How would you amend the U.S. constitution?

[OttoVonBismarck]

guys primaries aren't a Constitutional thing, they're a party thing. If you want to change the basic election system in the way OvB does, you'd have to have an amendment, but the other primary proposals don't implicate the Constitution as far as I can tell.

As for what I'd like: an amendment explicitly protecting the right to privacy, which some states have (including Alaska); getting rid of the electoral college (which has some benefits but is anti-democratic); and allowing for stronger restrictions on money in campaigns (I don't know specifics). I'd also like expanding the House of Representatives (either through Timmy's proposal or something else). Also at this point, given that there are apparently 5 votes on the Supreme Court for a retrograde vision of the commerce clause, it might be necessary to more explicitly state the power of Congress over the national economy.

Most things that I want to change politically are in the policy realm and thus not appropriate in a Constitution in my opinion. Amendments should focus either on structural issues, including elections and the balance between states and the federal government, or individual rights.

edit: other ideas in this thread I like: 20 year terms for the Supreme Court, nonpartisan districting.

Well, you're half-right kinda sorta on the primary thing. My point which wasn't fully fleshed out is I want more Federally oriented and controlled elections for Federal offices. Standardized voting times, standardized ballot format and processing etc. I also want to rid us of the primary system because I think it exaggerates the importance of certain regions of the country and forces certain viewpoints out of the public consciousness, it favors the status quo in the big parties and allows them to easily squelch out any voices from the two big parties that aren't 100% in line with the most partisan part of their voters.

With my proposal you'd have five people on a national ballot, guaranteed presence in debates, massive amounts of funding etc. I think it'd really shake things up significantly. That being said, you're correct that process-wise much or all of it could possibly be done through legislation. Even my financing stuff probably wouldn't run afoul of Citizens United, because it mostly just massively penalizes campaigns that go over the cap and penalizes large PACs through basically a type of redistributive "luxury tax" similar to what you have in major league baseball. The parties could both agree to the primary stuff.

But where you're half wrong is in some states the primary system is actually enshrined in law, it's not something the party bosses can change via fiat. Additionally, outside of that the practical reality is reforms like that, if they were to work, would require the force of a constitutional amendment to ever get implemented. Which of course brings us to the reality that virtually no process reforms will ever happen because we just don't amend our constitution in this country.

I harped on at length about Presidential elections because it required the most detail, but I think the most important point I made was giving the Vice President the power to nuke the Senate's super-majority bullshit. A upper house that basically mandates (because of partisan intransigence) supermajority control to get legislation passed is one of the great blights on our current system.

The other great blight, to my mind, is unlike in Westminster style systems we have no way to resolve intractable disputes between legislative and executive. If Cameron or Harper lose the ability to pass any legislation they can just hold a new election, Obama and Boehner just get to scream at each other while their terms tick away.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I actually like the electoral college and wouldn't necessarily want to see it thrown out. I have my reasons which I've argued before, but basically I think it is generally good for a government to have to bow to some level to regional and state interests as it helps to keep regions of the country feeling like they have no voice (which leads to nations breaking down over time.) I also like the principle of not giving the executive a direct election.

We'd actually be in fairly limited company among OECD nations with a directly elected Head of Government. I think France might be the only country that comes to mind that has such a system.

One of the nice features of the Westminster style systems is if you become Head of Government then by its very nature you have a legislative majority or coalition that can get things done.

A simpler reform that I think could at least mirror that to a degree would be to slightly alter how we do the electoral college. In addition to normalize House seats as me and Tim talked about, what could really help things in general is if every State did its electoral votes like Maine (and Nebraska.) For those unaware Maine and Nebraska do it like this, basically they give two electoral votes to the statewide winner (essentially representing the two electoral votes every state gets which basically equates to the two Senator system in the Senate.) After that, each of their congressional districts is also an electoral vote district. Whoever wins the district, gets the vote. Now, Maine and Nebraska are small states with a small number of congressional districts in each, and the winner of the statewide total has always swept all of the districts of both states so they have never apportioned their votes separately.

But in big states like California and Texas, there are a huge number of votes in play. California has 19 Republican House members who ostensibly represent pretty solidly Republican districts. That would be almost as many electoral votes as the entire state of Ohio or Pennsylvania. Texas has 9 Democrat House members who would likewise probably be worth campaigning in their district.

Such a system would preserve some of what I like about the electoral college while cutting back on most of the areas where people complain. Additionally, while it doesn't exactly map one to one with the general election in the House, doing it this way would make it much more likely that whoever won the Presidency would also win the House of Representatives, because a big part of winning the Presidency would be related to how many Congressional Districts you won (basically 436 of the votes in play.)

[Ed Anger]

Having thought about it, here is my list of needed changes:

1.  Make blood sports legal.
2.  Outlaw any gun smaller than .50 cal.
3.  Allow the government to quarter soldiers in private homes.
4.  Make the voting age 40.
5.  Choose the president randomly by the one that grabs the black bean from the jar.
6.  At the end of every term, all politicians are killed.
7.  Free beer at football games.

1. Make Ed Anger Dictator for life

End

[dps]

If you want to change the basic election system in the way OvB does, you'd have to have an amendment

See the thread title.

[CountDeMoney]

My point which wasn't fully fleshed out is I want more Federally oriented and controlled elections for Federal offices. Standardized voting times, standardized ballot format and processing etc.

Concur.  It would alleviate a shitload of problems.

[Count]

If you want to change the basic election system in the way OvB does, you'd have to have an amendment

See the thread title.

Exactly. My point was that some of the proposals don't require a constitutional amendment (see thread title) in contrast to Otto's, which does

edit: actually i'm not sure Otto's plan requires an amendment either, although he makes good arguments for why it might be practically necessary to amend the Constitution

[Grallon]

My point which wasn't fully fleshed out is I want more Federally oriented and controlled elections for Federal offices. Standardized voting times, standardized ballot format and processing etc.

Concur.  It would alleviate a shitload of problems.

That is one thing I always found particularly ludicrous with the way elections are held in the US: no standards, no unified regulations.  I don't see that such would deprive the member States from getting their distinct voices heard.

Anyhow as for the question:

- universal suffrage for the presidency - at a fixed date like now - but for 5 years ( 4 years of work and 1 year of whoring);

- proportional suffrage for the House - to allow for smaller parties;

- no popular election for the Senate - rather an election/nomination from each state's legislature since the Senate's purpose is to represent States' interests;

- 5 year terms for members of both House and Senate - renewable once - like the presidency;

- as others have said an increase of the constitutional powers of the VP - sort of like a 'junior consul' - perhaps as titular House Speaker - which he/she would abandon if the POTUS croaks and he/she has to take over;

- let the member States' legislatures nominate 3-5 jurists each and form into a permanent judicial college that choose 9 from their ranks to sit on the bench of the Supreme Court and fill out any vacancy - for a maximum of 10 years - non renewable.  No more direct input from either Congress or the Presidency (always found this to be a loophole in an otherwise pretty tight check and balance mechanism between the 'Powers');

- public financing of the elections based on total % of the popular vote - to alleviate the reach of the 'money bags'

-----

Of course, like I said above, a uniformed regulation about everything pertaining to federal elections (presidency, House seats).  Fifty different ballots, accounting methods, etc is too large a door open for fraud.

Oh and get rid of whichever amendment allows private citizens to own an armory in their basement.  This is no longer the XVIIIth century and the time of citizen farmers defending 'liberty' against tyranny.  You wanna play with guns?  Enroll in your local militia, the police corps, the State National Guard or the Federal Army.  Otherwise - no guns for private citizens.




G.

[CountDeMoney]

That is one thing I always found particularly ludicrous with the way elections are held in the US: no standards, no unified regulations.  I don't see that such would deprive the member States from getting their distinct voices heard.

It's incredibly ludicrous.  The vote is constitutionally ensured by the Federal government, it should be enforced by the Federal government;  at the very least for Federal elections.

A whole lot of civil rights pioneers in the 50s and 60s would've given their eye teeth to have elections administered by the Feds, including government-issued Voter ID cards, instead of having to count the number of jelly beans in a jar as a poll tax by the local Klan member running the local election board--that is, the eye teeth the Alabama State Police hadn't already knocked out.

[Neil]

But weren't you telling me that voter ID laws are worse than the Klan, slavery and the Holocaust all rolled into one?

[CountDeMoney]

But weren't you telling me that voter ID laws are worse than the Klan, slavery and the Holocaust all rolled into one?

The way the states were compelling them for no particular reason, other than to simply affect this particular election? Yes.  But a Federal Voter ID?  Works for me.

[jimmy olsen]

what could really help things in general is if every State did its electoral votes like Maine (and Nebraska.) For those unaware Maine and Nebraska do it like this, basically they give two electoral votes to the statewide winner (essentially representing the two electoral votes every state gets which basically equates to the two Senator system in the Senate.) After that, each of their congressional districts is also an electoral vote district. Whoever wins the district, gets the vote. Now, Maine and Nebraska are small states with a small number of congressional districts in each, and the winner of the statewide total has always swept all of the districts of both states so they have never apportioned their votes separately.

I believe that Nebraska had a house district go for Barak last election.

[Sheilbh]

Indeed.  Controversially one of the Maine Electoral College went for Olmert.

I like the Electoral College.  I'd have term-limits for Supreme Court judges because I think the current system's a bit shoddy and undignified.  I don't know if this is constitutional, but I'd require special elections for Senators - Governor's appointing them makes sense when they were chosen by the legislature, not now.

[jimmy olsen]

Here's a pretty interesting experiment in democracy.

You'd have to increase the threshold necessary to a million here though.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/11/05/open_ministry_finland_s_open_source_project_to_let_citizens_propose_laws.html

In Crazy Open-Source Project, Finnish Citizens Propose Laws for Parliament To Consider

By Fruzsina Eördögh

Posted Monday, Nov. 5, 2012, at 6:08 PM ET

Advance votes in the Finnish presidential elections are counted in Helsinki

Photo by SARI GUSTAFSSON/AFP/Getty Images

As the U.S. Election Day draws terrifyingly near, many Americans are frustrated as ever that their voice isn't heard in the legislative process. But maybe Finland has a solution to that problem.

Through the open-source web platform Open Ministry, launched in March by a group of nonprofit entrepreneurs, citizens of Finland can propose legislation and throw their support behind laws of interest. Any legislation that receives 50,000 shares will be voted on by Parliament.

Each suggested law gets six months to gather traction. Whether the majority is in favor or not doesn't matter, as anything with 50,000 total shares (likes or dislikes) moves on to the next, official round of voting. Two weeks ago, a proposal to ban the practice of farming animals for the fur trade became the first Open Ministry idea to pass the threshold for Parliament consideration. Out of the roughly 340 pitches currently on the site, the fur-trade idea is far and away the most popular, having collected more than 56,000 shares with the majority in favor of the ban. But it seems the Finnish are not eager to overly burden their legislators with lots of new laws to consider: The next most popular proposal is a ban on selling energy drinks to children under the age of 16, with 3,486 Finns almost evenly divided on the ban. (Perhaps the legislation proposer saw some clips of Honey Boo Boo and her Go Go Juice?)

Open Ministry confirms citizens' identities through their bank or mobile API's, so spamming or hacking the system is incredibly difficult. The online version of Open Ministry didn't go up for months, in fact, until it was deemed hacker-proof.

Finnish sensibilities aside, could crowd-sourcing legislation work elsewhere? The code for Open Ministry is already on GitHub (a project-hosting site at the forefront of the open-source movement), and Open Ministry founder Joonas Pekkanen told Gigaom  in an interview in September, "We encourage anyone to ... contribute and use it in other countries." But it would have to scale up—way up. Finland has roughly 5 million residents, while the United States has 311.5 million, according to the latest census.

And while Open Ministry may be spam- and hacker-proof, there are no signs that it is prankster-proof. Maybe the residents of Finland don't seem the type to vote on bogus legislation, but the same can't be said for citizens of the United States. In July of this year, two writers from the satire Internet site Something Awful got more than 62,000 people to like a Facebook page in order to "exile" rapper Pitbull to Alaska, effectively hijacking a Wal-Mart social media campaign.

Within hours of launching Open Ministry in the United States, there would surely be dozens of proposals for legalizing marijuana—just as talk about weed has taken over online White House chats.

[Habbaku]

Anyhow as for the question:

- universal suffrage for the presidency - at a fixed date like now - but for 5 years ( 4 years of work and 1 year of whoring);

- proportional suffrage for the House - to allow for smaller parties;

- no popular election for the Senate - rather an election/nomination from each state's legislature since the Senate's purpose is to represent States' interests;

- 5 year terms for members of both House and Senate - renewable once - like the presidency;

- as others have said an increase of the constitutional powers of the VP - sort of like a 'junior consul' - perhaps as titular House Speaker - which he/she would abandon if the POTUS croaks and he/she has to take over;

- let the member States' legislatures nominate 3-5 jurists each and form into a permanent judicial college that choose 9 from their ranks to sit on the bench of the Supreme Court and fill out any vacancy - for a maximum of 10 years - non renewable.  No more direct input from either Congress or the Presidency (always found this to be a loophole in an otherwise pretty tight check and balance mechanism between the 'Powers');

- public financing of the elections based on total % of the popular vote - to alleviate the reach of the 'money bags'

  Something is wrong here.  I agree with Grallon on most of this.

[Viking]

Regarding making the VP more powerful. The VP gets as much power as the president lets him have. Powerful VPs like Cheney and Gore have been men who were in step with the president on the major issues before being picked. VPs picked to satisfy a constituency never do have any power. Honestly, the VP really doesn't have any power, even the tiebreaker he has in the senate has never been used against the president, so it really is a presidential power.