ARTICLE: NYT/Upfront Guide to The Constitution

[Ryan Goble]

From the Scholastic/NYTimes Upfront Mag - nicely written for MS/HS readers..

 

Upfront's Guide to The Constitution

 

Even some of our leaders could use a refresher on the nation's founding legal document. Here's a primer on the most quotable constitutional amendments.

 

By Veronica Majerol

During a debate before November's midterm elections, Christine O'Donnell, the Republican candidate for the Senate in Delaware, asked her opponent, Democrat Chris Coons, "Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?"

Coons correctly pointed to the First Amendment, which states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." Later in the debate, however, Coons (who ended up defeating O'Donnell) also stumbled when he couldn't name the other four freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.

O'Donnell and Coons aren't alone when it comes to flunking Constitution 101. In 2008, when Vice President Joe Biden was still Senator Biden, he said, incorrectly, that the Vice President may preside over the Senate "only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit."

Actually, the Constitution (in Article 1, Section 3) says that the Vice President may preside over the Senate at any time but can vote only to break a tie; as far back as the 1790s, Thomas Jefferson often took the gavel when he was John Adams's Vice President.

With our leaders setting the bar pretty low, it's no wonder that so many Americans are also uninformed about constitutional basics. For example, in a recent poll only 6 percent of adults knew that the First Amendment guarantees the right to petition the government.

Click HERE to read the full article AND better yet click HERE for related articles.

[Lorraine Caplan]

Thanks, Ryan. This is valuable for teens and adults, too.  I am always appalled at how poorly informed people are about the Constitution.  And I find it wonderfully ironic that our elected leaders decided to have a read-aloud and then promptly forgot what they read.

[Ryan Goble]

Yeah, I agree.  Glad you liked the article!