In the early 1970s, my husband and I briefly hosted a well-to-do refugee couple from dictator Marcos’ Philippines. In the Philippines, the husband was a doctor, forced to start at square 1 again in the American medical system. The wife had run a TV station, managed 5 children (each with their own nanny!) and was named to the country’s forthcoming Constitutional Convention. I don’t believe the Philippines Constitutional Convention ever actually convened; things got worse under Marcos, which is why they were refugees, in Boston with us.

A Constitutional Convention. What a good idea! Our last one was in 1787, almost 250 years ago. What has changed in the U.S. since then?

· 50 states in the Union, starting from 13 back then.

· Civil war.

· Population of 330 million spaced over 3,000 miles of terrain plus Alaska, Hawaii and various territories, grown from under 4 million in 1790.

· Massive immigration including large numbers of poor, uneducated indentured white servants in the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s.

· Major shift in our ethnic mix, so that white people are no longer the majority.

· Life expectancies – if you had been born as recently as 1900, your life expectancy was only about 50 years; today it’s in the high 70s. This results in a whole new phase of life for most Americans.

· Voting rights, first for men of property, then for all men after the freeing of slaves, then in 1920, for women. Still today, many American citizens battling to register and vote as the law permits.

· Diaspora of Black people from slavery on southern farms and plantations, to new lives in northern cities.

· Massive shift in our country from largely rural back then, to largely (80%+) urban today, with only 2% of us working on farms.

· Technology of the 20th and 21st centuries, radically affecting the speed of transportation and communications.

· The industrial revolution.

· Massive medical and dental improvements.

· Massive plumbing and sanitation improvements.

· Electricity in all buildings and public spaces.

· Nuclear power, for weapons and for electricity.

· And each reader can no doubt add to this list.

This isn’t the country of our Founding Fathers; they would scarcely recognize it. They must be credited for doing an amazing job of establishing an American Constitution that has held up quite well (with 27 Amendments) through all this change.

And yet…are our processes for fine-tuning the Constitution adequate, given all our change? The Constitution itself contains language for how to initiate a (second) constitutional convention but it’s never been done.

A 2020s Constitutional Convention could be scoped to look at numerous issues such as:

· State vs. federal rights in areas that simply hadn’t happened in the 1700s.

· The value or otherwise of the Electoral College.

· Voting systems and best practices of voting registration and balloting; should the federal government set minimum standards for voting practices at all levels?

· The size of the Supreme Court; term limits or easier ways to step down.

· Equal Rights for women and all other disadvantaged groups.

· The proper role and size of the federal government in this federation as its population grows;

· The proper role of America in the wider world and outer space.

· Establishing a new constitutional convention process every 150(?) years.

· And each reader can no doubt add to this list.

What’s the hazard here? Simply, people might get changes they hadn’t envisioned and didn’t like.

What’s the value? Giving a voice to groups that didn’t exist in 1787 or existed but had no voice.