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Peter Suber, Paradox of Self-Amendment, Section 9
Section 9Entrenchment, Self-Entrenchment,and Disentrenchmentof the Amendment Clause Itself
Peter Suber, Paradox of Self-Amendment Table of Contents
A. Types and distinctions
B. Reflexivity tangles in New Mexico
C. Self-disentrenchment of the AC
D. Entrenchment and time
E. Self-repeal
Because entrenchment purports to limit an amending power, it may be reflexive
in two ways. First, self-entrenchment (as defined in Section 8) is the entrenchment of
a unit of language by words within that unit or, if the entrenchment clause is implied,
then by a rule that is inferred from language within the unit it entrenches. The unit
may be as large as the whole constitution (e.g., "Nothing in the constitution shall be
amended except as provided..."), or as small as the self-entrenching language plus an
irreflexive reference (e.g., "Neither rule R nor this sentence shall be amended").[Note 1] Note that a clause that completely entrenched the whole constitution would
thereby deny any effect to the amending power, and to that extent would be less a limit
on the AC than a virtual repeal of it. On the other hand, the incomplete entrenchment
of the whole constitution is virtually what obtains today, since the constitution cannot
be amended at all except by certain "special" procedures.
Second, the language describing the amending power (the AC) may be
entrenched, or even self-entrenched in the sense just described. Entrenchment of the
AC is reflexive in the sense that the amending power is prohibited from applying to
itself. Some self-reference, express or implied, is necessary, even though the
entrenchment clause forbids the AC's self-application. If entrenchment clauses that are
not also self-entrenched are called "irreflexive" entrenchment clauses, then irreflexive
entrenchment of the AC is reflexive because self-referential, irreflexive because not
self-entrenched.
The two senses in which entrenchment may be reflexive self-entrenchment and
entrenchment of the AC may be combined to yield self-entrenchment of the AC. This self-entrenchment may in turn entrench the AC in whole or in part. Note that the
irreflexive entrenchment of the AC can be defined by a clause outside or inside the AC
itself. If outside it might say, "Nothing in the AC shall be amended." If that clause
were inside the AC, then it would become a self-entrenchment clause. Nevertheless
a clause inside the AC might constitute irreflexive entrenchment of the AC if reworded
to say, "Nothing in the AC, except this sentence, shall be amended."
The last section was devoted to the irreflexive entrenchment and
self-entrenchment of clauses of a constitution other than the AC. This section is
devoted to two reflexive types of entrenchment: the irreflexive entrenchment of the
AC and the self-entrenchment of the AC. It also covers a few variations on
entrenchment itself that did not fit into Section 8.
Entrenchment of clauses other than the AC was discussed at all because it
threatens the omnipotence of the AC, which raises in constitutional law all the issues
of the paradox of omnipotence as they arise in theology. A well-entrenched
constitutional rule is the legal equivalent of a stone made by God that God cannot lift. Moreover, self-amendment (which may be paradoxical independently of the paradox
of omnipotence, or even with an AC of finite power) might permit transmutation of
immutable rules, and therefore the achievement of omnipotence by a previously finite
rule of change. The entrenchment of the AC itself also raises the question of limited
or unlimited power: if entrenchment or self-entrenchment of the AC is immutable,
then the AC is not omnipotent, unless it can transmute its immutable limitations. But
entrenchment and self-entrenchment of the AC also more directly raise questions of
self-amendment. Even if ordinary or self-limiting self-amendment is possible, shall we
allow self-disentrenchment or self-apotheosis? Or if transmutation of the immutable
entrenchment of clauses other than the AC is possible, then would the transmutation
through self-amendment of the immutable entrenchment of the AC itself be possible? If self-amendment is self-contradictory but permissible, can we deny the mantle
of permissibility to self-disentrenchment of immutable entrenchment clauses just
because it is self-contradictory? Or, if self-amendment is a permissible form of
self-reference and self-application, then may it be made impermissible in certain cases
by "aggravating" its self-reference and self-application in the form of an immutable
self-entrenchment clause entrenching the AC and itself? If so, can the AC self-impose
such an immutable limitation in an act of permissible self-amendment?
In order to avoid becoming dizzy and to simplify references to complex, nested
puzzles, I must distinguish and assign conventional names to several different
phenomena. Suppose that an AC has two sections, §1 and §2, and that §1 contains the
entrenching language. If §1 entrenches only itself, call that "immediate"
self-entrenchment. If §1 entrenches both itself and §2, call that "mediate"
self-entrenchment. These terms may be justified by noting a parallel distinction among
types of self-reference: immediate self-references refer directly to themselves, while
mediate self-references refer to classes of which they are members.[Note 2] A sentence or reference which is neither mediately nor immediately self-referential will
be called "irreflexive". A sentence which refers to itself and to Napoleon ("This
sentence and Napoleon are short") refers to more than merely itself, but does not refer
to a class of which it is a member. By contrast a sentence which refers to sentences
and to Napoleon ("Sentences, unlike Napoleon, are immortal") refers to a class of
which it is a member and to something outside that class, but not directly to itself. I
will call any mediate or immediate self-reference that is combined with an irreflexive
reference, "eccentric", and any immediate or mediate self-reference without any such
irreflexive reference, "concentric".[Note 3]
If AC §1 entrenches AC §2 without entrenching itself, then no
"self-entrenchment" in the strict sense has occurred. I will call that simply the
entrenchment of §2 by §1, or the "irreflexive" entrenchment of §2 by §1, for emphasis. An AC of only one section which included entrenching language could be called
immediate or mediate self-entrenchment, but I will call it immediate.[Note 4] I will carry over the distinctions from Section 8 between complete and incomplete
entrenchment, between original and self-imposed entrenchment, and between
limitations on amendment by protection (or as contradiction) and limitations by
incompetency (or as ultra vires). Each of these distinctions applies within irreflexive
entrenchment as well as within self-entrenchment. "Disentrenchment" is the repeal of
an entrenchment clause, and "self-disentrenchment" is the repeal of an entrenching
clause on a rule of change by that very rule of change. If a clause said that the AC
could not be amended at all, then the AC could repeal that clause only by self-disentrenchment. Complex variations and combinations of entrenching language are not to be
expected in actual constitutions, for most drafters are not genuinely worried that their
ACs (unlike many substantive provisions) will be amended in haste or carelessness,
and most are concerned that the constitution ring with solemnity and elegance, not
perplex like a brain-teaser. Another reason is certainly that a sovereign people will not
ordinarily want to limit its power to make law, although often the founding generation
does want to limit the power of future generations. One may hazard the generalization
that entrenchment clauses are less likely to appear in constitutions written and adopted
by the people governed by them than in constitutions written and imposed by a foreign
or imperial power.[Note 5] Among the American states the most common type of entrenchment clause
ambiguously proscribes "violation" of large sections of the constitution (more on the latter in Section 18). These clauses usually entrench either the whole constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the AC-like right to alter or abolish government. The Delaware constitution of 1776, for example, contains such a clause in its AC. One can only
conjecture that the prohibition of "violation" was meant to include the prohibition of amendment as well, for it is superfluous for a constitution to prohibit its violation literally,[Note 6] and it is suspect to prohibit violation of only some sections. This is supported by the Oxford English Dictionary, which lists as 18th century meanings for "to violate": to defile, despoil, treat with violence, disturb, and break in upon. The
North Carolina constitution of 1776, similarly, quasi-entrenches its Bill of Rights with the phrase, "ought never to be violated on any pretense whatsoever." Arkansas in its 1836 constitution, and Tennessee and Pennsylvania in their present constitutions, take a step toward explicitness by entrenching their Bills of Rights with the declaration that those Articles are "excepted out of the General Powers of government, and shall forever remain inviolate."[Note 7] The word "inviolate" in this context
suggests "pristine and unamended" more than "not transgressed".
The Arkansas clause was held effective as an incomplete entrenchment clause
in 1851. The Declaration of Rights entrenched by the clause included a provision
prohibiting criminal penalties except for offenses charged by indictment or
presentment. An 1846 amendment that would have given justices of the peace
jurisdiction over assault and battery cases was held to violate the indictment rule and
its entrenchment clause. The court held that only a constitutional convention could
amend the Declaration of Rights. Eason v. State, 11 Ark. 481 (1851).[Note 8] The court found the "inviolate" language not only an effective entrenchment clause, but
also an impliedly incomplete entrenchment clause that permitted amendments by
convention. However, the neat "entrenchment" reading of Eason is complicated by the
fact that the court also relied on the rationale that the Declaration of Rights is
inherently beyond the ordinary (non-conventional) amending power.
But Arkansas, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania do not say anything nearly as
explicit as the present and only (1911) constitution of New Mexico, in which one
section of the AC says of another that it "shall not be changed, altered or abrogated in
any manner except through a general convention called to revise this constitution as
herein provided." As we will see, this entrenchment clause was violated, if not
repealed sub silentio, with the approval of the state Attorney General. (See Section 9.B below.)
Of the American states, only New Mexico has a clearly entrenched AC which
has been self-disentrenched or held by courts to be capable of self-disentrenchment. No state has a self-entrenched or completely entrenched AC. In New Mexico there is
legal authority for the proposition that self-disentrenchment of an AC is lawful, but the
authority consists only of a few Attorney General opinions that are contradicted by
other Attorney General opinions. This is tenuous evidence of legality, and it is a small
sample. Self-amendment per se is undoubtedly lawful in America because it has
occurred in 47 states without challenge e.g. for self-contradiction, paradox, violating
its authority or principles of natural law (see Appendix 2). But one might say that New
Mexico was "wrong" to uphold the permissibility of self-disentrenching
self-amendments, in a way in which 47 states cannot be wrong. After all, there is
reason to believe that New Mexico's disentrenching self-amendment did violate the state constitution. But in one sense that is just the point. Despite the paradox and the contradiction, these acts are accepted as legal by the tests of legality in New Mexico. In this Section I will be more concerned with the logical than the legal objections, although I do note the small sample and the dubieties of the New Mexican case.
If the paradox of self-amendment were never raised by Alf Ross, it would be
raised by the spectacle of the New Mexican AC. Its legal history is wonderfully
complicated. The New Mexican AC contains five sections, the first of which contains
a complete description of the non-convention method of amendment. Section 5
explicitly entrenches §1 against all amendment except amendment by convention. This
is a clear-cut case of incomplete, irreflexive entrenchment within an AC. But this
entrenching language was violated in a fascinating way. The entrenched rule was
impliedly self-amended by an explicit amendment to another section of the
constitution, with the effect that the amended version of AC §1 is incompletely,
mediately self-entrenched. Here's how.
Section 1 of the AC said, inter alia, that "any amendment...to this constitution
may be proposed...at any regular session" of the legislature. In 1964 AC §1 was used
to amend a provision on legislative power (Article 4, §5.B), limiting the types of action
which the legislature could consider in even-numbered years to a short list that did not
include constitutional amendments. The amendment impliedly amended AC §1 by
reducing the years in which constitutional amendments could be considered from all
years to odd-numbered years. This effect on AC §1 was confirmed by Attorney
General Opinion No. 65-212 (1965). Therefore, AC §1 was amended without a
convention despite its incomplete, irreflexive entrenchment by AC §5. Unlike the
Australian and South African attempts to circumvent incomplete entrenchment (see
Section 8.B, above), this one succeeded, perhaps because the protected rule was only
impliedly, not directly, amended. This would not be a tidy legal justification, but it
might mean that few people noticed or cared.
Moreover, this implied amendment was an implied self-amendment, since AC
§1 was used to amend the legislative article with the side effect of impliedly amending
AC §1. Moreover, because the amended AC §1 now says that constitutional
amendments may be considered by the legislature only in odd-numbered years, it has
become incompletely, mediately self-entrenched. Moreover, the entrenchment clause that was initially violated (AC §5) must be
considered still valid, not repealed pro tanto, for the people of New Mexico have tried
and failed to repeal it in 1965, 1970, and 1971. These attempted repeals,
furthermore, have not been by convention. If a certain electoral return would signal
a successful repeal (which is undetermined), then the irreflexive entrenchment of AC
§1 by AC §5 should not be taken to imply the self-entrenchment of AC §5. That an
ordinary amendment could repeal the entrenchment clause was held by Attorney
General Opinion No. 70-13 (1970).
Moreover, the new rule to consider amendments only in odd-numbered years
has frequently been violated, eight times in 1970 alone. It may be considered no rule
at all, either because the implied self-amendment is really invalid, or because the
implied self-amendment is ineffective and rapidly losing to desuetude.
The Attorney General Opinion that declared that AC §1 had impliedly amended
itself ignored the fact that AC §1 was entrenched by AC §5. Attorney General Opinion
No. 65-212 (1965). In this sense, then, the Attorney General was answering a
self-amendment question, not a self-disentrenchment question. The narrow ruling was
that resolutions and constitutional amendments could be considered by the legislature
only in odd-numbered years. This Attorney General was Boston E. Witt, and when he
was replaced a few years later by James A. Maloney the validity of the implied
self-amendment and self-disentrenchment was again brought to the Attorney General's
office. Maloney was asked to reconsider Witt's opinion, and was specifically asked
to address the self-disentrenchment question. Maloney upheld Witt's narrow ruling but on new grounds that must be sketched
briefly. Prior to 1964 the New Mexican legislature met only in odd-numbered years. When the constitution was amended to provide for annual sessions, the subjects that
could be considered in even-numbered years were simultaneously limited, and did not
include constitutional amendments. The language of AC §1 that was apparently
amended by implication said that amendments could be considered in any "regular"
session. Witt took this to designate the new annual sessions, and therefore held that
AC §1 had been amended. Maloney read "regular" in AC §1 in its pre-1964 sense as
odd-numbered sessions only. He argued that the framers intended to define "regular
session" in the AC by reference to the legislative article, which at that time provided
only for regular sessions in odd-numbered years. Maloney ignored the amendment of
the legislative article on this very point, or more precisely, he held the amendment
irrelevant to the meaning of "regular" in the AC. Hence, AC §1 was not amended at
all, and had always allowed amendment proposals only in odd-numbered years. Maloney did not indicate whether this ruling implied retroactive invalidity for any
ratified amendments. In sum, then, Maloney affirmed Witt's narrow ruling, but denied
that self-amendment had occurred, let alone self-disentrenchment. Attorney General
Opinion No. 69-105 (1969).
In 1970 Maloney was asked whether the incomplete, irreflexive entrenchment
clause in AC §5 could be repealed. He ruled that it could be, and that it could be
repealed without a constitutional convention, even under AC §1. Attorney General
Opinion No. 70-13 (1970). This is the closest thing in American legal history to
authoritative recognition of permissible self-disentrenchment. New Mexico's AC §5
incompletely entrenched AC §1, but §1 was declared capable of repealing §5 without
using the special procedures required by §5 (constitutional convention) a procedure
not contained in §1 anyway. The section describing the power to amend was §2. Maloney, however, did not in his opinion visualize the problem as one of paradoxical
self-disentrenchment, but as a problem unique to New Mexican history.
If AC §5 was required by the federal government as a precondition of statehood,
then would repeal of §5 jeopardize New Mexico's status as a state? Maloney decided
that AC §5 was not actually required by the federal government; instead, Congress
merely wanted a vote on an amendment to the AC that would make the amending
process less difficult. The self-amendment that Congress wanted to be put to a vote
would have lowered the majority needed for ratification from two-thirds to a simple
majority. The entrenchment clause was already in the pre-statehood constitution, but
Congress included it in the AC-package. Maloney is opposed on this question by Helene Simpson,[Note 9]
who has documented her opinion that an amended AC, not merely a vote, was required
by Congress as a precondition of admission to the Union.[Note
10] However, even Simpson agrees that Congress did not require AC §5 as
a precondition.[Note 11] Maloney and Simpson both note that
Arizona was also required to amend its constitution, although not its AC, prior to
admission, and that upon admission repealed the required amendment without losing
its statehood or running afoul of the courts.[Note
12] Maloney contends that, in any event, no present amendment of the New
Mexican constitution could endanger New Mexico's status as a state. The statehood
issue clearly overwhelmed the self-disentrenchment issue, as well it might under New
Mexico's unique circumstances: no other state was required by Congress to change
its AC, or even to vote on changes, as a precondition of admission, even though many
other states used the same two-thirds supermajority for ratification of state
amendments.[Note 13] In Arizona where the required changes
were quickly repealed, the changes had not been self-amendments nor the repeals
self-disentrenchments.
Later in the same year Maloney finally reached the self-disentrenchment
question when he repeated his earlier ruling that AC §1 had not been amended by
implication. This time he based his reasoning on the impermissibility of any
amendment of AC §1 except by convention. Attorney General Opinion No. 69-151
The underlying issue was still not dead, however, and in 1970 Maloney faced
a new dimension of the problem: if the earlier opinions agreed that constitutional
amendments could not be proposed in even-numbered years, then what is to be done
about the eight that were proposed in 1970? Maloney did not directly say that a court
could nullify them if ratified, or enjoin their further consideration, or suggest that he
would use his prosecutorial discretion toward these ends. Instead he personally
doubted that a court "would" nullify them if ratified, if only because the people would
have expressed their will and the courts indulge every presumption in favor of the
validity of amendments that the people have ratified. Maloney was evidently trying to
say, without abdicating his role as the highest law enforcement officer in the state, that
acceptance can cure defects in the most fundamental procedures. In Hart's terms,
acceptance can validate laws that, through some defect, are not validated by the rule
of recognition. Maloney concludes in a most humble mood, saying that while two
different Attorneys General have found that constitutional amendments cannot be
proposed in even-numbered years, relying upon different interpretations of the
constitution, nevertheless they had not exhausted the reasonable interpretations and a
court might disagree with them both. While standing by his opinion, he will not deny
that a contrary reading of the constitution could be made to appear reasonable,
although he can give no hint how. Attorney General Opinion No. 70-81 (1970).
In New Mexico, in sum, a rule that was incompletely entrenched against all
amendment except by convention was impliedly amended without a convention,
according to one Attorney General. From another angle the same phenomenon may
be described as the disregard of a limitation on the amending power in the form of an
act of self-amendment. The AC (in §1) did not disentrench itself, or repeal the
limitation on its power, except impliedly and pro tanto; it merely "violated" that
limitation and got away with it. Moreover, an Attorney General in an advisory opinion
held that the limitation may be repealed without any special procedures, even though
he held in a prior opinion that it could not be violated by an ordinary amendment. The
incomplete, irreflexive entrenchment clause is not impliedly self-entrenched and may
be repealed without resort to the special procedure it names. Such repeal would
constitute genuine self-disentrenchment, but of a less objectionable sort: repeal of an
unentrenched entrenchment clause rather than a self-entrenched entrenchment clause.
This implied self-amendment and self-disentrenchment have not been struck
down by the courts and have been upheld by the Attorney General one ruling that the
self-amendment actually occurred, another ruling that the self-disentrenchment actually
could. Another entrenchment clause in the New Mexican AC has not been so fortunate. Within AC §1 itself a clause incompletely entrenches two sections in Article 7 (on
voting) and two sections in Article 12 (on education). While ordinary sections may be
amended by a simple majority of the electors, these four sections may only be amended
by a three-fourths supermajority with the added requirement that there be at least a
two-thirds supermajority in each county. The latter requirement makes the New
Mexican counties into entities much like the states in the federal Senate; they are
represented in these special amendment referenda as units, not by population. For that
reason the two-thirds requirement was struck down by the New Mexican Supreme
Court for violating the one-person, one-vote principle of the Fourteenth Amendment. State v. State Canvassing Board, 78 N.M. 682, 437 P.2d 143 (1968).[Note
14] It is probably significant that the court struck down the two-thirds
requirement after 11 attempts had failed to amend one of the entrenched sections. The
three-fourths supermajority requirement was not challenged and still stands. Both the
three-fourths and two-thirds requirements were added to AC §1 in the vote demanded
by Congress, and were drafted by Congress. The court gave no hint that
entrenchment, or at least the incomplete entrenchment before it, was impermissible in
itself. One may doubt whether the particular entrenchment clause before the court
would have been found to violate the Equal Protection clause if it had not already
blocked 11 attempts to amend one section. The normal rule across the country is that
the one-person, one-vote principle does not apply to elections that ratify state (or
federal) constitutional amendments. See Jackman v. Bodine, 78 N.J. Super. 414, 188
A.2d 642 (1963). To the extent that the history of blocked attempts at amendment
influenced the court, the rule of law was covertly bent to accommodate the perceived
will of the people, which in Hart's jurisprudence is not only justified, but valid law if
subsequently accepted by the people and officials.
The two Attorneys General disagreed in their interpretations of the constitution,
but the effect was that one allowed self-amendment in violation of an entrenchment
clause, and the other allowed self-disentrenchment of that entrenchment clause. The
inference model cannot tolerate either act; but even if it could somehow tolerate
self-amendment, it must still balk at self-disentrenchment. If an AC is completely and
concentrically self-entrenched, the hardest case (and one that did not arise in New
Mexico), and if self-amendment is otherwise permissible, then for self-amendment to
be possible in this case the self-entrenching language must be (1) repealed before
self-amendment, or (2) repealed simultaneously with the self-amendment of the
entrenched AC, or (3) simply violated with impunity. The third is obviously
impossible for the inference model. The first is also impossible, for the inference
model, because it would require an act of self-amendment to repeal the entrenching
language, and therefore could not take place without acting before it acted.
The second is also impossible under the inference model, but for different
reasons. If complete entrenchment and self-entrenchment clauses mean anything, they
prohibit amendment until they are themselves amended or repealed. If they could be
repealed simultaneously with the repeal of the rules they protect, then they would have
been no barrier whatsoever to amendment. Even without the exotic logic of
self-application, most courts would indulge the presumption that the words in a
constitution were not surplusage. The inference model is not committed to preserving
the effectiveness of entrenching language as a barrier to amendment, but it is
committed to taking rules of change seriously as premises of logical inferences. An
explicit entrenchment clause, for the inference model, therefore creates a condition
precedent to amendment, namely, the repeal of the entrenchment clause. An AC that
could undo its self-entrenching language and amend itself in the same act would be
performing the logically prior and the logically posterior simultaneously. This is
equivalent to the prisoner opening the outer door simultaneously with the inner door,
which is as paradoxical as opening the outer door first. The inference model, then,
requires that disentrenchment and self-amendment of the protected rule take place in
two steps, not one. The rub is that it cannot allow the step that must come first to
occur unless the second has already occurred.
If we put the inference model to one side, then there seems to be no reason why
the entrenching language and the rule it protects could not both be repealed in the same
act. Douglas Linder rightly notes that "[o]nly a hide-bound formalist would contend
that the difference [between one and two amendments] is significant."[Note
15] Linder's view that the right one amendment could do the work of any two
is based on the possibility that Congress may intend to repeal both the entrenchment
clause and the rule it protects at the same time. That is one non-formalist path out of
the problem, but unfortunately Congress is only one of at least 39 legislatures (today)
whose intentions would be relevant to one who put stock in the intentions of the
law-makers who adopt constitutional amendments. Moreover, intent cannot suffice,
for the intent of the framers and adopters of the entrenchment clause was that it should
not be repealed, or at least not so easily that it never protected the entrenched rule. Hence, unless the old intent gives way before the new, an irresistible force meets an
immovable object intent v. intent and the paradox of omnipotence is replicated at