Once proposed, an amendment must be ratified by either three-fourths of the state legislatures or conventions in three-fourths of the states. In 225 years, ours has been amended on only 18 occasions. Ah, for the days when justices of the Supreme Court were nominated and confirmed on their merits as jurists.The prologue has a great introduction to the Constitution and all the current Amendments. When outsiders criticized Stevens as a turncoat who abandoned the Republican cause, they didn't understand that it had abandoned him first.Lately politicians and pundits have been piling on with proposals to amend the Constitution.

Six Amendments is an absolutely unprecedented call to arms, detailing six specific ways in which the Constitution should be amended in order to protect our democracy and the safety and wellbeing of American citizens. His arguments (whether you agree with them or not) are very weak.

).Now, under one cover, here come six more. Any reader, whether agree or disagree with the six proposals in this book, if the reader is fair, will respect his careful and thorough reasoning. Would that such a text as "Six Amendments" serve as a spring board for the national discussion about the issues that divide us, some of which are contained (even if only in part) in this book.There are no star ratings because I have no idea how to rate this book. Glad I read it!Weather or not you agree with what John Paul Stevens lays out as the amendments he would make, this is a great read. Hardline discussion about election financing and gun control—two issues that have become major thorns—receive succinct discussion and shows just how passionate Stevens is on the matter. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. He was a great justice and he is very eloquent and articulate, but the book was not as well thought out as I would have liked-- in other words the book seems rushed.Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2020.The changes recommended in this book to our Constitution would go a long way towards making society more equitable for everyone. I found myself enjoying this read more than I thought I would.Six Amendments is Justice Stevens’ prescription for a better America by reversing particular Supreme Court decisions through the ratification of amendments to the Constitution.In this book, Justice John Paul Stevens proposed six changes to the Constitution that he feels are necessary to avoid potential problems in the future of our country and in some cases correct mistakes made by Supreme Court decisions. Six Amendments revisits half a dozen old, lost battles. Ilya Shapiro Former Contributor. I highly recommend "How to Read the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence! Stevens explores the power of federalism in the United States, where SCOTUS and Congress have repeatedly fallen to the limits of the Constitution during discussions of state sovereignty on certain issues of national importance. A pretty dry read (more like a textbook) but it contains enough personal touch from JPS to keep it moving. Since the Constitution was ratified in 1789, more than eleven thousand amendments have died or been shunted aside.With 27 of today’s state legislatures controlled by Republicans, 17 by Democrats and six split, it is difficult to see success for any of Justice Stevens’ proposals, even the ones that are not strictly partisan.State and Federal legislators being largely in control of the amendment process, their support – or least, their lack of opposition – is essential. I appreciated Stevens' insights and enjoyed hearing this material in closer to layman's terms, outside of the context of cases and textbooks. His descriptions were occasionally somewhat confusing, but generally informative and thoughtful. The premise of the book is accurately captured by the title, which proposes six amendments to the Constitution. But an a thoughtful read, nonetheless.A fun and quick read for me. He seems to think that presenting them in a loopy way will definitely convince us then moves on to the history of the idea's legal interpretation.This short, dense book should be required reading for every American, preferably before reaching voting age. These Books Explain Why You Feel That Way. An interesting read, and a relatively short book. There's the occasional factual error (the big one that leapt off the page to me was his mention of Henry IV being the king of England in 1600...), but this is likely due to the nature of the earliness of the draft. Still, his recommendations deserve a lot more consideration than they will ever receive.While I appreciated the message and found Stevens's ideas interesting and illuminating (some of these problems were ones of which I had never heard, such as commandeering), I didn't think his arguments for the amendments were very strong, relying on only one small reason followed by a history of the idea and Stevens's beliefs without anything to back it up. He cited so many opinions; he’s got such a wealth of knowledge of legal history. The book has valuable insights for all sides.

Amending a country’s constitution is not an easy thing to do.