this post was submitted on 19 May 2026
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They already can be. There's a few ways to do it, but all of them are slow, difficult and rely on achieving a level of political alignment which is not going to happen any time soon. And almost certainly not for the things you're likely to want.
First off, Congress can just pass a law to change the current law. For most things, this works out well enough and this still happens from time to time. But, it's much less durable than other methods. If the Supreme Court sees that law as violating the Constitution, they will strike it down and that ends that path to change.
Second, Congress and the States could amend the Constitution. The has happened 27 times in US History, but it's never been a simple process. The Constitution is hard to amend and it requires a lot of consensus. Given the fractious nature of current politics and going by voting patters, the near perfect split between left vs right, I doubt we could even get an amendment passed which just said, "don't kick puppies".
Lastly, the States could just call a Constitutional Convention and pass whatever they want. This is a bad idea. It's a really, really bad idea. The last time the States did this, they scrapped everything the previous Constitutional Convention had written and started from scratch. Maybe this would result in something better, but given whom our current president is, I'd be kinda afraid of giving any political body that sort of power right now.
Technically, there's also always the "ammo box" solution to forcing change. But, history provides lost of examples of that going very, very poorly and almost none of it going well. Also, that process is only legal if you win; so, maybe let's not go there.
Ignoring the fact that this would require an amendment to the US Constitution to put in place, it's an interesting idea. Though, it's worth noting that this would have likely delayed a lot of social change in the US. The 20th Century saw a lot of landmark changes to the interpretation to the Constitution, not all of them widely popular at the time.
This would devolve a lot of power away from the Federal Government. Arguably, this would be more similar to the pre-20th Century state of affairs. Control of State Governments would be even more important to political parties and this would likely shift power even further towards small, less densely populated States. In short, I'd bet on it causing a significant conservative shift in US law. Currently, the GOP hold 23 State Government trifectas (control of all legislative branches), and the DNC 16. The other 11 States are split. [source]. While such control does not guarantee control of State Supreme Courts (e.g. Virginia's Supreme Court is still conservative), it is an indicator. But, I'd bet on a cumulative court decision being much closer to the current Supreme Court than many folks here would want.