Three Constitutional changes that make sense

[Perky]

1) Equal representation in the House. Due to is borders, Wyoming gets one rep for their 500,000 population, yet other stated get one for every 550,000. This give more voting strength to some districts than to others. The reason is ostensibly the artificial cap at 435 Reps. There should be one rep for every 500,000 residents and no cap on the number of House seats.

2) The public in any given state should have the right to speak into the composition of the Senate every two years not twice in six years. there should be three Senators from every state one elected every two years.

3) It is appropriate for a simple majority of Senators to approve a president's choice for Cabinet officers and Ambassadors, but because the Judicial system survives the tenure of a president and because the composition of the Senate is geographically based rather than population-based, a different standard should be applied. Sixty percent of the Senators ought to approve Court appointees.

[jgraz]

1. Here's mine

1) All presidents must test to an IQ of at least 80.

2) Saying "Nucular" is now a High Crime and/or Misdemeanor

3) Just so we're clear, you need to obey the other 27 fucking amendments!

[Perky]

LOL well at least I got a response out of someone.....

[Perky]

2. DUpe

[DavidDvorkin]

3. Here are mine

I hope I can type quickly enough to get this posted before this thread explodes!

1.) Eliminates requirement that president and vice-president be native-born.

2.) Eliminates Electoral College and institutes direct election of president & v.p.

3.) Eliminates Senate. Makes president, v.p. ceremonial offices, vests real power in a Prime Minister, selected by the House. Could never happen, but if it did, #1 and #2 wouldn't be needed.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. Some suggestions I heard Mike Gravel make on AAR last night

1. Presidents serve 6 years

2. Senators serve 12 years

3. Congress serves 4 years

4. Only one term - no re-elections for any of these positions.

[JHB]

6. I'm skeptical of such term limits...

IMHO, that would serve to strengthen those who stay in Washington as professional staffers (those who know all the tricks to make things happen, or stop them from happening), further removing them from public scruitiny as they shift from one "face" man to another.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. It would keep them from campaigning while they are in office

I like it for that reason.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. Term limits in Oregon DID put more power into the hands of the professional

staffers, because they were the only ones who knew what was going on. With 1/3 of the legislature new every year, there was a long start-up period in which nothing could get done because all the noobies were wondering reinventing the wheel.

We have term limits already. It's called "voting them out."

[Perky]

This only works if there is a constituonal right to recall

And I am opposed to that because I suspect goven the divisions in this country that every president would be recalled.

[Perky]

7. Dupe

And I am opposed to that because I suspect goven the divisions in this country that every president would be recalled.

[Yupster]

29. The six year presidential term

with a one term limit was in the Confederate Constitution.

The Constitutional Convention in Montgomery ws interesting because it was the only time that a group of representatives got together to rewrite the US Constitution for real. After weeks of debate they actually ended up making very few changes.

They changed the presidential term to one six year term. They gave the president a line item veto. Otherwise not much different. They even kept the electoral college.

[TechBear_Seattle]

5. The people are not and never have been represented in the federal government

We are a republic of states, not a democracy. It is the states, not the people, who are represented in the two houses of Congress. It is the states, not the people, who elect the President.

Remember that the state Legislatures appointed the Senators until ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913. The original idea was that the House would contain the rabble rousers (quite literally) and allow for rapid changes in popular opinion. The Senate would be appointed from the leisure class with, presumably, the education and wisdom to focus on the needs of the country rather than the whims of the people. The long Senate terms was to allow Senators to work without worrying about popular opinion.

I like these ideas, but they would require reworking the very premise of our Union.

[Yupster]

30. The Seventeenth Amendment

isn't talked about much today, but it was a huge change in our government.

The states gave themselves a veto power in the federal government, and that was the right to select senators. Once that was given up, there was a fundamental change in power in the government, away from states and toward the central government.

[Mr. Ected]

9. I've Got One:

Limit the presidential pardon powers to disallow pardoning members of the executive branch serving or having served under that president.

A judge with a vested interest in a case is forced to recuse himself. The president should be similarly limited.

[Thothmes]

17. Pardon power

You mean like President Clinton did with Henry Cisneros.

[baldguy]

10. #1 - Corporations are not people.

They aren't entitled to civil rights or Constitutional protections. If a Corporation commits a crime, the officers & owners should be held responsible.

#2 - Make the Office of the Special Prosecutor a permanent position, with the authority to go anywhere, see and do anything to investigate the Executive, Judicial & Legislative branches.

#3 - Allow the people to remove a sitting President and his administration by having a majority of state legislatures vote for a recall. The issue would then be put to a direct vote by the people. If the President were to be removed, the entire administration would be removed and the Speaker of the House would become President and serve out the remainder of the term - with the proviso that they would be ineligible to run for the Presidency in the next election.

[SoCalDem]

11. When a senator/congresscritter needs replacing, the "runner-up"

should replace him/her..no need for special election or to the whims of an "opposite-party" governor,

if it's good enough for Miss America, it's good enough for congress..

The person who "lost" the election, ran a campaign and stood for election , so if the person who "beat" them cannot serve, they should finish out the term ..

[Perky]

12. umm ok

So in a Deep Blue District where the Incumbent was last elected with 88% of the vote dies in office. He gets repaced with a token back bencher wingnut who barely beat out the Green Paety candidate by garnering 8% of the vote?


Doesn't that disnefenchise the cast majority of the district?

[SoCalDem]

14. Makes more sense than having a rogue governor appoint any random person.

At least the person who came in second actually ran for the office.. Who knows? they may not even want it, but they ought to have the first right of refusal. ..and it wouldf only be to finish the term anyway.. they would have to re-run for their own term.. Are there really that many 88%ers? Most of the elections I have noticed lately seem to be close ones..(Diebold)

[Perky]

16. Bunches of them

and the back bencher is far more random than someone the governor would pick anyway.

[MonkeyFunk]

18. No it doesn't.

First, representatives aren't replaced. The seat remains vacant until the next election.

Senators are appointed, but usually only until the next general election is scheduled. So if Senator X dies one month into his term, his appointment will serve 1 year and 11 month. A special election is usually held to fill the remainder of the seat.

I think having the loser of the race automatically win is silly. It guarantees the seat will change parties.

[LeftishBrit]

33. If this is ever instituted, I certainly hope that Jim Webb and Bob Casey stay in good health!

In Britain, we have 'by-elections' to replace MPs who die or resign, and these are normally held pretty promptly.

[JacquesMolay]

13. I agree in principle with (2) - the Senate ..

... is the most undemocratic element of our government, and Madison designed it that way. In the original constitution, there was no direct election of Senators. It took the 17th amendment to get that through - before, the barons who occupied the State Senates picked the richest guy to go to Washington. Not that much has changed - the Senate is still the millionaire's club, as much a fixture of The System as any body of government could be. The long terms make individual senators less accountable, as they don't have to worry about re-election every cycle. I would just shorten the terms of the 2 senators to four years each.

[MonkeyFunk]

19. Regarding number 1

would it make that much of a difference?

And how do you solve it? How many reps. does Wyoming get?

[Perky]

21. Wyoming would get one , CA would get 67

Practically everyone would get a small bump. The mathematical issue is that today the formula says

Every state must have one, but that means there are only 385 "in play".

The 385 get apportioned according to a state's percentage of the US Decennial population. California gets 53 0f the 385 or about 14% of the reps (at least I think that is the way it works.) The problem with the method is that disproportionately favors small states because they get one automatically... (which they should), but the cap at 435 is what cause the harm to the framer's intent.

The 435 is actually arbitrary and is set by Congress. The constitution says that there should be one rep for every 35,000 population. If we followed that, the size of Congress would be nearly 10,000. Which amusingly would put the lobbying by junket concept out of business forever. Can't very easily take 500 congressman to Scotland to play golf.

If you recompute for this method however and applied the last two elections to a revised electoral college...the Result was the same.

[MonkeyFunk]

23. ah... but

you said there should be one rep for every 500,000 people.

So if a state has, say, 700,000 people, how do you calculate it?

Or are you saying the size of a congressional district should be the size of the smallest state?

[Perky]

dupe

Well logically it does work out that way in which the smallest population state gets one. But what if they find Gold in the Tetons? Or Cheyenne decides to become Las Vegas II? Their population could double in a couple of year... SO it cant simply be that the samles popped state only gets one. you have to set a number and stick with it The founders picked 35,000 I think 500,000 is a resonable number given tranportation, commerical and communications infrastructure.

Hard to deal with a larger constiuency unless it is very compacted.

[Perky]

24. rounding will screw some states

Well logically it does work out that way in which the smallest population state gets one. But what if they find Gold in the Tetons? Or Cheyenne decides to become Las Vegas II? Their population could double in a couple of year... SO it cant simply be that the small-popped state only gets one. you have to set a number and stick with it The founders picked 35,000 I think 500,000 is a resonable number given tranportation, commerical and communications infrastructure.

Hard to deal with a larger constiuency unless it is very compacted.

[MonkeyFunk]

25. I guess I'm just not seeing the problem

of dispoportionate representation in the House, where the problem is minuscule compared to the Senate.

[Perky]

26. The Peoples House is supposed to priovide equal representation for

all Citizens.

The Senate is a bit anachronistic in its contruction because it was meant to placate less populous states at a time when states were far mor central franchises as we were a Union of American sates. It was meant as a check on what went for the North East COrridor controlling the fortunes of more rural states.



Even though in its construction is a bit of a reach now. The idea that the senat be a body of deliberation rather than passion is an important on and valuable to thid say. States are not nearly as geogrhapicall independent as they once were. All is interconnected.

I understand your concern about the senate, but ifyou make it populuation-based.....it requires that you adopt some sort of Geographaphical construct to contain equal populations. WOuld you have 50 Senatorial districts nationally and have two senators from each? 100 districts of equal population and you only get one Senator for six long years?

Remember Vermont is about the same size as Wyoming. The Dakots send us liberal senators all the time.

[MonkeyFunk]

28. I've just never heard anybody complain about this.

Montana gets it the worst - they have 944,000 residents, and only one representative. And I've just never heard of any complaints regarding this.

On the list of issues that COULD be addressed by a constitutional amendment, this one would have to fall way at the bottom.

[warren pease]

20. My three +

1 All campaigns - from county records clerk to president - are financed with public money. No money from individuals, corporations, trade unions, single-issue organizations, PACs and all the rest. No hard money, no soft money, no nuthin' except what the people give through a checkoff on tax forms (which doesn't diminish their tax return). And if the trough's a little light one election year, tough shit; just buy less TV time and leave us the hell alone for a change.

2 Revoke the concept of corporate personhood (Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad Company v. Beckwith, 1889) and the insane notion that money = free speech (Buckley v. Valeo, 1976). And while we're at it, strengthen the laws that allow citizens to decertify a corporation if it's acting against the public interest -- e.g., polluting air and/or water, clear-cutting, off-shoring, undercutting prevailing wages, etc.

3 Return the airwaves to public ownership, reverse the 1996 Telecom Act, break up media monopolies -- mainly newspapers, magazines, publishing, TV and radio -- develop a new fairness doctrine that's actually fair and has teeth and, in a special appendix, provide funds to tar and feather Rupert Murdoch and ride him out of town on a rail.

And for the hell of it, here's a fourth:

Disavow the free trade scam in favor of fair trade, pull out of NAFTA and GATT, avoid similar wage suppression efforts in the future and pull out of the IMF and World Bank on moral grounds (that's how you know this is pure fantasy).

And maybe a fifth: Specific term limits for right wingers - one in office and several consecutive life sentences in jail.


wp

[Perky]

22. None of these would rise to the level of a change in the Constitution

IMHO

[warren pease]

27. Yeah, I know, but leaving these issues to the Supremes to politicize...

leaves the country open to continued abuses premised on these phony "rights" like corporate personhood. Best to just eliminate the concept entirely rather than give courts like this one the chance to reaffirm it. And this money=free speech shit has to stop NOW. It's poisoning the political process as few other things ever have -- even wingnut politicians.

Same with "the peoples'" airwaves. That needs to be defined as the law of the land so you can't have crazy shit like Clinton's telecom act or the upcoming sell-off of the broadband spectrum, or even this proposal to create a two-tiered internet. That garbage couldn't exist if the Constitution hard-wired the peoples' right to control the transmission spectrum.

As to campaign financing, I can't imagine a worse system than the current one, and I can't see how to fix it except to write prohibitions against all bribery, from whatever source, into the Constitution. Every time some piece of "campaign reform" legislation comes out, smart lawyers figure out how to take advantage of all the loopholes Congress and their aides couldn't manage to find. Last time, a law to limit money PARCs could spend per election cycle simply resulted in a proliferation of "mini-PARCs," which "donated" a far greater aggregate sum than the previous limits, applied to the previous number of PARCs, would have allowed.

If you don't make these things permanent and not subject to "interpretation," which always manages to take the form of inventing a pro-corporate rationale these days, they will just keep ruining what's left of the electoral process and, in the case of the airwaves, screw the public out of free use of their own property.

All IMO, of course.


wp

[warren pease]

35. A hat trick of typos...

In the post above, I managed to write "PARC" instead of "PAC" three separate times. Getting in touch with my inner Seoul-mate? Need to get out to the park more? Just plain dumb?

I dunno. It's too late for the editing function, so I'll have to clean it up this way.

sorry,

wp

[BlooInBloo]

31. 1) An exponentially growing House makes no practical sense....

... 2) It's not for the federal government to tell the states how to conduct their business, 3) I'm with you in spirit, but your suggested solution would have minimal effect: typically, the challenge is *getting a vote* in the first place - not getting 50 (or 60) votes.

[LostInAnomie]

32. 1) Political donations are strictly limited to $1.00

2) The Congress, Senate, and Presidency are all limited to two terms.

[hfojvt]

34. the first one adds alot more expense

Simpler just to have an anschluss of small states - North and South Dakota merge, Montana and Wyoming merge Vermont and New Hampshire; Connecticut and Rhode Island; and Delaware and Maryland. That also gets rid of alot of mostly useless state legislatures and governors.

Plus, your suggestion #2 gives back alot of power to smaller states. Now ND, SD, WY, Mt, Ne and so on would have 3 senators?

#3 would have saved us from Clarence Thomas, but not Roberts or Alito. Why not require a bi-partisan pick which gets 90% approval from the Senate? Many current and former Justices have beaten that mark.

[Johonny]

36. Well I believe

They need to change the Senate. 2 Senators on a per state basis and not a population basis simply makes 0 sense in modern America. The Country needs to be re-zoned based on equal population sizes and not artificial state boundaries.

I’d also like to see the house districts increased with say 10 representatives per district. Then proportion out the seats in the district based on party percentage of the vote. Hey the country wasn’t suppose to be run by political parties, but it IS so it seems like it would be smart to start having election based on party. This would end the 2 party strangle hold.