Skipping Grades Is A Simple Way To Do Gifted And Talented Ed That Works

Having students who are above average academically skip grades is an easy way to meet the academic needs of "gifts and talented" students. But there have been long standing fears that it is psychologically problematic for smart kids to put them in the same classes as older, less exceptional kids. All of the empirical evidence shows that this concern is unfounded.

Academic acceleration of intellectually precocious youth is believed to harm overall psychological well-being even though short-term studies do not support this belief. 

Here we examine the long-term effects. Study 1 involves three cohorts identified before age 13, then longitudinally tracked for over 35 years: Cohort 1 gifted (top 1% in ability, identified 1972–1974, N = 1,020), Cohort 2 highly gifted (top 0.5% in ability, identified 1976–1979, N = 396), and Cohort 3 profoundly gifted (top 0.01% in ability, identified 1980–1983, N = 220). Two forms of educational acceleration were examined: (a) age at high school graduation and (b) quantity of advanced learning opportunities pursued prior to high school graduation. Participants were evaluated at age 50 on several well-known indicators of psychological well-being. Amount of acceleration did not covary with psychological well-being. 

Study 2, a constructive replication of Study 1, used a different high-potential sample—elite science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduate students (N = 478) identified in 1992. Their educational histories were assessed at age 25 and they were followed up at age 50 using the same psychological assessments. Again, the amount of educational acceleration did not covary with psychological well-being. 

Further, the psychological well-being of participants in both studies was above the average of national probability samples. Concerns about long-term social/emotional effects of acceleration for high-potential students appear to be unwarranted, as has been demonstrated for short-term effects.

Bernstein, B. O., Lubinski, D., & Benbow, C. P., "Academic acceleration in gifted youth and fruitless concerns regarding psychological well-being: A 35-year longitudinal study." Journal of Educational Psychology. (2020) Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000500

An Agenda For A Biden Presidency

Suppose, as looks more likely than not, the Biden-Harris ticket wins in November, Democrats pick up the net four seats they need to have 50 seats in the U.S. Senate which is a majority with VP Harris as a tie breaker, and Democrats retain control of the U.S. House by a slightly increased margin. 

What should they do with that power?

 Cementing Political Power

1.    Abolish the U.S. Senate filibuster.

The filibuster has been used most prominently to retard civil rights legislation and strengthen conservative minorities who are already tilted unfairly towards Republicans due to the rural bias of the rule that gives every state equal representation in the Senate. It has already been eliminated in a manner that has allowed the thin GOP majority and President Trump to put large numbers of often unqualified, far right ideologues on the bench in the federal courts. 

This has to be early in any agenda, because Biden can't get his nominees into office or pass legislation without it. But, the nuclear option precedent to change this with a majority vote of U.S. Senators is now well established, so it can be done, and GOP disregard of Senate norms without political consequences has made it morally and politically justifiable to do so.

While Democrats controlling the U.S. Senate are at it, they should also abolish other undemocratic Senate rules like the ability of a single U.S. Senator to hold up legislation in many cases.

2.  Admit D.C. to statehood.

The District of Columbia has been denied political power, mostly because it is majority African-American, for too long. Democrats should redress this injustice and secure themselves two additional safe Democratic U.S. Senate seats and an additional safe U.S. House seat.

This requires only the passage of a simple statute. Democrats could use a constitutional amendment to repeal the 23rd Amendment that would then be a no brainer as a vehicle for other positive constitutional reforms. 

3. Admit Puerto Rico to statehood.

Puerto Rico has been denied political power, mostly because it is majority Spanish speaking Hispanic, for too long. Democrats should redress this injustice and secure themselves two additional safe Democratic U.S. Senate seats and an additional four or five safe U.S. House seats.

Majorities in Puerto Rico voted in favor of statehood in 2012 and 2017, so there is no need to delay this action in order to hold a new referendum.

Combined with D.C. statehood, this would shift the balance of power in the U.S. Senate by four seats in favor of Democrats, rebalancing some of the current conservative bias in this body.

This requires only the passage of a simple statute.

4. Expand the U.S. Supreme Court

Republicans denied President Obama a U.S. Supreme Court appointment, and are now trying to secure a third appointment for President Trump in the lame duck session which may or may not be successful. Several of the conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court are far right partisans with no respect for precedent.

Democrats are justified in redressing this injustice by adding six more seats to the U.S. Supreme Court, turning a likely 6-3 conservative majority into a 9-6 liberal majority, defined by Biden appointees. This should also happen soon to prevent the U.S. Supreme Court from interfering with the Democrats agenda or rolling back critical constitutional rights like Roe v. Wade.

This requires only the passage of a simple statute.

5. Restore the Voting Rights Act

Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have neutered the Voting Rights Act with the predictable consequence in the 2020 election cycle of all manner of voter suppression tactics and other electoral politics dirty tricks in Red States.

This requires only the passage of a simple statute.

Other steps.

As I enumerate below the fold in detail, there are two more big areas need work.

One is to undo four years of bad Trump Administration policies.

The other is to enact new policies that improve the economic well being and security of America's working class, a demographic which Democrats have tussled with the GOP over since the Reagan Democrats in the 1980s, with the Republicans appealing to this group with cultural and social issues, and the Democrats appealing to this group with economic proposals.

Presidential Race Update

News That Could Drive The Election

Trump's Health

The big news, of course, is that President Trump has been hospitalized with COVID-19 and has at least mild symptoms as did his wife, some of his senior aides and campaign contributors, several White House journalists, and two GOP Senators. Vice President Pence and Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden have tested negative. 

At a minimum, President Trump will be quarantined for the next two weeks in the critical last four and a half weeks of the election campaign and would complicate the remaining two planned Presidential debates, while making next week's Vice Presidential debate far more significant. 

As an overweight 74 year old man who is probably pre-diabetic, at least, Trump is at serious risk of being disabled at least through the election if not for the remainder of his current term of office or dying from the disease he initially called a hoax, has promoted misinformation about, and has refused to take easy precautions against. 

This would elevate Vice President Pence from a typical outsider VP's role to Acting President for the last few months of Trump's current term of office, and focus attention on Pence rather than Trump as the man at the top of the ticket in a race whose primary theme has been the effort to deny Trump a second term because Trump is a malevolent, stupid, openly racist, immoral, habitual liar - factors that would disappear with Pence at the top of the ticket.

The Debate

The first Presidential debate was held and was a disaster that didn't help Trump with undecided voters. The moderator utterly failed to maintain any kind of order or decorum. Trump made a constant barrage of out of turn interruptions and attacks and refused to condemn white supremacy. Biden responded with some mild return snubs and a presentation on Trump's abysmal handling of the COVID crisis.

The Death of RGB and Nomination Of Her SCOTUS Replacement

Trump nominated someone to fill the U.S. Supreme Court seat that opened up with the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. She is a conservative federal judge who has been on the bench only about two years and a well known adherent to a charismatic movement within Roman Catholicism that was a model for The Handmaid's Tale because it is so stridently anti-feminist. Republicans in the U.S. Senate are pushing to confirm her as soon as possible. 

Of the eight current Justices, five are Catholic, one is a probably Episcopalian who was raised Catholic, and two are Jewish.

The Republicans in the U.S. Senate might be able to pull this confirmation off, but Democratic opposition to GOP tactics in the Senate (and Presidential nominee Biden's resolve on tactics in the U.S. Senate) has hardened.

A Threatened Self-Coup And Countermeasures To It

In another notable development, Trump has repeatedly refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power if it is not re-elected and has sought to poison his backer's belief that any election outcome will be fair. 

In response, the Department of Defense has made clear that the U.S. military will stay out of any election or succession dispute, the Justice Department has walked back and refuted the President's claim that mail in balloting is riddled with fraud, the U.S. Senate has unanimously passed a resolution supporting a peaceful transition of power, and the U.S. House passed a similar resolution 397-5 with five Republican members of Congress (at least one of whom isn't facing re-election because he was defeated in the primary) voting against it. 

Trump's Tax Returns Released

You have to go this far down the list to get to the development that Trump's tax returns for the last 18 years were released by the New York Times. In 11 of them, including 10 of the last 15 years, he paid no federal income taxes, mostly due to Net Operating Loss carry forwards, dubious deductions (e.g. $72,000 in one year for haircuts and millions for consulting payments to one of which children who was also one of his employees). In the 2016 and 2017 tax years, he has his wife paid $750.00 total in federal income taxes. He has more than $400 million in debt coming due in the next four years and may have total debt of a much as $1.1 billion, leaving him with far less net worth than he was widely assumed to have by even skeptics of his claims of great wealth.

Court Action

Trump has also faced a string of court defeats on a variety of his policy initiatives from the Census to his illegal Bureau of Land Management appointee, to visa restrictions and more. COVID-19 deaths and cases continue to grow, primarily in Red States and often among his prominent allies. 

At the state level there has been a flurry of election and COVID-19 restriction related litigation which has been a mixed bag, with big wins and big losses for each side. Bloomberg has paid the millions of dollars of fines that were disenfranchising many felons who had served their time in Florida.

An Air Strike

Finally, the media and the public didn't even notice air strikes he ordered in the Middle East after a long hiatus, probably in a futile attempt to "Wag The Dog."

The Economy

The economy is starting to recover, but is still in bad shape. Unemployment is at 7.9%, even with a census hiring boost. GDP is down about 4.2% from the third quarter of 2019.

A new round of stimulus has hit a bump in the road, the deficit has reached record highs. But the stock market has been doing unnaturally well and oil prices are now still low, but in the normal range, instead of being at all time lows. Hotels and travel and restaurants are slowly coming back. Schools are cautiously trying to restart with mixed results.

The Horse Race

The bottom line in the horse race is that Trump needs to gain about five percentage points in the polls between now and election day to have even odds of winning. He needs to reduce Biden's lead in national polling to about 2 percentage points from a current polling average of 7.0. The 538 blog gives Biden a 79% chance of winning and Trump a 20% chance (Trump's odds of winning the popular vote are only about 10%).

But there has been no time in the last thirteen months that he hasn't trailed by at least four percentage points behind Biden in national polling. National polling has never been below +4.0 for Biden in the last thirteen months (hitting a low point around January 2020 and close to that again in May 2020). Biden's best showing in the last 13 months in the polling averages was +11.7 in mid-September 2019 although he had surged to +10.2 in late June 2020. Biden has has dropped 3.2 percentage points in national polling in the roughly 14 weeks since then. He needs to drop further by one and a half times as much in the next four and a half weeks for Trump to have a shot at winning.

If the race remains stagnant and even if Biden slips slightly in the polls between now and election day, Biden wins. Trump needs a serious surge to prevail. If there is no movement in the polls between now and election day, the 538 blog gives him just a 9% chance of winning. 

The map below from the pundit website Sabato's Crystal Ball sums up the current situation.

Biden doesn't need any of the orange (leans GOP) or yellow toss up states to win from Sabato's Crystal Ball's map below, and can afford to lose Democrat leaning NE-2 (+7.0) and also NV (+5.3) or NH (+8.4), but not both. Biden needs to win in Democrat leaning WI (+5.5), MI (+5.2) and PA (+5.7) to win (shown with their Real Clear Politics polling average margins for Biden. 

All of the states that Sabato lists as toss-ups or leans GOP except Texas, which is within the polling margin of error itself, have polling averages (per Real Clear Politics) that slightly favor Biden: OH (+3.3), AZ (+3.0), FL (+1.1), NC (+0.5), IA (+0.5), GA (+0.3), TX (-3.2).

If the polls were to swing in Biden's direction as much as the need to swing in Trump's direction for Trump to win, Biden would win all of the yellow toss-up and orange leans GOP jurisdictions, Alaska (-3.0), and maybe even South Carolina where recent polls range from (-1.0) to (-10.0) with a polling average near the midpoint of those extremes.

In that scenario, Biden would be winning the marginal state (Michigan) by about ten percentage points, and would be polling nationally at +12, which would completely crush any effort to dispute his landslide victory.

A swing this big in favor of Biden is pretty unlikely. But a swing in Trump's favor big enough for him to win is looking more distant by the day as well.

Wither Puerto Rico, D.C., And The U.S. Territories?

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico's 3.4 million residents are U.S. citizens who have no voting members of the U.S. House of Representatives, no representation in the U.S. Senate, and no Presidential electors.

Under Puerto Rico's Commonwealth status, it is self-governing to a somewhat greater degree than a U.S. state, but are still subject to the laws of the federal government that they have no say upon.

Puerto Rico has opted for Commonwealth status repeatedly in three way referenda with independence, the Commonwealth status quo, or statehood on the ballot held in 1967, 1993 and 1998 (1967 - 39.0%; 1993 - 46.6%; 1998 - 46.6%) with a tiny percentage favoring independence and Commonwealth status edging out statehood prior to 2012. Commonwealth status was previously popular mostly because domestic non-federal employee income in Puerto Rico is not subject to U.S. income taxes, although Puerto Rico is also not eligible for some federal welfare benefits either.

But a "2012 referendum showed a majority (54% of the voters) in favor of a change in status, with full statehood the preferred option of those who wanted a change. Because there were almost 500,000 blank ballots in the 2012 referendum, creating confusion as to the voters' true desire, Congress decided to ignore the vote." In 2017, a referendum showed 97% of voters favored statehood, although turnout was low. 

But the status quo is really unconscionable democratically for a jurisdiction with 3.4 million people to have no say in the federal government that it is subject to, and if forced to choose between independence and statehood, Puerto Rico would almost surely choose statehood.

Granting Puerto Rico statehood would, like D..C. statehood, require only a federal statute, not a constitutional amendment, would not require approval from any U.S. state, and would not legally require approval in a referendum from the Puerto Rican people. Given the fact that Puerto Rico already voted for statehood in 2012 and 2017, it would not be illegitimate or undemocratic to honor those referenda in 2021.

The District of Columbia

This is also true in the District of Columbia, except that it has 3 electoral votes in Presidential elections, and multiple easy solutions. The most obvious solution for the District of Columbia (which could be done by a single federal statute without approval from any U.S. states) would be to make it a U.S. state (with the possible exception of a small federal district encompassing the main government offices, White House, Supreme Court and Capitol which would retain the residual 3 electoral votes that D.C. is granted under the U.S. Constitution), something most residents of the District of Columbia would support, although a referendum from D.C. residents is not legally required to do so. Alternately, the portions of D.C. annexed from Maryland could be returned to it (as the portions of D.C. annexed from Virginia pretty much already have been), in lieu of creating a new state. Or, the U.S. could adopt a constitutional amendment giving it the federal representation of a U.S. state without actually making it a state. 

Realistically, if this was done, there would be wide support for repealing the 23rd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (proposed in 1960 and adopted in 1961), that currently gives D.C. three electoral votes, but no representation in the U.S. House or U.S. Senate, which states:

SECTION 1 The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct:

A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment. 

SECTION 2 The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

On August 22, 1978, Congress submitted the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment to the states for ratification. This sweeping proposal would have granted the District of Columbia full representation in the United States Congress as if it were a state, repealed the Twenty-third Amendment and granted the district full representation in the Electoral College plus participation in the process by which the Constitution is amended as if it were a state.  

The amendment failed to become part of the Constitution, however, as it was not ratified by the required number of states (38) prior to its August 22, 1985 ratification deadline. The campaign for the proposed amendment ran into much fiercer conservative opposition due to the open and obvious fact that by 1978 the proposed amendment would have practically guaranteed two Democratic senators for some time; the amendment was criticized on various other grounds as well, and was not ratified even by several more "liberal" states.

(Source for image and material quoted above.) 

Other Territories

The argument against granting statehood to the other U.S. territories has been their low population. 

The self-governing territory of the U.S. Virgin Islands (which is more or less adjacent to Puerto Rico in the Caribbean sea) has about 102,000 people, who again, have the rights of U.S. citizens but no say in the federal government to which they are subject. Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands combined have about 3.5 million people.

There are three self-governing U.S. territories in the Pacific Ocean. American Samoa has about 54,000 people. Guam has about 163,000 people. The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands have 53,000 people. Combined, there are about 270,000 people in these three self-governing U.S. territories (about half the population of Wyoming).

One simple solution would be to grant statehood to the U.S. Virgin Islands, to American Samoa, to Guam, and to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. 

If Puerto Rico and D.C. were also made U.S. states this would increase the number of U.S. states from 50 to 56. Five of the new U.S. states would have two U.S. Senators and one member of the U.S. House, and three electoral votes each. Puerto Rico would have two U.S. Senators, and roughly the same number of members of the U.S. House and electoral votes as the State of Connecticut, which currently has 5 seats in the House, 2 in the Senate and 7 electoral votes. If the size of the U.S. House were increased so that the population per U.S. House seat was kept roughly the same, the six newly admitted states would collectively have 12 seats in the U.S. Senate, 10 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and 22 electoral votes.

One could image, instead, a compromise plan that would not involve a constitutional amendment for Puerto Rico and the U.S. territories.

In this plan, there would be three new states: D.C. (population approximately 680,000), the State of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands (population ca. 3,500,000) with two highly autonomous local government subdivisions, and the State of American Polynesia (population ca. 270,000) with three highly autonomous local government subdivisions.

In this scenario, D.C. would have two Senators, one member of the U.S. House of Representatives and 3 electoral votes in addition to the three electoral votes remaining for the residual capitol territory. The State of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands would have two Senators, five members of the U.S. house of Representatives and seven electoral votes. And, the State of American Polynesia would have two Senators, one member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and three electoral votes. If the size of the U.S. House were increased so that the population per U.S. House seat was kept roughly the same, the three newly admitted states would collectively have 6 seats in the U.S. Senate, 7 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and 13 electoral votes.

A Constitutional Amendment?

Another plausible compromise would be to use the threat of one of the scenarios granting these jurisdictions statehood as leverage to secure a constitutional amendment. (Giving all four small territories statehood status might also motivate conservative small states to join a unanimous movement support reform of the U.S. Senate.)

One of the better possible versions of this amendment would:

(1) repeal the 23rd Amendment. 

(2) give the D.C. and each U.S. Commonwealth and territory outside a U.S. state the number of U.S. House seats it would have if it was a U.S. state (and at least one seat), 

(3) provides that eligibility to vote shall be decided in accordance with federal law, subject to existing constitutional limitations, and either

(4A) repeals the electoral college and instead provide that a President and Vice President be elected as a ticket by direct popular vote in which residents of the District of Columbia, U.S. Commonwealths, and U.S. territories are entitled to vote conducted in a manner provided by law (which I do not believe would violate Article V of the U.S. Constitution discussed below); or

(4B) allocate to each state, District, Commonwealth and territory, a number of electoral college delegates equal to its number of U.S. House seats without regard to the number of its U.S. Senate seats (which I do not believe would violate Article V of the U.S. Constitution discussed below), and provide that electoral college delegates be allocated among candidates within each state, District, Commonwealth or territory as closely as possible without creating fractional delegates, in proportion to the share of the popular vote in that jurisdiction for each ticket of candidates.

Section 4B is approximately equivalent to Section 4A in terms of outcomes, except for rounding errors and turnout differences from state to state. It is possible for someone to win the electoral vote while losing the popular vote in the section 4B version, but it is much less likely, and when it happens, the discrepancy between the popular vote and the electoral vote would also be much smaller than the roughly three percentage point of popular vote bias against Democrats that exists in the status quo.

Section 4B eliminates an incentive to increase turnout relative to other states (since the state's total share of electoral votes is always the same) unlike Section 4A, continues to have federal elections administered by the states rather than by the federal government, and eliminates the possibility of a national recount of the vote. But it eliminates the ability of states to influence the outcome in a partisan manner by adjusting who is eligible to vote in the election.

In both versions, however, voters in safe states with more than one House district would make a difference that they do not now, small states would not have a gross advantage in electoral votes relative to large states, and candidates would have an incentive to campaign nationally rather than targeting their campaigns on a handful of swing states.

In both versions, Congress could authorize by law (and perhaps even require) that U.S. House seats in states with more than one U.S. House seat be elected at large on a proportional representation basis, rather than in single member districts.

Alternately, a U.S. Constitutional Amendment might come in many other permutations:

* It could, repeal the 23rd Amendment, give every territory outside a U.S. State at least one seat in the U.S. House with representation proportional to its population as if it were a U.S. state,  and give each of these jurisdictions some electoral votes. The number of electoral votes could be: (1) equal to the number of seats that it would have in the U.S. House (i.e. 1 each, except for Puerto Rico which would have about 5); (2) equal to the number of electoral votes that it would have if it was a U.S. State (i.e. 3 each, except for Puerto Rico which would have about 7); or (3) equal to the number of seats that it has in the U.S. House if its population in the last census was less than the smallest U.S. state (i.e. 1 each for the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands) and equal to the number of seats that they would have in if its population in the last census was equal to or more than the smallest U.S. state (i.e. 3 for D.C. and about 7 for Puerto Rico).

* repeal the 23rd Amendment; allocate electoral votes on the basis of U.S. House seats without regard to U.S. Senate seats (which I do not believe would violate Article V of the U.S. Constitution discussed below), and give the D.C. and each U.S. territory and commonwealth outside a U.S. state the number of U.S. House seats it would have if it was a U.S. state. Thus, the 435 U.S. House seats would be allocated among 56 jurisdictions instead of 51. This would also greatly reduce the likelihood of a tie in the electoral college in the usual case where there are only two candidates who receive electoral votes, by making the total number of electoral votes an odd number, without eliminating the benefit of the number of seats in the U.S. House being an odd number (also reducing the likelihood of a tie there).

* repeal the 23rd Amendment and give the people outside any U.S. state in D.C., and any U.S. territory or Commonwealth, collectively, U.S. House seats equal to what they would have if they were a single U.S. state - partitioned according to U.S. law (probably one for D.C., four or five for Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands collectively, and one for the U.S. territories in the Pacific collectively, or one for D.C., four or five for Puerto Rico, and one for all other U.S. territories collectively), allocate one electoral vote per Congressional District (like Maine and Nebraska do), and possibly allocate two electoral votes in addition to these jurisdictions collectively (like Maine and Nebraska do).

* keep the 23rd Amendment, give D.C. a seat in the U.S. House, give Puerto Rico the seats in the U.S. House and electoral votes on the same basis as it would have if it were a U.S. state, give the U.S. Virgin Islands one seat in the U.S. House and one electoral vote, and give the three U.S. territories in the Pacific, collectively, one seat in the U.S. House and one electoral votes.

* keep the 23rd Amendment, give D.C. a seat in the U.S. House, give Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, collectively, seats in the U.S. House and electoral votes on the same basis as it would have if it were a U.S. state, and give the three U.S. territories in the Pacific, collectively, one seat in the U.S. House and either one or three electoral votes.

* keep the 23rd Amendment, give D.C., Puerto Rico, and each U.S. territory one seat in the U.S. House (the number of non-voting delegates that each of them currently have), and give Puerto Rico three electoral votes (the same number it would get it the 23rd Amendment were applied to it rather than to D.C. since the 23rd Amendment caps the number of electoral votes given to D.C. at the smallest number allowed for each state).

An amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving Puerto Rico or the District of Columbia, or any other jurisdiction outside a U.S. state, seats in the U.S. Senate, without granting those jurisdictions statehood, would have to be ratified by all fifty U.S. states because Article V of the U.S. Constitution states (with spent language shown struck out; emphasis added to pertinent language) that:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

It seems unlikely that all fifty states would ratify such a change in the currently political circumstances of the United States.

I do not believe that this language bars amendments to the electoral college, as illustrated by the precedent of the 23rd Amendment.

Other Ideas For Constitutional Amendments

Some other ideas for constitutional amendments that aren't strictly on topic but go, in part, to U.S. Senate power that isn't unrelated to the discussion above. 

Changing The Balance Of Power Between the President, U.S. House and U.S. Senate

Weaken the U.S. Senate

Allow the U.S. House by a two-thirds majority, to enact legislation which is not approved by the U.S. Senate within some set period of time (perhaps six months) with a Presidential signature. The U.S. House would not be able to override a vetoed bill it approved in this manner without U.S. Senate support.

Thus, the two majoritarian branches, the President and U.S. House, could override the U.S. Senate with bipartisan support.

Weaken the President's Veto Power

Reduce the threshold for overriding a Presidential veto, to either (1) majorities in both houses (making the Presidential veto a way to delay a law's enactment because he or she notice a problem with it, rather than actually reallocating power), or (2) a majority of the U.S. Senate and two-thirds of the U.S. House (preventing the unequal level of U.S. Senate representation to be leveraged excessively to prevent a veto override by states representing only a very small percentage of the U.S. population).

Change The Treaty Approval Requirement

Replace the two-thirds approval required for treaties by the U.S. Senate alone with (1) a requirement that treaties be ratified by law, or (2) require majority approval by the U.S. Senate (preventing the unequal level of U.S. Senate representation to be leveraged excessively to prevent a veto override by states representing only a very small percentage of the U.S. population) and two-thirds approval in the U.S. House, for treaties, and provide that treaties override statutes unlike existing U.S. law where a domestic statute can override a treaty.

Approving Nominations

Require judicial and non-judicial Presidential nominations to be approved by both houses of Congress rather than just the U.S. Senate, provided however, that two-thirds majorities of each house of Congress (rather that the status quo than a majority approval of the U.S. Senate) is required to appoint a U.S. Supreme Court justice (the only lifetime appointees whose decisions can't be overridden by someone else). This would effectively require the President to secure bipartisan approval for nominations when the control of the House and Senate are split, and in all cases for U.S. Supreme Court justices.

End the authority of the President to make recess appointments.

Broaden impeachment eligibility

Allow a President to be impeached for failing to faithfully execute the laws, violating the constitution, or for ceasing to be competent, rather than merely for "high crimes and misdemeanors"

Require a majority vote, rather than a two-thirds majority vote, to convict the President following a vote to impeach in the U.S. House. This would effectively make the President subordinate to the legislature.

Require Bipartisan Support For Actions By Lame Ducks

Require two-thirds majorities to approve any action that could otherwise be approved by majority vote in ether house of Congress, between a Presidential election day and a Presidential inauguration.

This could take effect starting with the first President elected after the amendment is ratified to make it not about current partisan battles.

Lame ducks should be able to act only with bipartisan support.

High Speed Rail In Texas And Southern California Gets Real

A high speed rail project in Texas from Dallas to Houston will be the second true high speed rail lines in the U.S., rather than mere "medium speed rail" barely faster than interstate highway motor vehicle traffic. The Dallas to Houston line is scheduled to be finished by 2027 and is a rare Trump Administration initiatives that a Biden-Harris administration surely wouldn't roll back. The Texas line will be much faster than the properly described "medium" speed Acela line in the Northeast (which is at least upgrading to trains that can handle somewhat higher speeds but needs expensive infrastructure improvements). 

A similar Los Angeles to Las Vegas proposal is scheduled to be completed in 2023 that will make the trip in 85 minutes making it the first truly high speed rail line in the U.S. California has other high speed rail plans in place in the early stages with construction just starting and completion in phases from 2029 to 2033 planned.

Florida has "medium speed" rail from Miami to West Palm Beach similar to Acela service in place (but suspended due to Coronavirus), with construction continuing to Orlando underway scheduled for 2022 completion, and continuation on to Tampa at some indefinite time after that time.

Texas High Speed Rail

The high-speed train that promises to transport passengers between Dallas and Houston in 90 minutes has been approved by the Federal Railroad Administration, according to Texas Central Railroad, the company in charge of the project.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration issued the two key rulings, which provide the regulatory framework and the environmental review for the high-speed train, that Texas officials were waiting on to move forward with the project, according to the company. The announcement was first reported by the Houston Chronicle.

Texas Central expects to start construction in the first half of 2021. The federal Surface Transportation Board still must approve the project before construction can begin. . . . 

The company estimates that the construction for the project will take up to six years, with a total cost of around $20 billion. The train will use the same technology as the Shinkansen bullet trains in Japan, which can reach speeds of more than 200 mph. . . . 

The project has seen resistance from property owners in rural areas of Central Texas, where the railroad would travel through. According to Texas Central Railroad, they already have control of over 600 parcels of land — approximately 40% of the parcels they need for the project — as well as sites for stations in Dallas, Houston and the Brazos Valley.

From The Texas Tribune (September 21, 2020) (image from here).

XpressWest, a passenger rail project between Las Vegas and greater Los Angeles, a distance of about 170 miles, received the rights two weeks ago to build on the Interstate 15 median. Brightline, the Miami company that runs the project, plans to break ground later this year, with $5 billion of private funding, $4.2 billion of which will come in the form of tax-exempt bonds. Trains will reach speeds of 200 mph. It's expected to be completed in late 2023.

A Texas project that will offer 90-minute-or-less trips between Houston and Dallas received an important environmental review in May after a six-year wait. It also won a state court case this spring that gives it eminent domain rights, which will simplify the process of acquiring land between the two cities, which lie 240 miles apart. . . 

Efforts began to speed up Northeast corridor train service in the 1990s, and the Acela launched in 2000. But the service isn't considered true high-speed rail without investment in the tracks and infrastructure, and Amtrak has struggled to find funding. High-speed rail interest re-emerged in 2008 when former President Obama pledged billions.

High-speed rail advocates say that 2020 may be a turning point for US high-speed rail development, which has long lagged other developed nations. Japan began building high-speed rail in the 1960s. Europe followed in the 1980s and 1990s. Africa's first high-speed rail train came in 2018. China surpassed everyone in the last 12 years, building the world's largest high-speed rail network, stretching thousands of miles, and moving passengers at speeds of up to 217 mph.

From CNN (July 8, 2020) (image from here).

Acela In The Northeast Corridor. 

The Acela (/əˈsɛlə/ ə-SEL-ə; until September 2019 Acela Express) is Amtrak's flagship high speed service along the Northeast Corridor (NEC) in the Northeastern United States between Washington, D.C. and Boston via 16 intermediate stops, including Providence, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. The route contains segments of high-speed rail, and Acela trains are the fastest trainsets in the Americas; they attain 150 mph (240 km/h) on 33.9 mi (54.6 km) of the route.

Acela carried more than 3.4 million passengers in fiscal year 2016; second only to the slower and less expensive Northeast Regional, which had over 8 million passengers in FY 2016. Its 2016 revenue of US $585 million was 25% of Amtrak's total.

Acela operates along routes that are used by freight and slower regional passenger traffic, and reaches the maximum allowed speed of the tracks only along some sections, with the fastest peak speed along segments between Mansfield, Massachusetts and Richmond, Rhode Island. Acela trains use active tilting technology, which helps control lateral centrifugal force, allowing the train to travel at higher speeds on the sharply curved NEC without disturbing passengers. The high-speed operation occurs mostly along the 226 mi (364 km) route from Pennsylvania Station in New York City to Union Station in Washington, D.C., with a fastest scheduled time of 2 hours and 45 minutes and an average speed of 82.2 mph (132.3 km/h), including time spent at intermediate stops. Over this route, Acela and the Northeast Regional service captured a 75% share of air/train commuters between New York and Washington in 2011, up from 37% in 2000.

The Acela's speed is limited by traffic and infrastructure on the route's northern half. On the 231 mi (372 km) section from Boston's South Station to New York's Penn Station, the fastest scheduled time is 3 hours and 30 minutes, or an average speed of 66 mph (106 km/h). Along this section, Acela has still captured a 54% share of the combined train and air market. The entire 457 mi (735 km) route from Boston to Washington takes between 6 hours, 38 minutes and 6 hours, 50 minutes, at an average of around 70.3 mph (113.1 km/h).

The present Acela Express equipment will be replaced by new Avelia Liberty trainsets, beginning in 2021. The new trains will have greater passenger capacity and an enhanced active tilt system that will allow faster speed on the many curved sections of the route. Amtrak plans to retire all current Acela trains by the end of 2022. . . .

On August 26, 2016, Vice President Joe Biden announced a $2.45 billion federal loan package to pay for new equipment for the Acela Express service, as well as upgrades to the NEC. The loans will finance 28 trainsets, named the Avelia Liberty, that will be built by Alstom in Hornell and Rochester, New York and will replace the existing fleet of twenty trainsets.

The fleet expansion will allow for hourly New York-Boston service all day and half-hourly New York-Washington service at peak hours. The new trainsets will be longer, offering 30% greater seating capacity and will feature active tilt technology that would allow service to operate at 186 miles per hour (299 km/h) if infrastructure improvements were completed to allow the higher speeds.

The new trains will be phased in between 2021 and 2022, after which the current fleet is to be retired. Amtrak will pay off the loans from increased NEC passenger revenue.

From Wikipedia (references omitted).

Infrastructure upgrades to make Acela a true high speed rail line would cost about $151 billion (as of July 2012), and with the infrastructure upgrades: "A trip from New York to Washington, D.C., would take just 94 minutes instead of three hours. Boston to D.C. would take just three hours instead of seven." 

Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden is a long time Amtrak user who often commutes from Wilmington, Delaware (a suburb of Philadelphia across the state line from it) to Union Station in Washington D.C. for his work in Congress (a 79 minute trip on the high speed line and up to a 106 minute trip via the ordinary Northeast Regional line) at a cost of $23-$45 and you don't have to buy your ticket far in advance. His choice of Amtrak to make the trip isn't irrational.

The trip takes about 119 minutes and is 108 miles via I-95 by car, requires you to have parking at your destination and prevents you from doing anything else en route unless you have a driver - at a realistic 50 cents a mile "all in" cost of driving a personal car (i.e. not just gasoline, but car insurance, oil changes and maintenance, and the cost of the car itself), it costs about $54 to make that trip one way by car. 

A Greyhound bus also connects the two locations, takes 145 minutes and costs $18-$26 one way, but it makes trips only about as often as the Amtrak and is less comfortable in addition to being slower.

You basically can't buy a direct commercial airline flight on that route. Once you factor in the time needed to clear security and board the plane (realistically at least 45 minutes), time spent on the plane from gate to gate (about 44 minutes), time spent walking from the gate in the airport to ground transportation (at least 10 minutes) travel from one of the area airports (one of two in metro D.C. or one in Baltimore) to the Capitol (at least 9 minutes from Reagan airport, at least 37 minutes from Dulles with more time from the gate to ground transportation since its a larger airport, and at least 41 minutes from Baltimore), it realistically, it would take at least 108 minutes from the Wilmington, Delaware airpot to Union Station, which is longer than the longest Northwest Regional trip and would cost more than the most expensive Acela ticket. The closest price comparison where there actually are direct commercial flights, would be from the Philadelphia airport to Reagan (about the same distance and flight time) which would cost at least $265 one way plus $19 for transport from the airport for a combined cost of at least $284 one way.

From Reagan Washington Airport, it takes 9 minutes and $19-$60 to go by taxi, shuttle or town car to Union Station, or 22 minutes and $6 to go by subway. From the Washington Dulles Airport it takes 37 minutes and $40-$120 to go by taxi, shuttle or town car to Union Station, and 50 minutes and $4-$18 to go by bus. From the Baltimore Airport, it takes 41 minutes and $35-$140 to go by taxi, shuttle or town car to Union Station, and it takes 65 minutes and $22-$115 to go by Amtrak.

The Amtrak stop at the end of the line, Union Station, is easy walking distance from the capitol. When I worked as an intern in Congress, I took a commuter rail line from a Virginia suburb of D.C. where I was staying with extended family to Union Station and walked to the Congressional office building where I worked. 

Florida's Medium Speed Rail Projects

The orange line in Florida, construction of which is already underway with service between Miami and West Palm Beach having already commenced in 2018 until it was halted in March 2020 due to COVID, on a stretch connecting three stations in about an hour with peak speeds of 79 miles per hour on a roughly 72 mile route.

An expansion to Orlando, a three hour, 240 mile trip from Miami with peak speeds of 125 miles per hour to the North of West Palm Beach, due to completed in 2022. This compares to highway travel times of 3 hours 30 minutes to 3 hours 45 minutes between the same destinations. 

An Orlando to Tampa expansion similar to the West Palm Beach to Orlando portion of the route is planned with no firm timeline or financing. 

Thus, the lines are comparable to the Acela system in the Northeast Corridor and not truly "high speed" rail lines. The cost is about $3.5 billion from Miami to Orlando.

California High Speed Rail

A high speed rail line connecting San Francisco and Sacramento to Los Angeles has a decent chance of being built. 

Plans are in place and there is a government agency that is operating in California to build 380 miles of high speed rail from Los Angeles to San Francisco with a trip time of two hours and 40 minutes, an estimated price as of 2018 of $63-98 billion, and completion in phases from 2029 to 2033. The cost for Bakersfield to Merced would be $12.4 billion. 

But construction on high speed rail has not yet begun outside the Central Valley and the route to Las Vegas.

General Considerations In Future Rail Development

High speed rail works best on medium length routes with high population density. (See a previous post at this blog on the subject here). 

Some of the plans are more serious than others. It is hard to mobilize resources to build major infrastructure projects like high speed rail lines in places like the red lines in Rust Belt cities of the Midwest and in the Northeast, that are stagnant or in decline, while it is easier to generate enthusiasm to invest large sums of money in places that are experiencing relative economic growth.

Applying those criteria (and other criteria too) the study linked above proposed the following routes:

In reality, the orange lines have ended up getting built or upgraded, before the higher priority red lines, in part, because the cost is more manageable than building high speed rail lines through high density urban areas ($154 billion for the red Northeast Corridor upgrades in 2012 dollars v. $20 billion current dollars for the orange Texas line and $4.2 billion current dollars for a Palmdale to Las Vegas line). 

Lines that involve only one or two states appear to be easier to coordinate than more involved multi-state lines. 

Yellow and gray priority lines on the map above are too low down the priority list to be considered. 

Proposals Stuck In The Planning Stage

A number of high and medium speed rail proposals are in the planning stage. They are imminent, but are further along that other lines that are merely a twinkle in the eye of some very long range planner, so they might happen someday.

The planned upgrade of the Acela line in the Northeast Corridor, because it is such as high priority, because there is already a foundation and ridership in place, and because this corridor is stable than declining economically, might get upgraded to true high speed rail status at some point. But, while new trains are planning, infrastructure improvements are basically just conceptual at this point.

The lines connecting Los Angeles to San Diego and Phoenix, are in the conceptual planning stages. So is the orange line in the Pacific Northwest where only studies are underway at this time. But these have some plausible chance of being built at some point. 

The red and orange priority lines in the Midwest, and the orange priority lines from New York City to Albany, New York and from Atlanta to the District of Columbia, seem much less likely to be built with no real recent progress to date, and the unambitious plans made to date mostly involving modest increases in the speed of existing Amtrak service to "medium speed" rail.

Colorado High Speed Rail Proposals

For example, while Front Range high speed rail in Colorado and New Mexico might have a manageable price of about $11 billion (in 2020 dollars) for 90 to 180 mile per hour lines from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins, the Interstate Highway system there is quite adequate and fast considering the volume of traffic in this corridor. 

This is particularly true if you are considering only half measures, like an 80 miles per hour line from Pueblo to Fort Collins along an Interstate highway where speed limits on the adjacent highways are already 75 miles per hour in many places. 

But a cost of $18 billion or so (in 2020 dollars) from a high speed rail line from DIA to Eagle, Colorado (along I-70, more or less) while it would alleviate congestion, would have only about a quarter of the estimated traffic of the proposed Colorado Springs to Fort Collins line along the I-25 corridor, despite costing much more to build and really makes sense financially only to the extent it can alleviate the need to spend as much on expanding and/or maintaining I-70 in the mountains. According to a study from 2014:

Two studies from the Colorado Department of Transportation have estimated the cost of building high speed rail in Colorado. 

With travel speeds of 90 to 180 mph, the system could save considerable time, said CDOT. A trip from C-470 and Interstate 70 in Golden to Breckenridge would take just more than a half hour; travel to Vail would take 50 minutes. Meanwhile, a trip from Fort Collins to DIA would take less than 40 minutes, and Colorado Springs to DIA would take less than an hour.

CDOT also forecasts such a rapid system could serve 18 million to 19 million passengers a year in 2035.

But preliminary capital costs are insurmountable, said Mark Imhoff, director of CDOT's division of transit and rail. A transit system linking DIA to Eagle would cost $16.5 billion, while Fort Collins to Pueblo comes in at $13.6 billion. A maximum of $1 billion to $3 billion could be obtained in private financing, leaving a considerable shortfall, Imhoff said.

This is consistent with a previous report from November of last year, which also noted that the Fort Collins to Colorado Springs portion would cost about $9.8 billion and carry 13 million passengers a year. Extending light rail from Colorado Springs to Pueblo would add $2.8 billion to construction costs and only modestly improve ridership.

The DIA to Eagle route would add about 4-5.5 million passengers (after considering an estimated allowance for Colorado Springs to Pueblo traffic out of the total), with an additional cost of $16.5 billion of infrastructure costs. Thus, the cost per rider in the mountains would be about four to five times as expensive per passenger as the Fort Collins to Colorado Springs route to build.

UPDATE October 6, 2020.

This plan below isn't realistically going to happen any time in the next couple of decades, but is a dream plan that might have happened in the absence of an Interstate Highway system.