Noah Feldman, Columnist

A New Constitution Would Deepen Venezuela's Crisis

President Maduro's plan for a new assembly leaves a lot of room for manipulation.

May 4, 2017 at 5:01 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

I could crush this constitution.
Photographer: Federico Parra/AFP/Getty Images

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With Venezuela on the brink of a constitutional crisis, President Nicolas Maduro has called for the election of a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution. It’s a terrible idea -- potentially more of a power grab than a genuine attempt to resolve the crisis through negotiation. It’s also a reminder that creating a new constitution shouldn’t be an excuse to stop the operation of an existing elected government. An orderly constitutional transition requires an orderly process.

The crisis is largely of Maduro’s making. In late March, the Venezuelan Supreme Court, dominated by Maduro supporters, claimed to assume all the powers of the democratically elected National Assembly.