Could an amendment replace the Senate with a new house of Congress? Could an amendment be passed which abolished the Senate entirely (or reduced its powers to serve purely ceremonial functions) and created a new house of Congress with identical functions but excluding one particular state, without that state's consent?
One can argue both ways. On one side, yes, zero representation in the Senate for all states is equal suffrage in the Senate. On the other side, no, depriving all states of all representation in the Senate deprives them of their suffrage in the Senate (without needing to consider the question of whether the suffrage is equal). Since this question has never been considered by a court, we can't do much more than speculate how one might rule. There has never been an amendment proposed to modify the composition of the Senate -- at least not one that was seriously considered. The spirit of the law works in favor of the second interpretation. Furthermore, a strict application of abstract logical reasoning was probably not the intention of the framers. A strategy that might seem more likely to succeed would be to introduce amendments reducing the Senate's power in the legislative process, similar to the evolution of the House of Lords in the UK. If the goal were to sideline one state, this might work, but if the goal is to address the complaint that the Senate is undemocratic because people in smaller states have proportionally more influence there, there's no way the amendment would pass 3/4 of the states' legislatures. The number of states with one or two representatives is 13, by itself a sufficient number to block the adoption of an amendment.
No As the official Rules Of The Senate say in section VI (Quorum): A quorum shall consist of a majority of the Senators duly chosen and sworn. No Senator shall absent himself from the service of the Senate without leave. If, at any time during the daily sessions of the Senate, a question shall be raised by any Senator as to the presence of a quorum, the Presiding Officer shall forthwith direct the Secretary to call the roll and shall announce the result, and these proceedings shall be without debate. Whenever upon such roll call it shall be ascertained that a quorum is not present, a majority of the Senators present may direct the Sergeant at Arms to request, and, when necessary, to compel the attendance of the absent Senators, which order shall be determined without debate; and pending its execution, and until a quorum shall be present, no debate nor motion, except to adjourn, or to recess pursuant to a previous order entered by unanimous consent, shall be in order. Thus there must be a majority of the US Senate, that is at least 51 Senators, present to do any business, and in particular to pass any bill or resolution. The scenario described in the question, where less than a majority can control the action of the Senate, thus cannot occur. MY understanding is that when any Senator rises to question whether a quorum is present, in addition to the reading of the names on the Senate floor, lights flash indicating a quorum call in the office of each Senator, and if the Senator is present and did not expect a business session, that Senator would be likely to get to the floor, and if the senator is not in the office but even one staff member is, that staffer would be very likely to call the Senator wherever s/he might be. Moreover, section VII of the Rules provides that: Until the morning business shall have been concluded, and so announced from the Chair, or until one hour after the Senate convenes at the beginning of a new legislative day, no motion to proceed to the consideration of any bill, resolution, report of a committee, or other subject upon the Calendar shall be entertained by the Presiding Officer, unless by unanimous consent: Provided, however, That on Mondays which are the beginning of a legislative day the Calendar shall be called under rule VIII, and until two hours after the Senate convenes no motion shall be entertained to proceed to the consideration of any bill, resolution, or other subject upon the Calendar except the motion to continue the consideration of a bill, resolution, or other subject against objection as provided in rule VIII, or until the call of the Calendar has been completed. This ensures that the Senate cannot simply take up a bill the moment it convenes. Moreover, there is a public Legislative Calander. This calendar: Displays time and date the Senate is next scheduled to convene The CRS report &quot;The Senate’s Calendar of Business&quot; says in relevant part: The Senate’s Calendar of Business lists bills, resolutions, and other items of legislative business that are eligible for floor consideration. When a Senate committee reports a bill, it is said to be placed “on the calendar.” It is not in order for the majority leader or any other Senator to move that the Senate proceed to the consideration of a measure that is not on the calendar, though the majority leader could ask unanimous consent to do so. ... The Senate’s other calendar, the Executive Calendar, lists treaties and nominations—which constitute the Senate’s executive business—that are available for floor action. Both of these documents are published each day the Senate is in session and distributed to Senators’ personal offices and to all committee and subcommittee offices. ... The front cover of the Calendar of Business gives the dates on which each session of the current Congress convened and adjourned sine die and the number of days the Senate actually has met during each session. It also shows the date and time at which the Senate is next scheduled to convene. ... Also included in the Calendar of Business are the following: calendars for the current month and year, showing the days on which the Senate met and the anticipated dates of future nonlegislative periods; ... &quot;bills and joint resolutions read the first time” and awaiting the start of the next legislative day when they will be read by title for a second time; after this second reading, each such measure probably will be placed directly on the calendar under the provisions of Rule XIV instead of being referred to committee. Note that this means that no bill can be acted on on the same day that it is introduced, and every Senator's office is notified of bills that had a first reading. Thus no bills can be snuck in and acted on without every Senator having notice that the bill is coming up. Also, as I understand it, a Senate meeting cannot be scheduled without notice of the date having been given in the Calendar, or else to every Senator's office. So the sort of &quot;private Calendar&quot; and &quot;private meeting&quot; suggested in the question would not work, unless the rules are first changed.
Dale M's answer is not supported at all by history, or any mode of constitutional interpretation. I also don't find it likely. I'd say that if a duly ratified amendment said as much, that would be the law. It is certainly correct that the court could try to narrow the meaning. It's also possible to simply not follow the Constitution (as we do with state immunity and the 11th amendment). But to assume that would be done here is just speculating blindly. Of course, this question doesn't warrant much more attention than blind speculation, so my comment is not a very offensive accusation. As a few counter points, we have radically change the form of our government many times within the current constitution. Reconstruction, The New Deal and so on, all represented huge changes. Most importantly, the 17th amendment can easily be viewed as more radical than the question's proposed amendment. It completely flipped the political system upside down, orienting power in the people and the federal government, and treating the states as some weird intermediary: but we now see it as a relatively boring enactment. Certainly we could come to see the formal abolishment of the amendment process similarly, especially if it were (which it would need to be) accompanied with a new found comfort with non-textual interpretation to effectively &quot;amend&quot; through interpretation, i.e. If the textualists lost badly this amendment would seem like a relatively natural way of announcing their demise. Remember that Scalia's whole point, is that strict originalism (not saying he was actually so strict himself) would democratize by forcing change through the amendment process. If we rejected that notion (as deceptive, for example) we could (as in its not completely ridiculous to imagine) announce that rejection with the proposed amendment.
Article I, Section 8 of the United States lists the powers of Congress (and a handful a sprinkled elsewhere in the U.S. Constitution and its amendments, such as the power to regulate court jurisdiction in Article III and the enforcement powers of the 13th and 14th Amendments, to give a non-exclusive list). These powers include powers reasonable and necessary to achieve the other powers. Various federal statutes authorize eminent domain power exercises in different contexts for different purposes expressly set forth in those statutes and the constitution. The Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution (Article VI, Clause 2) makes federal law supreme over state law in every state. It states: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. The federal government has control over everything happening in U.S. states to the extent that it is in furtherance of the limited powers of the federal government set forth in the constitution, and not in violation of any prohibition on federal action in that area (e.g. the federal government can bribe state governments but cannot generally force them to take a particular action on its behalf).
The leaders can't do it unilaterally, but the members collectively can expel other members. It requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate. US Constitution, Article I, Section 5: Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member. Normally this would be preceded by a committee investigation, which might issue a recommendation as to whether the member should be expelled. To date, fifteen US Senators have been expelled via this process: see https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Expulsion_Censure.htm. Fourteen of them were in 1861 for supporting the Confederacy, and the other was in 1797 for "Anti-Spanish conspiracy and treason". There were several more cases in which the Senate considered expulsion but ultimately voted not to, and others in which the Senator in question resigned under threat of expulsion.
Marbury V. Madison did not establish judicial review. It was simply the first case where that power was used. It was clearly spelled out in The Federalist #78 that this power would exist in the new constitution, and those who voted to ratify it understood, or should have understood, that it would exist. All that Marbury V. Madison decided was that the Supreme court did not have original jurisdiction to issue Writs of Mandamus That could be overturned, or the constitution could be amended to grant such jurisdiction to SCOTUS. That would not have any major effects on the US judicial system as far as I can tell. I suppose that the constitution could be amended so as to deny the power of judicial review to the courts. But I think the resulting system would be potentially unstable, and this would require a far more fundamental change than simply &quot;overruling Marbury V. Madison&quot; As #78 of The Federalist said: By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex-post-facto laws, and the like. Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing. (emphasis added) The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents. . . . [W]here the will of the legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in opposition to that of the people, declared in the Constitution, the judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former. They ought to regulate their decisions by the fundamental laws, rather than by those which are not fundamental. . . . [W]henever a particular statute contravenes the Constitution, it will be the duty of the judicial tribunals to adhere to the latter and disregard the former.
(The original title of your question suggested you might think that federal circuit precedent binds state courts: it generally does not, even on matters of federal law.) But regardless, Congress would not be able to legislatively lower the constitutional floor. If a certain police act is prohibited by the Constitution, Congress cannot legislatively allow that act, whether in a single state or uniformly across all states. That means that if the Fifth Circuit has decided that the use of some new investigatory tool is a search under the Fourth Amendment, no law that Congress passes could affect that holding. When congress creates laws that result in different effects for different people (e.g. people in Texas vs. people in Florida, as in your hypothetical), the distinction must be rationally related to a legitimate government purpose. Many of the enumerated powers allow for local distinction, some prohibit it. Some examples where Congress has distinguished between states include: localized agricultural programs, time zones, voting rights protections, and various others listed in ohwilleke's review. Some distinctions between states could also intrude on principles of federalism and state sovereignty (e.g. the Supreme Court has said that the Voting Right Act does this). Maybe I am unimaginative, but I cannot think of a legitimate federal government purpose that would call for the powers that police have against the people to vary from state to state. Any such variation would have to come from the states themselves: from their state constitutions, or legislative choices to provide heightened protections. Discord between circuits is problematic (see a list of examples of existing splits), and this is why the Supreme Court of the United States will often hear an appeal where there is a circuit split on a question of constitutional rights.
Art. 1 Sect 5 of the Constitution empowers both houses to make their own rules. That means that they can articulate rules regarding what or how you can talk on the floor. It is held that the president of the senate can issue a ruling, and the ruling can be overridden by majority vote. If the Constitution were amended to be more specific about rules of conduct, then some such Senate rules might be unconstitutional and SCOTUS could invalidate the rule. The only specific constitutional requirement on conducting business is that a majority constitutes a quorum.