I guess that's directed to me, because I was the one who was arguing about the importance of taking other aspects into account.
I worry about taking the contrast between piecemeal, very small, on the one hand, and opening up the whole Constitution on the other. I'm not arguing that we open up the whole Constitution; I'm saying that we open up the issue of the Senate. It's an important part of the Constitution, but I think the danger in looking partially at one aspect is that you get into a situation where that aspect is interacting with the existing powers of the Senate.
If you look at parliamentary systems--leaving aside those like the United States, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, which have congressional presidential systems--we have, on paper, the most powerful Senate in the world amongst constitutional federations. We get away with it because, by convention, the Senate is unwilling to defy the House of Commons when the House of Commons clearly has popular support. If you change it so that the Senate is based on an electoral basis, and you don't change its powers, then you can get into a very risky and dangerous situation. That's my concern about looking at it only piecemeal, at one little bit.
You asked about the American process. You're partly right, yes, that's the way it happened, state by state. But in the end, it was a formal constitutional amendment that applied everywhere in the United States. It was a formal constitutional amendment in 1913 that made elections to the Senate by direct election rather than by state legislatures.
When one looks at piecemeal processes, there are some successful ones--and some unsuccessful ones, too, such as Malaysia. Malaysia started with something like three-quarters or two-thirds of its senators indirectly elected by the legislatures and a small portion appointed. By a process of convention, they've come to the situation now where three-quarters of their senators are appointed.
That's not very desirable progress--bit by bit, piecemeal--but that has occurred there. That points to the dangers of a piecemeal approach to reform when it interrelates with other aspects.
I don't want to open up the whole Constitution. I have lots of scars to bear from those efforts over the last 40 years. I recognize fully the frustration and danger of those. But the fear of that is leading us into the danger of going to the other extreme, of trying to do such piecemeal reform that we don't take account of how it interrelates with what is actually already in the Constitution. And that's my concern.