Revised Constitutional Articles — Working Draft, May 2026
Preamble
We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, secure justice, liberty, and equality, promote sustainability, and ensure the welfare of present and future generations, do ordain and establish this Constitution. We seek to maximize freedom while minimizing inequality, and to create a society in which opportunity, dignity, and civic responsibility are shared by all.
Article I — Bill of Rights (Freedoms)
The following rights are guaranteed to all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States. They shall not be abridged, suspended, or conditioned upon any status, citizenship, wealth, or circumstance.
Freedom of Expression
All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the right to speak, write, publish, assemble, petition their government, and engage in digital discourse freely, without government censorship, subject only to restrictions narrowly necessary to prevent imminent and demonstrable harm. Private entities retain the right to moderate content on their own platforms. No government at any level shall use the threat of regulation, taxation, or legal process to coerce private entities into suppressing speech on the government’s behalf.
Right to Privacy
All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the right to personal, digital, and data privacy. The collection, use, storage, or sale of personal data without explicit, informed, specific, and revocable consent is prohibited. Consent buried within general terms of service or obtained through coercion or deception shall not constitute valid consent under this provision.
All entities conducting business within, deriving profit from, or offering services to persons within the jurisdiction of the United States are subject to this provision regardless of their nation of incorporation, headquarters, or citizenship of ownership. There shall be no distinction between domestic and foreign entities with respect to the privacy rights of persons within this jurisdiction.
Bodily Autonomy
All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the right to healthcare, reproductive choice, and full control over their own body. No law shall compel any person to carry, continue, or terminate a pregnancy against their will. No law shall require any medical procedure, treatment, or intervention without the free and informed consent of the person affected, except in narrowly defined circumstances of acute incapacity where a designated representative acts in the person’s documented interests.
Due Process and Equal Protection
No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. All persons are entitled to fair and timely trials, equality under the law, access to legal representation, and protection from discrimination. The principle of equal protection shall be interpreted expansively by courts to cover categories of persons as society evolves, and shall not be limited to categories enumerated at the time of this Constitution’s adoption. No category of person shall be deemed inherently unworthy of equal protection under this provision.
Democratic Participation
All citizens of voting age shall have equal, unobstructed access to vote. Representation shall be fair, inclusive, and proportional to population. No law, regulation, administrative rule, or electoral practice shall be constructed or applied in ways that dilute, suppress, complicate, or obstruct the exercise of this right. Voting infrastructure shall be treated as essential public infrastructure and funded accordingly.
Right to Bear Arms
Citizens may possess arms for self-defense, hunting, and sport. No person, corporation, private entity, or organization may possess, deploy, or develop weapons designed primarily for military combat, capable of automatic fire, or capable of autonomous operation without direct human control of each individual discharge. The determination of which specific weapons fall within these categories shall be subject to ongoing judicial review as weapons technology evolves. The spirit of this provision is the protection of individual rights and community safety — not the arming of private power against the public.
Article II — Bill of Responsibilities (Duties)
Rights without responsibilities produce a society of takers rather than builders. The following duties reflect the contract between the individual and the community that protects and supports them. This contract runs in both directions — the community owes the individual the rights enumerated in Article I; the individual owes the community the duties enumerated here.
Civic Service (Enforceable Duty)
All citizens shall contribute to society through a period of civic service. This duty is universal and shall not be conditioned upon participation in any public program, tied to economic status, or applied selectively to any group. The wealthy and the poor serve alike. Service is the shared obligation of citizenship.
Service may be fulfilled through military or civilian roles. Civilian service is the primary framework and includes but is not limited to: healthcare support, environmental restoration, education assistance, infrastructure development, emergency response, elder care, childcare support, community development, and digital infrastructure. Military service is one option among many, chosen voluntarily within the service framework.
The federal government shall establish and maintain an independent, non-partisan Civic Service Administration responsible for: classifying service roles across all sectors; assessing individual capacity through standardized, evidence-based, and non-discriminatory methods; matching citizens to appropriate service based on documented ability; and updating role classifications regularly as society and technology evolve.
No citizen shall be deemed unable to contribute. The Administration shall maintain an expansive classification of roles accessible to persons of all abilities, ensuring that persons with disabilities, chronic illness, or other limiting conditions are matched to meaningful roles within their capacity rather than excluded from service.
Civic Engagement (Aspirational Guidance)
Citizens are encouraged to engage actively in civic and political life — to know their representatives, understand the institutions that govern them, participate in elections, and involve themselves in the ongoing project of democratic self-governance. Apathy and disengagement do not merely harm the individual — they weaken the entire fabric of the democratic contract. An informed and active citizenry is not merely a civic virtue. It is the foundation upon which this Constitution rests and the only reliable defense against its capture.
Fiscal Responsibility (Enforceable Duty)
All persons and entities deriving income from, conducting business within, offering goods or services to persons within, or holding assets within the jurisdiction of the United States shall contribute proportionally to public services and infrastructure through progressive taxation. This obligation applies regardless of citizenship status, place of residence, or place of incorporation.
All income generated from American consumers, through American infrastructure, or by workers within American jurisdiction shall be subject to taxation at American rates regardless of where the earning entity is legally domiciled. Corporate structures, subsidiary arrangements, intellectual property transfers, and other financial instruments designed primarily to reduce tax obligation without altering actual economic activity shall not be recognized as valid bases for reduced tax liability.
Political lobbying through any form of wealth transfer, gift, benefit, or thing of value is prohibited. Any elected or appointed official who solicits, accepts, or benefits from any transfer of value in connection with their official duties commits a felony and shall be removed from office and permanently disqualified from public service.
Duty of Truth in Public Office (Enforceable Duty)
Persons holding elected or appointed public office shall have a constitutional duty of honest dealing with the public they serve. Deliberate and material deception of the public on matters of public concern — including but not limited to the conduct of elections, matters of public health, the reasons for military action, and the state of the public finances — shall constitute a violation of this duty and grounds for immediate removal from office and permanent disqualification from future public service.
Environmental Stewardship (Enforceable Duty)
All persons share a duty of stewardship toward the natural environment that sustains human life. No person or entity shall knowingly degrade air, water, soil, or ecosystems in ways that impose costs or harms on present or future generations without full accountability, remediation proportional to the harm caused, and restitution to affected communities. This duty applies to all entities operating within or affecting the jurisdiction of the United States regardless of where the degrading activity physically occurs.
Article III — Economic Justice (Minimizing Inequality)
Extreme inequality of wealth and income is incompatible with functional democracy. When private wealth reaches sufficient scale it becomes private power — capable of purchasing political outcomes, capturing regulatory bodies, and overriding the democratic will of the population. The provisions of this Article are designed not to punish success but to prevent the accumulation of power that makes democracy impossible.
Pay Ratio Cap
No organization may compensate any individual — including executives, founders, board members, or any person in any role — at a total rate exceeding twenty times the total compensation of the lowest-compensated person whose labor benefits that organization.
Compensation shall be defined as total remuneration in all forms including but not limited to: salary, bonuses, commissions, stock grants, stock options at time of vesting, deferred compensation, retirement contributions, housing allowances, transportation benefits, personal use of company assets, and any other transfer of economic value. No form of compensation shall be excluded from this calculation through creative accounting, deferred structure, or novel financial instrument.
The ratio shall apply to all persons whose labor benefits the organization regardless of their employment classification — including employees, independent contractors, gig workers, and workers employed through subsidiary or third-party arrangements — where such persons are economically dependent upon the organization or perform labor integrated into its ongoing operations. The determination shall turn on economic dependence and operational integration, not on contractual label.
Wealth Ceiling
No individual shall accumulate or hold wealth exceeding one thousand times the current median household wealth as measured by the most recent Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances or equivalent official measure. This ceiling shall adjust automatically with each new official measurement.
Persons whose wealth exceeds the ceiling shall have a compliance period of three years to bring their holdings into compliance through spending, donation, investment in productive enterprises, or transfer to public benefit. Wealth that remains above the ceiling at the end of the compliance period shall be subject to a confiscatory annual tax until compliance is achieved.
Trusts, foundations, and other legal structures shall not be used to circumvent the wealth ceiling. Inherited wealth shall be subject to the wealth ceiling of the recipient.
Anti-Speculation Clause
Housing, land, water, energy, food systems, medical resources, communications infrastructure, and all other resources essential to human life, health, dignity, or participation in society shall be treated primarily as necessities for human use rather than as financial instruments for private profit.
The determination of which resources qualify as essential shall be subject to judicial review as technology, society, and human needs evolve. No enumeration of essential resources in statute or regulation shall be construed as limiting the application of this principle to resources not yet discovered, developed, or recognized as essential at the time of such enumeration.
”Let Them Leave” Clause
Any person or entity is free to relocate, reincorporate, or transfer operations outside the jurisdiction of the United States. However, assets, infrastructure, intellectual property, and economic value created within, rooted in, or dependent upon the United States system shall remain subject to United States jurisdiction regardless of where their owner relocates.
No person or entity may expatriate assets that were built upon, enabled by, or derived from the American system without full settlement of all tax obligations, worker obligations, and public benefit obligations. You may take your ball and go home. You may not take ours.
When a corporation ceases operations within this jurisdiction, the workers of that corporation shall have the first right to form a worker cooperative and continue operations using the assets left behind, at fair market valuation.
Workers’ Rights
All persons performing work within the jurisdiction of the United States, regardless of employment classification, citizenship status, visa status, or method of engagement, shall have the following rights:
The right to organize collectively and bargain as a group with any entity that benefits from their labor, regardless of whether they are classified as employees, independent contractors, gig workers, or any other category. No classification of work arrangement shall be used to deny workers the right to collective action.
The right to wages and total compensation sufficient to meet basic human needs as determined by independent assessment updated regularly to reflect actual costs of living.
The right to safe working conditions. The revolving door between workplace safety enforcement and the industries being regulated is prohibited.
The right to organize, strike, and engage in collective action without retaliation, termination, or legal penalty.
Anti-Extraction Clause
Financial and commercial activity that generates private profit solely through the extraction or redistribution of existing wealth — without creating productive economic value, goods, services, employment, or innovation — is a net negative to the public welfare and subject to regulation and dissolution.
The burden of demonstrating public benefit shall rest with the organization. An organization that cannot demonstrate that its activities create goods, services, employment at living wages, or genuine innovation shall be presumed to be primarily extractive. Financial returns alone shall not constitute public benefit for purposes of this provision.
Intellectual Property and Antitrust
No person or entity shall accumulate market power sufficient to eliminate meaningful competition in any essential sector of the economy. The duration and scope of intellectual property protections shall be the minimum necessary to reward innovation and shall not be extended for the primary benefit of existing holders at the expense of public access.
Essential medicines, medical treatments, and public health interventions developed with any public funding shall not be subject to pricing that places them beyond the reach of the population they were developed to serve.
Article IV — Social Rights (Freedom From Want)
A society that permits its members to suffer preventable deprivation is not a free society — it is merely a society that has decided whose suffering is acceptable. The rights enumerated in this Article reflect the collective determination that no person within this jurisdiction shall be left without the basic conditions of a dignified human life. These rights are not aspirations. They are enforceable commitments. The state shall be held to account for their delivery.
Healthcare
Universal and Free: Healthcare in the United States shall be universal, comprehensive, and free at point of service. No person shall be billed, charged a copayment, required to meet a deductible, or denied care at the moment of receiving it. Coverage includes without limitation: preventive care, primary care, specialist care, emergency care, mental health services, substance use treatment, reproductive healthcare including contraception and abortion services, dental care, vision care, hearing care, long-term care, and any other service that a licensed provider determines to be medically necessary.
Mental Health Parity: Mental health and substance use services shall be funded, staffed, and delivered at parity with physical health services.
Elimination of Private Insurance: Private insurance as a substitute for or primary vehicle of healthcare delivery is prohibited. Supplemental private insurance covering services beyond the public standard may exist but shall not be used to create a two-tier system in which wealth determines access to medically necessary care.
Drug Pricing: Essential medicines shall be priced at levels accessible to the public healthcare system. No patent shall be used to price an essential medicine beyond the reach of the population it was developed to serve.
Housing
Every person within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the right to stable, secure housing. All housing provided or subsidized under this Article shall meet at minimum: structural integrity; potable running water and sanitation; electrical service; heating and cooling sufficient to maintain safe temperatures; and a lockable private space providing personal security and dignity. No person shall be compelled to live without these conditions. The existence of homelessness within this jurisdiction represents a failure of this framework’s constitutional obligation and shall be treated as such.
Education
All persons shall have access to free, high-quality education from primary through higher and vocational levels. The quality of education shall not vary based on the wealth of the community in which a person resides.
Civic Service Exchange: Public higher and vocational education shall be funded through a civic service exchange at a rate of one year of qualifying civic service for one year of publicly funded education.
Student Debt Transitional Justice: Persons holding educational debt incurred prior to the establishment of this framework shall be offered the opportunity to discharge that debt through civic service at the same exchange rate, for a period of ten years from the date of enactment.
Basic Income and Retirement Security
Every person shall have the right to a basic income sufficient to meet essential needs, structured progressively so that lower earners receive support and higher earners contribute. Every person shall have the right to security in old age — a dignity floor sufficient to meet essential needs, with benefits above that floor scaled to contribution over a working life.
Food Security
No person within this jurisdiction shall go without adequate nutrition. The state shall maintain strategic food reserves and emergency distribution infrastructure sufficient to ensure that no person goes without adequate nutrition during periods of agricultural failure, supply chain disruption, or crisis.
Digital Access
All persons shall have access to reliable, high-speed internet service. Digital access is essential infrastructure for participation in education, employment, healthcare, civic life, and democratic engagement. The state shall treat it as essential public infrastructure equivalent in importance to roads, electricity, and clean water.
Healthy Environment
All persons shall have the right to clean air, clean water, and sustainable ecosystems. Environmental standards shall be set by independent scientific bodies using the best available evidence, assessed over timeframes appropriate to the systems being measured. No community shall bear a disproportionate burden of environmental harm.
Enforcement Mechanisms
The social rights enumerated in this Article are justiciable. Any person who has been denied a right guaranteed by this Article may bring a claim before a court of competent jurisdiction. The state shall bear the burden of demonstrating that it has met its constitutional obligations.
The federal government shall publish comprehensive annual public reports on outcomes across all social rights, disaggregated by geography, income, and demographic group.
The state’s obligation to fund these rights shall not be conditioned on deficit levels or arbitrary fiscal targets. Funding shall be treated as a constitutional obligation of the highest priority.
Article V — Governance & Democracy
Democracy is not a destination. It is a practice. The architecture of governance determines whether that practice serves the people who participate in it or the interests that have learned to capture it. The provisions of this Article are designed from first principles to make capture structurally difficult, representation genuinely proportional, and accountability genuinely enforceable.
Structure of the Federal Legislature
The bicameral legislature of the prior constitutional order — consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives — is replaced by a reformed bicameral structure consisting of a reformed Senate and a newly established Ethics Board. The House of Representatives is dissolved. The reformed Senate fulfills the House’s original purpose more effectively. The Ethics Board fulfills a function that no prior chamber performed: independent ethical review of legislation against constitutional principles.
The Senate
Composition: The Senate shall consist of members elected from each state in numbers proportional to that state’s population. Each state shall have a minimum of one senator.
Election Method: Senators shall be elected through a Single Transferable Vote system conducted statewide. Voters shall rank candidates in order of preference. Seats shall be filled through ranked choice elimination rounds until all seats for that state are filled. A state whose population is sixty percent one political persuasion and forty percent another shall produce a senate delegation that reflects those proportions.
No Party Designation: No party affiliation, label, or designation shall appear on any ballot. Candidates shall appear by name and stated platform only.
Terms: Senators shall serve six-year terms, staggered so that approximately one third of senate seats are contested every two years.
Consecutive Term Limit: No person shall serve more than two consecutive terms. A mandatory cooling-off period of one full senate term shall elapse before the person may seek the same office again.
Single Subject Rule: No bill shall address more than one subject. The subject of each bill shall be clearly stated in its title. Omnibus legislation combining unrelated subjects is prohibited.
The Ethics Board
The Ethics Board is a genuinely new institution in democratic governance. No equivalent exists in any prior constitutional order. Its purpose is to separate the ethical review of legislation from the political process of passing it.
Composition: Fifteen members elected through a single national election using ranked choice voting. Nine-year non-renewable terms, staggered so that five members are elected every three years. No party designation on ballots.
Legislative Role: Legislation passed by the Senate shall proceed to the Ethics Board for review. The Ethics Board shall evaluate each bill against the following standards: whether the bill violates any right guaranteed by Articles I or IV; whether the bill concentrates power, wealth, or resources in ways prohibited by Article III; whether the bill primarily serves private extraction rather than public benefit; whether the bill adequately considers future generations; whether the bill treats all persons with equal dignity; and whether the bill is consistent with prior Ethics Board precedent.
Ethical Veto: If the Ethics Board finds a violation, it shall issue a written Ethical Finding and return the bill to the Senate. The Senate may override by a two-thirds vote. The Ethical Finding and any override vote shall be entered into the permanent public record.
The President
The President shall be elected by direct national popular vote using ranked choice voting. The Electoral College is abolished. No person shall serve more than two consecutive presidential terms of four years each.
The Federal Judiciary
Supreme Court: Nine justices serving fixed terms of eighteen years, staggered so that one justice is appointed approximately every two years.
Appointment Process: Supreme Court justices shall be nominated by a Federal Judicial Nomination Commission consisting of three members selected by the President, three by the Senate, three by the Ethics Board, and three by a randomly convened citizen assembly. The Commission shall forward a slate of three qualified candidates to the Senate for confirmation. The President shall not have individual appointment power over Supreme Court justices.
Elections and Campaign Finance
Equal Public Campaign Financing: All candidates who qualify for federal election ballots shall receive an equal public campaign allocation. No candidate shall accept private campaign contributions of any kind. All campaign spending shall come from the equal public allocation.
Dark Money Prohibition: All political spending of any kind shall be traceable to its ultimate human source. No political expenditure shall be anonymous.
Anti-Capture and Political Integrity
Only Natural Persons in Politics: Only natural persons — individual living human beings — shall have the right to political participation including campaign contribution, political advertising, electoral endorsement, and direct political advocacy. No organization of any kind shall engage in political spending, electoral endorsement, or campaign activity in any form. This definition shall be interpreted strictly and shall not be expanded by judicial interpretation.
Petitioning vs Purchasing: Any person may communicate with their elected representatives through speech, writing, petition, or public assembly. No person or entity may offer, provide, promise, or arrange anything of value to any elected or appointed official in connection with any official act. The appearance of corruption is the corruption.
Amendment Process
Amendments shall require: passage by a two-thirds supermajority of the Senate; approval by a two-thirds supermajority of the Ethics Board; and ratification by a majority of citizens in a national referendum.
25-Year Constitutional Review Convention: Every twenty-five years a Constitutional Review Convention shall be convened to assess the Constitution in its entirety and recommend updates. Delegates shall be selected through Senate appointment, Ethics Board appointment, and citizen lottery in equal parts. The Convention shall hold public hearings in every state. No provision of this Constitution is beyond the Convention’s power to recommend changing. We are not writing for the ages. We are writing for the next twenty-five years — and trusting each subsequent generation to do the same.
Article VI — Sustainability, Future Generations & Natural Stewardship
Every generation inherits the world from those who came before and holds it in trust for those who come after.
Recognition of First Nations Peoples
The nations, tribes, and peoples who inhabited this continent before European arrival are the original stewards of this land. Their sovereignty, their cultures, their languages, and their relationships with the natural world predate this Constitution by thousands of years.
Sovereignty: The sovereign status of federally recognized First Nations tribes and peoples is affirmed and protected by this Constitution. No federal action shall diminish national sovereignty without the free, prior, and informed consent of the affected nation.
Treaty Obligations: All treaties entered into between the United States government and First Nations peoples are affirmed as the supreme law of the land. The history of treaty violations by the United States government is acknowledged as a foundational injustice.
Reparative Justice: The federal government acknowledges a debt to First Nations peoples arising from centuries of treaty violation, land theft, forced removal, cultural destruction, and deliberate policies of elimination. The specific mechanisms of reparative justice shall be developed through direct government-to-government negotiation with affected nations.
Intergenerational Equity
The current generation does not own the natural world. It inhabits it temporarily and holds it in trust. No present generation may make decisions that permanently foreclose options for future generations.
Office of Future Generations: An independent Office of Future Generations shall be established with constitutional mandate and funding. The Office shall participate as a party in regulatory proceedings that affect long-term conditions; bring legal challenges on behalf of future generations in federal courts; and publish annual assessments of the long-term trajectory of key indicators.
Public Lands and Natural Commons
National parks, national forests, wilderness areas, wildlife refuges, and other federally protected lands shall be maintained in perpetuity for the benefit of all people and future generations. No federally protected natural area shall be reduced in size, diminished in protection status, or transferred to private ownership without Senate supermajority and citizen referendum.
The Rights of Natural Systems
This Constitution acknowledges an emerging body of legal and ethical thought that natural systems have interests that exist independent of their utility to human beings. The 25-Year Constitutional Review Convention shall specifically consider, at each convening, whether the development of law, science, and ethical understanding warrants the establishment of more robust legal rights for natural systems. This Constitution plants the seed. Future generations shall decide how far it grows.
Article VII — Enforcement, Transition & Adaptation
A constitution that cannot be enforced is a document. A constitution that cannot adapt is a cage.
Constitutional Adjudication
No branch of government shall defy a final ruling of the Supreme Court on a constitutional matter. A government that selectively obeys its own courts is not a government under law.
Any person whose rights under this Constitution have been violated shall have standing to bring a claim in federal court. Access to federal courts for constitutional claims shall be free of filing fees for persons who cannot afford them. The right to constitutional justice shall not be rationed by wealth.
Transition from the Prior Constitutional Order
All federal laws, regulations, and court precedents in effect at the time of this Constitution’s ratification shall remain in effect unless and until they are superseded by new legislation, found unconstitutional, or specifically repealed.
The transition from the existing bicameral legislature to the reformed Senate and Ethics Board shall be accomplished within four years of ratification.
The economic provisions of Articles III and IV shall be implemented through a phased transition period of no more than ten years from ratification, with specific implementation timelines established by the reformed Senate in the first year following ratification.
International Law and Global Relationships
The Global Invitation: The architecture of Democracy-Next is offered not as an American export to be imposed but as a proof of concept to be adapted. The concentration of wealth and power that this Constitution addresses is a global phenomenon operating through global mechanisms. The most effective long-term solution is a world in which enough nations have adopted similar ethical architectures that the refuge available to concentrated power shrinks toward zero.
The American experiment has always been most powerful not when it exported its specific institutions but when it demonstrated that certain principles — human dignity, democratic self-governance, the rule of law — could actually be made to work.
That demonstration continues.
Power flows from ethics. And ethics are ours to define. Not once. Not finally. But together, revisably, generation by generation, for as long as this experiment continues.
Stunted is not dead. The experiment continues.