This video is a Berkeley Law Alumni Association virtual “book talk” that launches a new series featuring Berkeley Law faculty publications.
The host, Yury Kapgan (Quinn Emanuel partner; Berkeley Law ’01), introduces Dean Erwin Chemerinsky discussing his 2024 book “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States.”
What Chemerinsky argues (the core “about”)
Chemerinsky’s central claim is that the United States is facing a serious democratic legitimacy crisis, driven by (1) collapsing public trust in institutions and (2) extreme political polarization—and that several constitutional design choices amplify those problems.
Main points he covers
- Erosion of trust in government institutions
- He cites polling showing very low confidence/approval for the federal government, Congress, and the Supreme Court (used to frame the “democracy crisis” problem).
- Structural features of the Constitution that, in his view, undermine democratic equality
- Electoral College: He argues it’s anti-democratic and historically connected to slavery-era compromises; he highlights modern “popular vote vs. Electoral College” mismatches.
- U.S. Senate: Equal representation for states produces major “one person, one vote” distortions as population gaps have widened.
- House of Representatives: He says it has become less representative due to partisan gerrymandering and because the size of the House has been frozen since the 1920s.
- Supreme Court: He criticizes life tenure as excessive, especially with longer life expectancy and younger appointments.
- Compounding modern developments
- Partisan gerrymandering enabled by modern data tools; he references Rucho v. Common Cause (2019) as limiting federal court remedies.
- Money in politics, especially Citizens United, and the growth of “dark money,” which he argues fuels cynicism and distrust.
- Race and slavery: He argues constitutional compromises that entrenched slavery have long-term effects that still shape inequality.
- Amendment difficulty (Article V): He argues it’s become so hard to amend the Constitution that needed reforms are blocked.
What he proposes as “fixes”
He emphasizes that many reforms could be statutory (not constitutional amendments), including:
- Reducing Electoral College distortion by ending winner-take-all allocation of electors (state practice) and moving toward proportional allocation.
- Requiring independent redistricting commissions for congressional districts.
- Expanding the House to improve representation (and indirectly reduce Electoral College skew).
- Stronger disclosure laws to combat dark money (he says disclosure has historically been upheld by the Court).
- Various measures to blunt the impact of Citizens United (e.g., restrictions tied to government contracting).
- Updating and strengthening the Voting Rights Act via legislation.
For changes he views as unlikely by amendment (like eliminating the Senate’s equal state representation), he’s blunt about feasibility. But he says one plausible constitutional amendment is:
- Supreme Court term limits, commonly proposed as 18-year nonrenewable terms, staggered to create regular vacancies.
He also floats, more speculatively, the long-term idea that the U.S. may someday need a new constitution, and discusses how such a process might be designed (nationally representative convention + public ratification).
The “update” portion (current events framing in the talk)
Late in the talk, he adds that if he were revising the book, he would discuss what he characterizes as unprecedented norm-breaking and constitutional conflict in the period after January 20 (he frames these as threats to constitutional democracy), and then he shifts to civic action: stay informed, get involved (ACLU/Common Cause/etc.), support litigation and institutions, speak out, and organize politically.
Q&A themes
In audience questions, he addresses:
- The role of lawyers and judges as “guardrails” via litigation.
- His criticism of limits on nationwide injunctions (discussed in connection with a birthright-citizenship-related case mentioned in the webinar).
- Whether Congress can end dark money (he says yes via disclosure).
- Whether SCOTUS term limits can be done by statute (he says likely not; prefers amendment).
- Whether to change the First Amendment for AI-era speech (he says the text is fine; interpretation could evolve).