By coincidence, I finished reading Jill Lepore’s Pulitzer-winning book about the history of the Constitution, “We The People,” just as the 2026 midterm election came to its wonderful conclusion.

If you’re not familiar with it, Lepore’s book is a detailed accounting of efforts to either change the Constitution or, failing that, reading it in a way that changes its meaning from time to time.

Because the amendment process in Article V makes that kind of change extremely difficult, we’ve more often relied on how the nine people on the Supreme Court interpret the document.

Liberals are fine with that when the results are something like Brown v. Board of Education that ended segregated schools or Oberkfell v. Hodges which legalized same-sex marriage.

Conservatives are fine with that when Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ends the right to abortion in many states or when Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission allows corporations to spent unlimited money on campaigns.

Thanks to Trump, the conservatives hold sway on the court right now. They hold a super majority – six of the nine justices are right-wing. In fact, the three justices picked by Trump are only nearly as bad as Clarence Thomas, named by George H.W. Bush, and Samuel Alito, selected by Bush’s son.

And, because the High Court is MAGA in black robes instead of red hats, and both houses of Congress acted like trained seals under Republican leadership, Trump and his unmerry band ran roughshod over norms, laws and Constitutional provisions. RIP, emoluments clause.

Trump proved the Constitution contains loopholes – and he drove a giant ballroom through them. Sure, courts might eventually catch up with his crime spree. But a lot of damage will be done – lives lost, lives ruined, peace disturbed, an economy savaged, landmarks wrecked or destroyed.

The Democrats won a bigger victory than any of us dared imagine. Bigger than even the victories Republicans won earlier this century in a deck stacked by gerrymandering and voter suppression. In Congress, in governors’ mansions, in state legislatures.

And still, they’re not close to being able to effect the changes that are needed. Because to amend the U.S. Constitution, two-thirds of both houses of Congress must approve the proposal. And then three-quarters of the state legislatures – that’s 38 as of now – have to OK the change.

What Constitutional amendment do you think could possibly pass in Alabama AND Vermont?Utah AND New York? California AND Oklahoma?

So the kinds of changes Democrats need to make must go around but not against the Constitution. It’s like playing Operation, the board game – if you try to remove the organ, you can’t trip the buzzer. Which in this case is John Roberts and his merry band at SCOTUS.

But Democrats can’t do nothing. They campaigned on the idea of making changes to root out corruption and preserving democracy. That goes hand-in-hand with the affordability mantra – political graft is contributing to the high cost of everything.

One slam dunk is to pass ethics reforms for all branches of the federal government – legislative, judicial and executive..

This means no stock trading. No starting businesses while in office. Putting existing investments into a blind trust, No working as a lobbyist for a certain amount of time after you leave office. No gifts above $100 – there’s no problem accepting a tin of cookies from Girl Scouts, but paid-for trips and real estate are ridiculous.

Would the tame right-wing Supreme Court strike that down? Maybe. Show them for what they are and pass the legislation anyway.

And one more thing: If a judicial or executive nominee refuses to accept these guidelines, there should be a coalition of senators and representatives, from both parties, saying they will vote “No” regardless of their political affiliation.

It’s unlikely we can get rid of the Electoral College. And I’m not sure the popular vote compact – awarding a state’s electoral vote to the national popular vote winner – is a particularly good idea.

if I voted for the national vote loser, and he or she carried my state, I doubt I’d be crazy about the state casting our electoral votes for the other candidate.

We’re also going to have a hard time getting rid of Citizens United. But Montana and Hawaii have enacted legislation limiting the influence corporations have on elections. That should be something the other 48 states do, too.

The Democrats can’t really enact some other needed reforms that Trump can veto – adding seats to the Supreme Court and statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Also, adding seats to the House of Representatives to make it more reflective of the actual population. California has one seat for every 757,000 people. Wyoming has one for all of its 589,000. That’s more than a 20% underrepresentation for California.

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One other thought: There should never be another U.S. Supreme Court Justice who states a belief that the Constitution needs to be interpreted through the prism of the original intent of its authors.

That is absolutely ridiculous. It ascribes infallibility to a bunch of guys who still owned slaves. Who read by candlelight, cooked on an open fire and took a week to get from New York to Washington.

It’s doubtful “Hamilton” would be the success it is if Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote it in the form of minuets and chorales instead of hip-hop and rock.

That’s what original intent means to me. The Constitution should be a living document; it should adapt to the times. That means the Second Amendment should be interpreted to take into account weapons of mass destruction, that the Fourth Amendment be interpreted to understand how much easier to search individuals in a technological age.

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You can’t be sure whether the massive Democratic victory this month is a harbinger of a shift in Americans’ attitudes. We thought the U.S. was “past racism” when it overwhelmingly elected a Black president in 2008 – and think about what’s happened since.

But with a little vigilance, we can begin the process of emerging from the darkness of the past decade.

Change is coming. Let’s hope it’s good – and that the good sticks.