You get to amend the Constitution...

[cthulu2016]

List your one simple and succinct change to the existing document.

For instance, electoral college members shall be apportioned by each state's representation in the house. (Leaving out the senate)


Go for it.

[TheWraith]

1. Senate votes will be weighted by population.

So that Wyoming, with 550,000 people, no longer gets exactly as much representation as California with 37 million.

[Richardo]

2. We call that the 'House of Representatives'

[joshcryer]

4. Still disproportionate.

The each House Rep. represents on average almost a million people.

[Motown_Johnny]

5. +1

[TheWraith]

7. Which is irrelevant, since the Senate is the problem.

Senators representing a quarter of the US population can hold up all business.

[Richardo]

12. Which is precisely how it was designed.

To counter-balance the potential for big-state dominance in the HR.

[coalition_unwilling]

22. I'm with TheWraith on this one. The U.S. Senate is a profoundly anti-democratic (lower-case 'd')

institution, since voters in Wyoming or Alabama receive more Senatorial representation per-capita than voters in California or New York State.

I really don't care that the Senate was designed to protect the interests of Southern slave states as their price for agreeing to enter the United States.

[joshcryer]

25. Bicameralism. It is a good idea in principle.

Slows progress a lot though.

I would suggest tripling the number of Senators a state has.

[Peregrine]

26. How about

1 senator elected by state and the other 50 ar at large and elected nationally.

[coalition_unwilling]

28. That is a really cool idea that defuses a good deal of my

complaint with the Senate as currently constructed. I especially like the 'elected nationally' part.

[cthulu2016]

29. That's cool.

[TheWraith]

32. I find this interesting.

There's a lot of ways to redesign a legislature that haven't been considered. At-large elections, proportional voting... hell, you could have one body that's elected, and another that's chosen at random from a body of volunteers, like jury duty. Someone gets chosen, does their two years, and they're out. No competitions over fundraising, no reelection campaigns, just pure representation.

[Aerows]

37. That's a really good idea

The Senate is hamstrung by filibusters, and we should get rid of those, too.

[TheWraith]

33. Thanks. The Senate is the biggest problem in US government, I think.

The House can easily switch hands back and forth. But in the Senate, even majority control isn't enough to do anything. Not even something controversial, just ANYTHING. It's profoundly contrary to the ability of a representative democracy to get anything done when a sub-minority, representing a one out of four people in the country, can exercise veto power over every single damn thing that's going on.

[Motown_Johnny]

3. No legal entity shall be bestowed with any right nor any privilege

reserved for citizens of the United States of America.

Nor shall they enjoy any right or privilege recognized as basic to all human beings.

[joshcryer]

6. Reapportionment shall be 50k people per rep.

[gratuitous]

14. I like this one

At 435 members, the House of Representatives is too small.

[TheWraith]

16. Agreed, but 50k per rep is too far.

At that ratio, the House would contain almost 6,200 representatives.

[cthulu2016]

17. An effective jobs program, at least

[joshcryer]

21. George Washington thought 30k was reasonable.

Yeah, it'd be like a Galactic Congress, but who cares, right? I want fair representation!

[TheWraith]

38. Yes, but back then the population of the United States was like 2.5 million.

That's about as many people as now live in Upstate New York between Buffalo and the Genesee River in Rochester.

[joshcryer]

39. I think that 70-100k is reasonable, but I think Washington was speaking ideologically.

It was hard for them to be able to see a Rep being able to Represent so many people back then. With technology it's arguably a bit easier, but there becomes a point where technology itself creates a human disconnect between Representatives and the people, so you wind up with one Rep per million people.

[badtoworse]

8. I would not change anything. It's fine the way it is.

[Courtesy Flush]

40. Nonsense

It's not a holy document. It has been amended many times in our history, and even multiple times in my lifetime.

The corporate personhood ban would be my suggestion.

[LiberalEsto]

9. All elections at the Federal level shall be funded

with federal tax dollars only.

Use of private money or donations is forbidden.

[Sherman A1]

30. Yup,

That fixes absolutely everything. Take away the money train & the constant need for fundraising & we get a Congress that works for the People.

[closeupready]

44. Yes, it would fix a whole hell of a lot that

is wrong about Congress and our corrupt system with an approval rating of 9%.

[Angleae]

41. And ban soft money.

No more 3rd party PAC campaining.

[cthulu2016]

10. Congressional representation shall be elected on an "at large" basis in each state.

Eliminating cngressinal districts would reduce minority representation but increase minority influence while eliminating partisan gerrymandering.

This is a highly debatable change but I see no way to mandate that congressional districts be fair or even-handed that cannot be gamed.

[Dreamer Tatum]

11. Spelling lessons for all. nt

[cthulu2016]

13. The extra m is for marbury v. madison

Thanks for the (implicit) correction

[Richardo]

20. !!

[DisgustipatedinCA]

15. No vowels. And we should switch to a nice, sans serif font.

And that Hancock guy's ego needs to be checked. Just write it the same size as the rest of the signatures.

Me? I'd make sure it was clear that the 2nd Amendment applied to the citizens militias we might need to form from time to time, and not beyond.

[Bucky]

45. Where are you going to store all that left over vowel removement?

[Zorra]

18. Amendment Section 1 [A corporation is not a person and can be regulated]

The rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons only.

Artificial entities, such as corporations, limited liability companies, and other entities, established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state shall have no rights under this Constitution and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law.

The privileges of artificial entities shall be determined by the People, through Federal, State, or local law, and shall not be construed to be inherent or inalienable.

Section 2 [Money is not speech and can be regulated]

Federal, State and local government shall regulate, limit, or prohibit contributions and expenditures, including a candidate’s own contributions and expenditures, for the purpose of influencing in any way the election of any candidate for public office or any ballot measure.

Federal, State and local government shall require that any permissible contributions and expenditures be publicly disclosed.

The judiciary shall not construe the spending of money to influence elections to be speech under the First Amendment.

Section 3

Nothing contained in this amendment shall be construed to abridge the freedom of the press.

http://movetoamend.org/amendment

[JoePhilly]

23. I wonder if in your ammendment "artifical" should be something like ...

"Legal entities" ... "Entities created via laws and legislation ..."

Bottom line ... if an entity exists only because laws allow its creation, its not a person, and does not have all of the same rights and protections as a person.

[cthulu2016]

27. This all gets tricky in terms of interstate commerce

Not saying it's wrong, just noting some of the hurdles in darfting such a thing.

Corporations must have universal personhood for normal business purposes -- only a "person" can sue or be sued, owe taxes, sign contracts, etc..

And you would not want individual states to be able to interfere with that core legal fiction.

The danger is that ammending the constitution calls a lot of precedent into question--precedent that is part of the constitution despite not being in the constitution.

But it's a very worthwhile idea. I would tend to focus primarily on the election finance part.

[hifiguy]

24. Corporate "personhood" would be abolished.

Constitutional rights would apply only to natural persons.

[DavidDvorkin]

31. Two changes

Because both are important to me.

Eliminate the Electoral College and switch to direct election of the president.

Eliminate the requirement that the president be a natural-born citizen. Just require that the president be a citizen.

[Prophet 451]

34. End corporate personhood

And write the amendment in such a way that A) it prevents corporations from ever being treated as constitutional "persons" and B) bars any and all political contributions, in cash or in kind.

I have a bunch of other suggestions as well.

[Adsos Letter]

35. The laws of The United States of America must safeguard a strict separation of Church and State.

Because the Government of The United States of America is in now way based on religion.

[Waltons_Mtn]

36. Pay to Play

My Amendment would be that to donate money, goods or services to any elected official, be it school board member or POTUS, you must be able to legally vote for that official.

[Norrin Radd]

42. Free Pizza Fridays

[closeupready]

43. Amend it so that all campaigns are publicly financed.

And use of private money and lobbying are strictly forbidden.