A Twenty Eight Amendment
After years of studying court cases and listening to Supreme Court justices question witnesses
and render decisions, one thing becomes immediately apparent: you can trace virtually every
problem in America back to a single judge or a group of judges who decided matters they should
never have entertained. Cases that should have been ruled unconstitutional on their face were
instead subjected to elaborate mental gymnastics designed to keep unconstitutional law in place.
Take the 16th Amendment as an example. It reads:
“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived,
without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or
enumeration.”
The original Constitution was explicit: direct taxes must be apportioned among the states. A
plain reading of this amendment suggests it was intended to remove that apportionment requirement
with respect to income — but it does not actually say that. It does not define income. It does
not specify what it overrides or why. A court operating with integrity and a commitment to plain
meaning would declare it void for vagueness and move on.
Our courts do not do that. Instead, they produced this:
“Moreover, in addition, the conclusion reached in the Pollock case did not in any degree involve
holding that income taxes generically and necessarily came within the class of direct taxes on
property, but, on the contrary, recognized the fact that taxation on income was in its nature an
excise entitled to be enforced as such unless and until it was concluded that to enforce it would
amount to accomplishing the result which the requirement as to apportionment of direct taxation
was adopted to prevent, in which case the duty would arise to disregard form and consider
substance alone, and hence subject the tax to the regulation as to apportionment which otherwise
as an excise would not apply to it.”
Read that again. A straightforward constitutional question — is this amendment valid? — was
answered with a paragraph of circular reasoning designed to reach a predetermined conclusion. The
court did not rule on the question before it. It manufactured a framework that made the answer
it wanted appear inevitable.
This is not an isolated incident. This is the consistent, material pattern in virtually every
significant case that has come before our courts. Definitions are stretched, doctrines are
invented, and plain language is tortured until something unconstitutional is made to appear
legal. The accumulated damage from a century of these decisions is not abstract. It gave us
unelected agencies writing binding rules as though they were a legislature. It gave us a federal
government telling a farmer what he can and cannot grow on his own land. It gave us an income tax
built on an amendment that never clearly authorized one.
There is only one structural fix. We need a constitutional amendment that returns our courts to
strict compliance with plain meaning and common sense. If an amendment or statute violates the
Constitution, by its clear reading, it is void. No workarounds. No paragraphs of judicial
invention. No mental gymnastics. Void.
That is what led me to propose the amendment below. It needs to be in front of every member of
Congress, every state legislator, and every voter who still believes the Constitution means what
it says. If we cannot fix our courts, we cannot fix our country.
Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution
Section 1.
All courts, tribunals, and bodies exercising adjudicative authority shall interpret this Constitution, all federal and state laws, treaties, executive orders, and rules and regulations having the force of law solely by the plain meaning of their text as an ordinary citizen would have understood it at the time of ratification or enactment. The exclusive reference for resolving any question of meaning is a dictionary widely used at the time the provision was adopted. Where definitions in such dictionaries conflict, the meaning is not plain and Section 3 applies. No other source — including legislative history, statements of individual legislators or legislative bodies, the intent of drafters, agency guidance, judicial decisions, custom, usage, or any source external to the text — shall govern or inform interpretation.
Section 2.
No court or adjudicative body shall supply meaning where text is silent, fill gaps in any law or regulation, or expand or restrict plain meaning on any basis external to the text. Silence in the law is not authority to act. The absence of a prohibition is not a grant of power.
Section 3.
Any law, provision, or regulation whose plain meaning cannot be determined by an ordinary citizen using a dictionary widely used at the time of its enactment is void and unenforceable. A government actor proceeding under a void law has no lawful basis for that action and shall not prevail; a private claim depending on a void law shall be dismissed.
Section 4.
Any decision rendered in violation of this Article is void. A decision void under this Article constitutes an impeachable offense for which removal from office is the remedy. Any citizen directly harmed by such a decision may petition the House of Representatives for impeachment proceedings and shall receive a written response within sixty days. No immunity doctrine shall bar proceedings under this Article.
Section 5.
This Article shall be interpreted by its own standards — by the plain meaning of its text as an ordinary citizen would have understood it at the time of ratification, using a period-specific dictionary, without construction, precedent, or any interpretive method this Article prohibits.