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This article makes three contributions to the literature on constitutional change. First, it reinforces the theoretical foundations of constitutional entrenchment by defining the spectrum of constitutional permanence. Second, it offers an original taxonomy of entrenchment clauses, including preservative,
transformational and reconciliatory entrenchment. Third, in concluding that absolute entrenchment undermines the participatory values that give constitutionalism its meaning, it proposes an alternative to entrenchment: the entrenchment simulator. Whereas entrenchment clauses prohibit constitutional amendment, the entrenchment simulator provides a promising alternative that both embraces the expressive function of entrenchment and remains consistent with the promise of constitutionalism.

Commentators have suggested that the unsuccessful national referendum to ratify the 1992 Charlottetown Accord created an expectation of popular participation requiring national referendal consultation in major reforms to the Constitution of Canada. In this article, I inquire whether federal political actors are bound by a constitutional convention of national referendal consultation for formal amendments to the basic structure of the Constitution of Canada. Drawing from the Supreme Court of Canada's Patriation Reference, I suggest that we cannot know whether federal political actors are bound by such a convention until they are confronted with the question whether or not to hold a national referendum in connection with a change to the Constitution's basic structure. I conclude by suggesting, perhaps counterintuitively, that layering a conventional requirement of national referendal consultation onto the existing requirements for formal amendments to the Constitution's basic structure could well undermine democracy, despite our common association ofreferenda with democratic legitimacy. I suggest instead that a national referendum should be an alternative path, not an additional step, in constitutional amendment.

It has become increasingly common for courts in constitutional democracies to invalidate constitutional amendments. Courts have enforced both written and unwritten limits on how political actors may exercise the formal amendment power. They have relied either on constitutional texts that expressly entrench provisions against formal amendment or on their own interpretation of these texts as implicitly establishing an unalterable constitutional core. Although the Supreme Court of Canada has not yet invalidated a constitutional amendment, modern case law provides the constitutional basis for the Court to declare that a future constitutional amendment violates either the text or spirit of the Constitution of Canada. In this Article, I trace the origins and evolution of the theory and doctrine of unconstitutional constitutional amendment, I explain how the theory and doctrine may apply today in Canada, and I suggest a detailed framework to evaluate when and how the Supreme Court of Canada may exercise the extraordinary residual constitutional authority to invalidate a constitutional amendment.

Commentators have suggested that the unsuccessful national referendum to ratify the 1992 Charlottetown Accord created an expectation of popular participation requiring national referendal consultation in major reforms to the Constitution of Canada. In this article, I inquire whether federal political actors are bound by a constitutional convention of national referendal consultation for formal amendments to the basic structure of the Constitution of Canada. Drawing from the Supreme Court of Canada's Patriation Reference, I suggest that we cannot know whether federal political actors are bound by such a convention until they are confronted with the question whether or not to hold a national referendum in connection with a change to the Constitution's basic structure. I conclude by suggesting, perhaps counterintuitively, that layering a conventional requirement of national referendal consultation onto the existing requirements for formal amendments to the Constitution's basic structure could well undermine democracy, despite our common association of referenda with democratic legitimacy. I suggest instead that a national referendum should be an alternative path, not an additional step, in constitutional amendment.

The American traditions of constitutional amendment raise contrasts and continuities with constitutional amendment in much of the rest of the democratic world. On one hand, the United States Constitution stands apart from many foreign democratic constitutions: it is extraordinarily difficult to amend, it does not entrench any current form of formal unamendability, and it has resisted the global trend toward the doctrine of unconstitutional constitutional amendment. On the other, state constitutions in the United States more closely resemble the world's democratic constitutions: they are freely susceptible to formal amendment, they entrench current forms of formal unamendability, and they recognize the doctrine of unconstitutional constitutional amendment. Constitutional amendment in the United States is therefore peculiar in entrenching both departures from and convergences with constitutional amendment in the larger democratic world. In this article prepared for a symposium on "State Constitutional Change," I explore how American state constitutions differ from the United States Constitution, yet resemble the world's other democratic constitutions in how they structure constitutional amendment. I conclude with thoughts on the organizing logic of constitutional amendment under the United States Constitution.

The current scholarly focus on informal constitutional amendment has obscured the continuing relevance of formal amendment rules. In this article, I return our attention to formal amendment in order to show that formal amendment rules—not formal amendments but formal amendment rules themselves—perform an underappreciated function: to express constitutional values. Drawing from national constitutions, in particular the Canadian, South African, German, and United States constitutions, I illustrate how constitutional designers may deploy formal amendment rules to create a formal constitutional hierarchy that reflects special political commitments. That formal amendment rules may express constitutional values is both a clarifying and a complicating contribution to their study. This thesis clarifies the study of formal amendment rules by showing that such rules may serve a function that scholars have yet to attribute to them; yet it complicates this study by indicating that the constitutional text alone cannot prove whether the constitutional values expressed in formal amendment rules represent authentic or inauthentic political commitments.

In this Essay I explore the impetus for the Seventeenth Amendment, which was in large measure driven by an effort to curb corruption in senatorial elections. I begin by exploring the difficulty of formal amendment in the United States. I explain the rules of formal amendment and I review briefly the empirical literature suggesting that the United States Constitution is one of the world's most difficult to amend, if not the most difficult. Then, I discuss the Progressive Era, a period of time during which formal amendment seemed much easier than it is today. I review the movement and its purposes, and I situate the four Progressive Era amendments. Finally, I focus on one of these four amendments, the Seventeenth, and consider the motivations driving its adoption as well as current critiques about its effectiveness. I conclude by questioning whether repealing the Seventeenth Amendment would necessarily reinstate indirect senatorial elections as a matter of practice, whatever it would mean as a matter of formal law.