the founding.

[Bob from Ohio]

Let’s ignore the large majority of one party, that will restore democracy. Well, a version of democracy.

[bernard11]

So a majority of Republicans believe Trump’s lies. So what?

What are we supposed to do, install him in office to satisfy those gullible fools?

[Bob from Ohio]

I was referring to the selection of the three groups in this project. You can’t ignore the views of the majority of one party when discussing how to “restore guardrails”.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The eight participants do not, in aggregate, lean far enough right?

Or the delusional element of the Republican Party should be better represented in what is designed to be reasoned debate among competent adults?

[Sarcastr0]

Actually, excluding the group that doesn’t want guardrails is a very good idea.

Sorry, Bob, the semi-fascists don’t get a seat at the democracy table.

[Bob from Ohio]

“semi-fascists don’t get a seat at the democracy table”

Democracy is all about excluding groups one doesn’t like. The more one excludes, the more democratic it is.

You don’t want to “restore guardrails”, you want to dominate. Seems pretty fascistic.

[Sarcastr0]

Excluding groups that don’t believe in your project is pretty normal, actually.

I want to restore guardrails.

You’ve said principles don’t matter. I don’t want you in the room.

[Brett Bellmore]

Excluding groups that don’t believe in YOUR project is pretty much categorically contrary to the notion of democracy.

[Sarcastr0]

If you’re going to pretend 2020 was stolen, you don’t believe in democracy. It would be foolish to let such bad faith actors discuss how to save the thing they want to destroy.

[Brett Bellmore]

So, your alternative is to declare that you get to decide who can discuss stuff? And you think YOU are defending democracy?

[New signup]

What a huge contrast between the article by Walter Olson, versus the article by “progressive” leftist Edward Foley.

Foley’s article was basically a huge pile of slimy leftist lies piled on top of each other. You can really see how much these leftists hate normal people and enjoy lying to them and manipulating them. While not all slimy, manipulative liars are leftists, such people do tend to gravitate to leftism because that’s the political faction that wields the most power.

Olson’s article was about actual issues that occurred in the election, and ideas on how to fix them.

I’m not sure I support this symposium. It tends to legitimize evil pro-government leftists like Edward Foley. I think Edward Foley ought to do the right thing and move to Venezuela, where pro-government extremists like him always get the election results they want, while also blaming critics for every possible thing that goes wrong in the country.