The New Constitution

Freedom

A constitution engineered to keep government limited through institutional incentive design

Key Constitutional Features

Six structural innovations that keep government limited by design

Separation of Spending and Taxing

The power to spend is separated from the power to tax and borrow, mitigating the tendency for the concentrated benefits of spending outweighing the dispersed costs of taxation.

Federal Executive Council

Executive power is shared among an assembly-independent council without a legislative veto. This structure prevents any one person from wielding unchecked authority, and prevents a runaway executive.

Federal Government Taxes States

The federal government raises revenue by taxing the budgets of state governments, not citizens directly, incentivizing states to keep their budgets small and to appoint Senators and Constitutional Court Justices who will keep the federal government limited.

Supermajority Lawmaking Rules

A 60% majority is required to pass new laws, but only 50% to repeal them. Borrowing money requires a 75% supermajority.

Proportional Representation + Sortition

The lower chambers use a hybrid of party-list voting and sortition, ensuring the full spectrum of voters is reflected in the legislature — not just the two dominant parties.

State-Appointed Justices

Constitutional Court Justices are appointed by state governments rather than federal authorities, keeping the court independent of federal political pressure.

These are only some of the most important changes. The full draft includes many more large and small reforms. Read the full draft.

Why a new constitution?

Today's constitutions have been proven inadequate at keeping governments limited and the people free. That is why New Constitution Project was created to analyze how modern governmental structures incentivize modern problems such as irresponsible finances, erosion of rights and warping of the law. The culmination of this work is a draft of The New Constitution, a founding document backed by both empirical evidence and theoretical analysis, which aims to be the foundation of a future society.

What can The New Constitution achieve?

Decentralize Power

Protect Individual Liberty

Reduce Poverty

Promote Growth

Better Representation

Fiscal Responsibility

“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.”

“The important thing is to make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. If it is not politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either.”

“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race?”

“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.”

“The fact that the market is not doing what we wish it would do is no reason to automatically assume that the government would do better.”

“The argument for liberty is not an argument against organization, which is one of the most powerful tools human reason can employ, but an argument against all exclusive, privileged, monopolistic organization, against the use of coercion to prevent others from doing better.”