Changes to The Constitution.

[lpetrich]

An explicit algorithm for determining the boundaries of congressional districts

If we are having arbitrary changes to the Constitution, why not go for broke and abolish congressional districts. We can replace them with some form of proportional representation.

The problem becomes the selection of representatives. With district boundaries you at least have a candidate who has to live in the district and is (or can be) both familiar with the district and familiar to the district's voters.

One can have multimember districts, with their members being elected proportionally. With (say) 3 to 5 members, that will give a good compromise between regionality and proportionality.

 

[lpetrich]

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

A well regulated Militia seems to be the main problem with the 2nd. What it meant in 1791 is a lot different than it would mean to most people today. However, it's just going to be to hard to change anytime soon.

I'd repeal that amendment. It's very badly written.

Raskin: Insurrectionary Theory of Second Amendment “Betrays the Actual Constitution” | Press Releases | Congressman Jamie Raskin

That's the theory that some right-wingers love, that it guarantees a right of armed rebellion.

Indeed, in a half-dozen different places, the Constitution treats ‘insurrection’ and ‘rebellion’ not as protected rights but as serious crimes against our government and people.

 

[lpetrich]

Any change that introduces term limits in positions where there currently are none, transitions away from the Electoral College in favor of a more democratic electoral system, fortifies the protection of digital privacy, curtails the influence of monetary contributions in politics, revamps our education system to prioritize merit over financial means, and illegalizes political parties to foster a more unified, non-partisan approach to governance has my preempted support.

Term limits for Supreme Court Justices? Some long time like 20 years might be good, as long as they get to be Federal judges afterward. Term limits for Congress. Bad idea.

Outlawing political parties? How is one going to enforce that?

 

[lpetrich]

6) Get rid of the fed and make whatever serves its place accountable to the public.

Jason -- some of your proposals are good. BUT why do "libertarians" hate the FRB so much? We need some sort of money, right? Gold? Wampum? Bitcoin? MMT?

I agree. What is the Federal Reserve supposed to be guilty of? It's hard to find out. It's just like banker conspiracy theories.

 

[lpetrich]

Americans ought to look at what other countries do, though that does not mean slavishly imitating them. One thing that we don't need is a monarchy, for instance, even a mostly ceremonial one like in the UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Spain, or Japan.

Looking at quality-of-democracy indices like the Economist Democracy Index, Freedom House's Freedom in the World, the Democracy Index, the Fragile States Index, etc. one finds that several countries score consistently better than the US. Looking at their governance, one finds these features:

• A parliamentary system: most or all of the executive branch is run out of the legislative branch
• Proportional representation
• Only one legislative chamber, a unicameral system, or else a bicameral system one dominant chamber
• A separate executive is weak and sometimes absent

The US fails in all four aspects.

 The Economist Democracy Index and  List of countries by system of government and  List of electoral systems by country

In the EDI, the US currently scores 7.85 ouf ot 10, at #30.

Proportional representation is used by most of the higher scorers, with exceptions like the UK, Canada, and Australia having all single-member districts in their lower houses.

A parliamentary system is likewise used by most of the higher scorers, with the US beaten by these countries with a strong independent President: Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Chile. Some countries have a hybrid or semi-presidential system, and these ones beat the US: Taiwan, France, Portugal.

I can't find much on the relative powers of the two chambers in bicameral systems, though such upper houses as the Canadian Senate, the UK's House of Lords, and Germany's Bundesrat have relatively limited powers. Australia's Senate seems to be intermediate between those and the US Senate.

 

[Gospel]

Outlawing political parties? How is one going to enforce that?

Hmm, good question. I haven't really thought it through. I guess this is just one of my crazy ideas out of desperation. But to at least attempt an answer, perhaps instead of outright banning parties, we might consider introducing laws that curtail their dominance in the electoral process. One way could be to centralize debates and campaigns on official government channels at both state and federal levels, ensuring an even playing field. By confining campaigns to these taxpayer-funded platforms, every qualified candidate would receive equal airtime, challenging the overwhelming influence of major parties and their preferred commercial news outlets. Candidates skipping debates would face disqualification unless they present a compelling justification for their absence. Republicans and Democrats can maintain their advertisements and TV spots, but they shouldn't control the actual debate proceedings. The responsibility should fall under all three branches of government congress, and both the press and the general public should have the opportunity to pose questions. We could utilize popular polling methods to determine the most pressing inquiries from the populace. Obviously I'm only taking about Federal election. State elections can remain a.....

Spoiler: Dog & Pony Show

shit show

 

[RVonse]

During a serious downturn, federal employees would be laid off in proportion to the private economy.

Why? This would be about the stupidest possible response to an economic downturn, and would lead to conditions not seen since the Great Depression.

"Let's scrap the fire department. If my house catches fire, everyone else's houses should be set afire, in proportion to the damage caused at my house". A true stroke of genius, that.

Since when was (is) the federal government in the business of putting out fires? That is usually done at the city or even the county level. If the federal government has been engaged to put out house fires, it is even bigger and more bloated than I thought.

Furthermore, if you wish to argue Keynesian economics to stimulate the economy in a downturn, there are many other ways to stimulate the local and or national economy with spending "such as infrastructure spending", "hyperloop tunnels", "alternative energy", other than more federal administration and bloated do nothing government jobs that cost a lot of money and never go away.

It was an analogy, RVonse.

Who, exactly, do you suppose funds infrastructure and alternative energy? Do you not realize that there is a lot of infrastructure, which you consider ‘bloat’ in ensuring that such projects are appropriately funded, carried out by well vetted contractors taking into consideration all due concerns and rules and regulations with regards to environmental, and health and safety concerns? You think that without such rules and regulations, such practices will always be followed? Or ever?

There is a huge difference between having rules and regulations versus a bloated hierarchy of government employees who can not ever be layed off. How many referees do you need for a football game? I'm not saying capitalism does not need rules, but when you have 1 referee for each 2 football players....that's way too much government.

 

[Toni]

During a serious downturn, federal employees would be laid off in proportion to the private economy.

Why? This would be about the stupidest possible response to an economic downturn, and would lead to conditions not seen since the Great Depression.

"Let's scrap the fire department. If my house catches fire, everyone else's houses should be set afire, in proportion to the damage caused at my house". A true stroke of genius, that.

Since when was (is) the federal government in the business of putting out fires? That is usually done at the city or even the county level. If the federal government has been engaged to put out house fires, it is even bigger and more bloated than I thought.

Furthermore, if you wish to argue Keynesian economics to stimulate the economy in a downturn, there are many other ways to stimulate the local and or national economy with spending "such as infrastructure spending", "hyperloop tunnels", "alternative energy", other than more federal administration and bloated do nothing government jobs that cost a lot of money and never go away.

It was an analogy, RVonse.

Who, exactly, do you suppose funds infrastructure and alternative energy? Do you not realize that there is a lot of infrastructure, which you consider ‘bloat’ in ensuring that such projects are appropriately funded, carried out by well vetted contractors taking into consideration all due concerns and rules and regulations with regards to environmental, and health and safety concerns? You think that without such rules and regulations, such practices will always be followed? Or ever?

There is a huge difference between having rules and regulations versus a bloated hierarchy of government employees who can not ever be layed off. How many referees do you need for a football game? I'm not saying capitalism does not need rules, but when you have 1 referee for each 2 football players....that's way too much government.

What is your definition of government 'bloat?' What is your evidence that it is 'bloat' and not necessary ? How much do you know or understand about how any governmental agency works? What is the source of your information?

 

[Swammerdami]

Outlawing political parties? How is one going to enforce that?

It's not the same as "outlawing" political parties but the use of private money in political campaigns needs to be dramatically reduced. Perhaps ONLY government money could be spent on campaigns for President, Congress, etc. (Never mind for now the difficult detail of qualification rules.)

A few decades ago things WERE much better in the USA. Presidential campaigns were taxpayer-funded; PACs didn't exist; TV networks were subject to strict rules; overall campaign spending was much lower; etc.

Now, partly as a result of decisions by a right-wing Supreme Court, corporate money dominates politics. It's easy to read social media or watch YouTube documentaries and conclude that Stupidity is the big problem in American politics, but that stupidity was deliberately promoted by rich corporations with a right-wing agenda.

 

[BH]

It may have already been mentioned but can't the states themselves call a constitutional convention after 3/4 of them vote to call one?

 

[hardeep]

Americans ought to look at what other countries do, though that does not mean slavishly imitating them. One thing that we don't need is a monarchy, for instance, even a mostly ceremonial one like in the UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Spain, or Japan.

Looking at quality-of-democracy indices like the Economist Democracy Index, Freedom House's Freedom in the World, the Democracy Index, the Fragile States Index, etc. one finds that several countries score consistently better than the US. Looking at their governance, one finds these features:

• A parliamentary system: most or all of the executive branch is run out of the legislative branch
• Proportional representation
• Only one legislative chamber, a unicameral system, or else a bicameral system one dominant chamber
• A separate executive is weak and sometimes absent

The US fails in all four aspects.

 The Economist Democracy Index and  List of countries by system of government and  List of electoral systems by country

In the EDI, the US currently scores 7.85 ouf ot 10, at #30.

Proportional representation is used by most of the higher scorers, with exceptions like the UK, Canada, and Australia having all single-member districts in their lower houses.

A parliamentary system is likewise used by most of the higher scorers, with the US beaten by these countries with a strong independent President: Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Chile. Some countries have a hybrid or semi-presidential system, and these ones beat the US: Taiwan, France, Portugal.

I can't find much on the relative powers of the two chambers in bicameral systems, though such upper houses as the Canadian Senate, the UK's House of Lords, and Germany's Bundesrat have relatively limited powers. Australia's Senate seems to be intermediate between those and the US Senate.

Here in the UK the Lords is regarded as a revising chamber and has limited powers to stop legislation from the Commons. (Until 1911 the Lords effectively had a veto on all legislation.)

In our unwritten constitution it is accepted that anything in the manifesto that the Government was elected on cannot be blocked by the Lords so they can table amendments and send it back to the Commons who can then accept/reject them. The subsequent amended bill will then pass the Lords.
In addition all finance/budget bills are not blocked by the Lords and if a government really wants to pass legislation not in its manifesto it can do so using the Parliament Act which basically means if the Commons sends a Bill back 2 (3?) times during a Parliament but the Lords can’t block it * - only delay upto 2 years I think - but that comes at the cost of losing legislative time.

* There is an exception for any bill to extend the life of a Parliament from the current maximum of 5 years (to basically stop a government voting itself into power permanently)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

A well regulated Militia seems to be the main problem with the 2nd. What it meant in 1791 is a lot different than it would mean to most people today. However, it's just going to be to hard to change anytime soon.

I'd repeal that amendment. It's very badly written.

Raskin: Insurrectionary Theory of Second Amendment “Betrays the Actual Constitution” | Press Releases | Congressman Jamie Raskin

That's the theory that some right-wingers love, that it guarantees a right of armed rebellion.

Indeed, in a half-dozen different places, the Constitution treats ‘insurrection’ and ‘rebellion’ not as protected rights but as serious crimes against our government and people.

Seconded. An unclear law is a bad law, period.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Outlawing political parties? How is one going to enforce that?

Hmm, good question. I haven't really thought it through. I guess this is just one of my crazy ideas out of desperation. But to at least attempt an answer, perhaps instead of outright banning parties, we might consider introducing laws that curtail their dominance in the electoral process. One way could be to centralize debates and campaigns on official government channels at both state and federal levels, ensuring an even playing field. By confining campaigns to these taxpayer-funded platforms, every qualified candidate would receive equal airtime, challenging the overwhelming influence of major parties and their preferred commercial news outlets. Candidates skipping debates would face disqualification unless they present a compelling justification for their absence. Republicans and Democrats can maintain their advertisements and TV spots, but they shouldn't control the actual debate proceedings. The responsibility should fall under all three branches of government congress, and both the press and the general public should have the opportunity to pose questions. We could utilize popular polling methods to determine the most pressing inquiries from the populace. Obviously I'm only taking about Federal election. State elections can remain a.....

Spoiler: Dog & Pony Show

shit show

I've had a different idea on candidates.

Political advertising is limited to debates, appearances and a website. Each side gets to make their own, the government provides the hosting and all candidates for a given office are hosted on the same server or server cluster--no way to disrupt one without disrupting the others. The other candidates get to see updates a week before they come out--and may insert rebuttal links after any claim that link to what they say about the issue. I came up with this before video streaming was feasible so I haven't decided how to handle rebuttals in video.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It was an analogy, RVonse.

Who, exactly, do you suppose funds infrastructure and alternative energy? Do you not realize that there is a lot of infrastructure, which you consider ‘bloat’ in ensuring that such projects are appropriately funded, carried out by well vetted contractors taking into consideration all due concerns and rules and regulations with regards to environmental, and health and safety concerns? You think that without such rules and regulations, such practices will always be followed? Or ever?

There is a huge difference between having rules and regulations versus a bloated hierarchy of government employees who can not ever be layed off. How many referees do you need for a football game? I'm not saying capitalism does not need rules, but when you have 1 referee for each 2 football players....that's way too much government.

And why do you think 11 (I don't watch football, I haven't counted, I'm just using your numbers) is too many? They need to have views from various vantage points.

As for government bloat--what we have now is Republicans making it so understaffed that the government doesn't work very well. That's not bloat. We do have some protectionism-related bloat, though. Doing a sane, modern system might eliminate jobs and unions hate that. (Hey, there's plenty of understaffed parts of government the people could be transferred to!)

Most of the regulations make sense and most of the ones that don't are either edge cases (where compliance costs are normally less expensive than having the system more complex to address the odd cases) or because business likes the regulations--they are more of a burden on small companies and thus act to protect the big guys from upstarts. There are some that exist because we wanted to do something going forward but not require existing stuff to be updated. Those occasionally end up being a big issue because the inability to make some code-mandated update precludes making other updates. (Typically a problem with ADA and old buildings--but I consider the ADA a horrible law in the first place because of the word "reasonable"--Congress punted on the really important decision of how much impact is permitted.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What is your definition of government 'bloat?' What is your evidence that it is 'bloat' and not necessary ? How much do you know or understand about how any governmental agency works? What is the source of your information?

Most of the "bloat" they are objecting to is rules limiting externalities.

 

[Tigers!]

Constitutions are hard to change. In Australia a proposal to amend teh Australian Constitution to recognise the Aboriginal people and provide for their having Vooice to parliament was defeated yesterday.

 

[lpetrich]

The creators of the US Constitution were right to make their document amendable, and they were right to not make it too easy to amend their document. But they did not anticipate how hard it would be to amend that document -- it is supposedly one of the most difficult to amend constitutions of any nation. Looking at US states, their constitutions are much easier to amend, and they often have lots of stuff in them that may not seem like fundamental law.

The amendment process has two steps.

The amendment must first be passed by a 2/3 vote of both houses of Congress or else by a constitutional convention ("con-con").

The amendment must then be ratified by the agreement of 3/4 of state legislatures.

I remember when I was relieved to learn that a con-con can only propose amendments and not ratify them. That makes a con-con much less dangerous than what I'd earlier thought.

 Balanced budget amendment - some states have called for a con-con for proposing a balanced-budget amendment. But con-cons are uncharted constitutional territory and a balanced-budget one may take up other issues, like (say) repealing the Second Amendment.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I remember when I was relieved to learn that a con-con can only propose amendments and not ratify them. That makes a con-con much less dangerous than what I'd earlier thought.

That's very good to hear.

 

[lpetrich]

 Constitutional Convention (United States) discusses the first con-con, and so far, the only one.

The structure of Congress is a compromise between what big-state delegations wanted and what small-state ones did.

Big-state ones liked the  Virginia Plan with two proportional chambers, small-state ones liked the  New Jersey Plan with a single, same-per-state chamber, and the two compromised, coming up with the  Connecticut Compromise of one chamber proportional and one chamber same-per-state. They decided on the Connecticut Compromise.

 

[lpetrich]

I'll now consider the prospects for reform.

Ending the Electoral College will require a Constitutional amendment, but there is a workaround in the works: National Popular Vote
It has so far been enacted in 16 states and DC, all blue states, and it has varying amounts of progress elsewhere.

Modifying or abolishing the Senate will also require a Constitutional amendment.

Making the House proportional will only require a Constitutional amendment if it is done by making the nation one large House electoral district. But if it is done state-by-state, all that is necessary is appropriate changes in the laws that govern House elections.

For state legislatures, one would have to review each state's constitution and electoral laws, and likewise for cities, reviewing each one's charter and electoral laws.