BOOK REVIEW FROM "AMENDING AMERICA" (Times Books: 1993)
     by Richard Bernstein (with Jerome Agel) 
     pp. 237-8:
 
"In 1992 as this book was nearing completion, Barry Krusch published 
what may well be the most thoughtful and thorough reframing of the 
Constitution yet attempted. His study, THE 21ST CENTURY CONSTITUTION: A 
NEW AMERICA FOR A NEW MILLENNIUM, is the first proposed rewriting of the 
Constitution to take account of the twentieth-century revolutions in 
information and communications technologies; it is also noteworthy for 
its intellectual grounding in the American Revolution's series of 
experiments in government.
     Krusch, a 34-year-old computer consultant living in New York City, 
began his labors in 1987, prompted by the commemoration of the 
Constitution's bicentennial. Struck by the contrast between the 
political creativity of the Revolutionary generation and the increasing 
ineffectiveness of their modern counterparts, Krusch pursued two 
complementary lines of research. He steeped himself in the primary 
sources produced by the framing and ratification of the Constitution in 
1787-1788, and he traced the divergences between the Constitution as 
written and the Constitution as administered (the "Empirical 
Constitution"). In 1990, Krusch opened a file on rewriting the 
Constitution on GENIE, a national computer bulletin board. He posted 
draft revisions of selected constitutional provisions and solicited 
comments from other users of GENIE, using the accumulating drafts and 
comments as the raw material for his first comprehensive presentation of 
a clause-by-clause revision of the Constitution.
     Four major themes shape Krusch's proposals. First, emphasizing the 
vital role that access to information must play in democratic 
governance, he proposes that modern information and communications 
technologies be the core of a new constitutional framework. 
Technological constitutionalism of this type, he maintains, could make 
it possible for all Americans to take part in government. Second, he 
seeks to close the gap between the written Constitution and the 
Empirical Constitution, so that divergences between theory and practice 
in constitutional government no longer would sap the legitimacy of the 
constitutional system. Third, Krusch urges the reworking of 
constitutional doctrines of separation of powers and checks and 
balances, and the recasting of key institutions such as the Senate, to 
improve government's responsiveness and efficiency while incorporating 
added protections for individual rights. Fourth, Krusch stresses the 
dangers to democracy posed by professional politicians and the major 
political parties and the need to restore ordinary citizens as the true 
sources of sovereign power. His proposals therefore would, for example, 
exclude members of the major parties from holding federal legislative, 
executive, or judicial posts.
     Krusch's plan of revision differs in several notable ways from all 
previous attempts to rewrite the Constitution. His plan is distinct from 
the parliamentary tradition (though it shares that tradition's 
dissatisfaction with separation of powers) and from Tugwell's executive-
centered model (though, like Tugwell, Krusch seeks to bridge the gap 
between the theoretical and actual operation of American government). 
While retaining the structure and much of the original language of the 
1787 Constitution, Krusch hopes to construct a form of government in 
which ordinary citizens retain and exercise power to set national goals 
and objectives and to monitor effectively the doings of their elected 
and appointed officials. Finally, thanks to his familiarity with modern 
computer technology, Krusch has helped to advance the theory of 
electronic governance beyond the model of the 'electronic town hall' 
familiar to most Americans from the tantalizing 1992 Presidential 
initiative of H. Ross Perot."