Constitutional Tinkering

[TheBigDog]

I am always impressed with the beauty of the US Constitution. But the continuous improvement urge in me always keeps me thinking. So here is my idea for a rather major reform to the US Constitution.

Originally Posted by TBD

1) No person may hold the office of Senator, Representative, or President for consecutive terms. But there shall be no limit to the number of non-consecutive terms that a person may hold office.

2) A person may in consecutive terms move from one office to another, only if moving from one legislative body to another (Representative to Senate, Senate to President)

3) A Vice President may run for the office of President only if they resign the office of Vice President 1 year prior to the election.

4) Terms of service in the House of Representatives will change to 4 years, with half the seats turning over every second year. Officers in the House of Representatives will be selected among the memebers in their second two years of service. Each state will have no less than 2 members in the House of Representatives, with all states that currently have one getting s second, and no other increases or decreases happening as a result. This will increase the total membership in the house. Half the representatives from each state will be chosen each two year cycle, except states where there is an odd number where one class will always have one more representative than the other.

There are many purposes to this. First, since nobody can be elected for consecutive terms, the Congress will stay in session longer as NONE of the members need to go home and campaign for themselves. It means that every seat is up for grabs, with no incumbents sitting on reputation alone. The leadership of the house and senate will also be turning over every couple of years, so you don't get professional politicians running the show forever and creating power for themsleves on a national level when they represent just a small constituent someplace.

So, lets discuss...

Bill

[Freddy]

Sounds like good plan to fix a broken system. Congress will never vote a 2/3 majority in both Houses to send this to the states. Something about job security makes me think that. So only a grass roots effort from around the country requiring 2/3 of the states to apply to Congress for a Constitutional Convention, which has never taken place since 1789 because of a huge fear factor of an open convention with anything goes. Good luck!

[Buffy]

I dunno. Term limits are kind of sucky in a way, because they destroy institutional memory. We've had them here in California for many years now, and the quality of the legislature just keeps going down: even Ahnnold can run laps around them. We miss some of the real "operators" like Willie Brown, and in fact, what we see is just musical chairs: we just elected Jerry Brown as our Attorney General (I did vote for him, I liked him as Mayor of Oakland except he forced the A's to move to Fleamont!).

I'm a strong believer in the problems associated with the Law of Unintended Consequences....

Question: why do you want to make the House just like the Senate? The whole point of the House is to make it *extremely* responsive, and if we make their seats safe (well, they're not coming back are they?), they'll just be much more likely to do whatever the lobbiests tell them todo: one thing we've really found in California is that because there's no experience among the elected officials, the lobbyists end up writing all the laws! Its totally sucky!

Term limits do force people to turn over, but I don't think 1 term makes sense. In the case of the house, maybe 3 or 4. Maybe the same for the Senate (they're supposed to be "stability").

I do think there's stuff we can do keep incumbents from having so much power, to get re-elected, but I think most of that has to do with money: the people who are buying influence go with winners as much as they go with the party that agrees with them. To a great extent though, people re-elect their reps because they "take care of their own." Its always been a truism that people "hate congress, but love their own congressional rep."

We're well-versed in constitutional tinkinering here in California--we can change it directly at the ballot box, unlike most states that are stuck with simply being to "recommend" to their legislatures what to do--but its a two-edged sword.

Living in interesting times,
Buffy

[C1ay]

I'd prefer to start with undoing the damage we've done, like repealing the 17th Amendment, before changing things....

[Southtown]

Originally Posted by Buffy

Term limits are kind of sucky in a way, because they destroy institutional memory.

Ditto. Terms have limits naturally. That's why their called 'terms'. Re-election is never guaranteed, and besides there will never be a substitute for active, informed voters.

Campaign funding usually favors the incumbent, of course. Funding should be public, because otherwise elections will always favor the rich. (not to mention lobbyism.)

[Buffy]

So we should go back to letting Governors appoint senators all the time?

Smoky back rooms, oh my,
Buffy

[Southtown]

Nah, I think Clay just means governers over feds in times of deadlock...

[Buffy]

But prior to the 17th, many states had no popular vote for Senators! That was the whole point!

Federalism has its benefits,
Buffy

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by Buffy

So we should go back to letting Governors appoint senators all the time?

Governors didn't appoint Senators, State legislatures did.

In it's original form of government our system had one branch to represent the people, the House of Representatives, one branch to represent the States, the Senate, and the Executive branch. Now that the Senators are chosen by the people, and not the States, we effectively have two Houses of Representatives since Senators have a compulsion to treat the people as their consituents in order to get elected or re-elected.

[Buffy]

I know. I overstated for emphasis, although as a practical matter, Guv's that had friendly legislatures (where have we seen that?), basically did the appointment with rubberstamp from the "people's representatives".

The pre-17th regime was arguably "people's representatives" too, just one more step removed--and thus one less step responsive. The intellectual underpinning of the Senate was the UK's House of Lords which back then was all hereditary land owners, and I've always thought that the 17th just remedied the Senate being simply the representatives of the powerful. I think its hard to argue that the pre 17th results represented a superior form of governance. What do you see as the *benefits* of an appointed Senate?

Power to the People,
Buffy