[RD] CFC Constitutional Convention

[innonimatu]

Only about the political structure of the country?
Put in a provision explicitly allowing any state to secede. Require an ample majority within the seceding state but make it simple and quick once invoked.

 

[metalhead]

Housing, employment, health care, and a living wage are fundamental rights of American citizens.

 

[Ajidica]

Interesting thread Boots!

My immediate thoughts, apart from the setting out voting rights and anti-gerrymandering policies out in stone, are that I would make it so that the courts cannot simply strike down a law unless it is directly affecting a core civil right. In other cases, the courts basically send a letter to Congress saying "Hey, we think you wrote a bad law for reasons X, Y, and Z. We think it can be fixed by including A, B, and C." Congress and the courts then can have a collaborative relation to fix the law. Or Congress can say the equivalent of "We like the law just the way it is thank you very much." and leaves it be.
My thought process behind this is to cut down on a) Congress passing "politically acceptable" but vague laws and then leaving the courts to figure it all out; and b) reduce the importance of the courts in deciding issues that are both highly contentious and political. For example, as much as I support gay marriage and readily available first tri abortions, I would not consider it a "core civil right" and making nine unelected and generally unrepresentative justices make a decision for the entire country encourages politicization. Another example is complex regulations and regulatory law in the area of, say, finance. Financial instruments and regulation of them are fiendishly complex and Congress/Regulatory Agencies (I would hope) have greater access to experts when drafting the laws and regulations than the courts. Outside of Administrative Law Judges, parsing complex financial regulation is something best left to the experts.

Oh, I would also take a blood samples from Kennedy, Alito, Thomas, Roberts, (and use a time machine to get Scalias) and use it to write out in big bold letters on the new Constitution "MONEY != SPEACH. Congress can regulate campaign donations and spending however they feel like."

Require an ample majority within the seceding state but make it simple and quick once invoked.

And how would you accomplish that? The UK is less integrated into the EU than any American state is to the rest of the country and even then Brexit, supposing it had been carried out by a competent government with a supportive majority in both Parliament and the country, would still devolve into a flaming train wreck.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Why do you want to abolish prison labour.

As long as it is voluntary, paid and does not unfairly compete with normal business then I can not see what is wrong.
It will help to pass the time and could help to provide skills.
@Timsup2nothin what do you think.

https://theclinkcharity.org/the-clink-restaurants/cardiff-wales/

I could probably support jobs running the prison (rather than producing any goods or service for export outside the prison) and definitely support job training/school in prison. My concern is that traditional prison labor has been used as slave labor that not only infringes on people's rights but also undercuts other industries. And if the whole scheme is left in the hands of private, for-profit prison operators then it will be a disaster as it has been.

Only about the political structure of the country?
Put in a provision explicitly allowing any state to secede. Require an ample majority within the seceding state but make it simple and quick once invoked.

This would be exploited incessantly by Russia et al. What I mean is that in every election they'll get it on the ballot through paid operatives - as they have done in California already. At least one of the ballot initiatives to split California recently was bankrolled ultimately by Russia. Giving the ability to simply, cleanly and quickly break up the union by direct vote would be a national catastrophe - at least and until our society figures out a way to deal with social media propaganda.

 

[metatron]

• Nothing about hot-button social issues is allowed. This convention is about the structure and representativeness of US government, not gun control, abortion, race or gender issues, etc. Discussion about these things is off-topic except as they directly relate to Constitutional reform.

That's... problematic!

You go with Nevada, Illinois and whoever it will be, go rescission reshmishion, pretend we're just slightly late and what does it matter if it's '79 or '82 or what the heck ever and you totally have an appointment...
...to be only slightly more horribly late to history than you were in '72 or '79 or '82...

Anyway... i suppose you will stifle any well-intentioned proposals to amend the constitution to end the "pink tax" or have elite residential campuses have a rape rate no longer higher than that of the war-torn Congo?

Very problematic.

Senate: No Senators, but each state gets one vote, which is decided by the state government. The idea is that in case of a federal power grab, exactly those people that would lose power can vote on it.

House: Hybrid system. First, the number of districts is cut down to 200 (numbers can e fine-tuned of course). 20 super-districts are created, which contain 10 districts each (following state boundaries as much as possible). Everyone gets two votes. The first one goes to a candidate in their own district. The second goes to a candidate from any other district in their super-district. 200 seats are distributed FPTP according to the first votes. The first and second votes are then aggregated by party and 400 seats are distributed to each party to achieve proportional representation. All candidates in each party are ranked by the total number of votes they got and the seats assigned to the party are given to those with the most votes.

Elections for congress are only held every 4 years,

Did you just copy paste your homework? I think you copy pasted your homework!

Have at it!

Well, what uppi said would certainly help.

Scotus Justices should have terms and maybe even term limits, too.
No more Palpatine nonsense.

PS:
I switched "io" in Illinois and wrote "copüy paste". At least the latter helped demonstrate my point.

 

[Estebonrober]

Only about the political structure of the country?
Put in a provision explicitly allowing any state to secede. Require an ample majority within the seceding state but make it simple and quick once invoked.

No.

 

[sophie]

My thought process behind this is to cut down on a) Congress passing "politically acceptable" but vague laws and then leaving the courts to figure it all out; and b) reduce the importance of the courts in deciding issues that are both highly contentious and political. For example, as much as I support gay marriage and readily available first tri abortions, I would not consider it a "core civil right" and making nine unelected and generally unrepresentative justices make a decision for the entire country encourages politicization. Another example is complex regulations and regulatory law in the area of, say, finance. Financial instruments and regulation of them are fiendishly complex and Congress/Regulatory Agencies (I would hope) have greater access to experts when drafting the laws and regulations than the courts. Outside of Administrative Law Judges, parsing complex financial regulation is something best left to the experts.

Bodily autonomy would be, I would think, the most core of all civil rights.

 

[Commodore]

As most of us are aware, the US Constitution is outdated.

Only according to those who want the US to be something it's not and was never intended to be.

 

[Cutlass]

Only according to those who want the US to be something it's not and was never intended to be.

Which is exactly why conservatives have been appointing justices that they can count on to subvert the Constitution.



Personally I think it has worked fairly well, but there are some aspects that could be improved.

The biggest thing is election reform. Start with campaign finance. No candidate for election may take anything from anyone who is not registered to vote for that office. And only persons eligible to vote can donate anything. No organizations of any sort. Districts shall be drawn such that the winners of office shall represent the popular vote in the state.

 

[Estebonrober]

Only according to those who want the US to be something it's not and was never intended to be.

It was always intended to be amendable. Furthermore the US is what it's people want it to be, no nation anywhere is stuck in a static universe.

No work of man is perfect. It is inevitable that, in the course of time, the imperfections of a written Constitution will become apparent. Moreover, the passage of time will bring changes in society which a Constitution must accommodate if it is to remain suitable for the nation. It was imperative, therefore, that a practicable means of amending the Constitution be provided.

 

[Bootstoots]

Here’s my list of amendments. I’m trying to keep as much of the structure of the American system intact as possible while still greatly improving its functioning and representativeness.

All single-winner elections are conducted by instant-runoff voting.

The President is elected by nationwide popular vote, using IRV. The four-year term and two-term limit are retained.

Each state has three Senators with staggered six-year terms.

A form of mixed-member proportional representation is used for the House. The House is expanded to 450 district members plus 150 party-list members elected through a national party list. The number of list seats a party wins is equal to the number they would receive under ordinary PR minus the number of district seats they won, with a threshold of 5% required to receive list seats. I’ll make another post soon that gives a couple examples of how this would work.

Territories and districts with a population larger than that of the least populous state are entitled to one Senator and to House representation as if they were states. People living in less populous territories may still vote for President and the House party list.

The Supreme Court consists of 10 justices serving terms of 20 years each. Ties default to the lower court ruling without setting a precedent. The terms are staggered so that one justice retires every two years. If a justice dies or resigns before his/her term is up, another justice is selected to serve the remainder of the term. No one who has served in the SC already may be nominated again. I’m not totally sure how the appointment should be done – I’d like some method to moderate the picks and make them less blatantly political.

No person may serve more than 12 consecutive years, nor more than 18 years in total, in each branch of Congress.

A national independent election commission is established which supervises and standardizes elections nationwide. It also decides which algorithm is going to be used to draw districts at the federal and state levels, and approves any deviations from the algorithmic map suggested by its state-level equivalents.

All US citizens 18 or older are entitled to vote. Those who are institutionalized (prisoners, psych patients, etc.) are considered to live at their most recent address for voting purposes.

Constitutional rights apply only to individuals. Corporations and other organizations do not possess such rights.

Elections at all levels are publicly financed. Individual contributions to political campaigns may not exceed 2% of the national median annual income, and the sum of all of one individual’s contributions in one election cycle may not exceed 5% of the median income. Organizations may state opinions on elections but may not advertise for or against any candidate or ballot issue or donate to a campaign.

 

[Lexicus]

1- formally establish that the provisions of the 14th amendment apply only to natural persons, not corporations.

2- formally remove the power to run elections from the state governments. Nonpartisan commissions will draw legislative districts and will be responsible for administering elections.

3- ban private donations to elections campaigns entirely. Elections will be publicly funded and will have a strict six-week time limit.

4- abolish the electoral college, establishing the election of the President via a national popular vote.

5- the payroll tax is to be abolished

6- the federal income tax is to be abolished

7- a progressive wealth tax is to be established

8- a tax on financial transactions is to be established (graduated so that the shorter the time an asset is held, the higher the tax rate that applies to the transaction involving that asset)

There isn't really all that much that needs done,

This is obviously wrong but okay.

 

[mitsho]

Proportional Voting: every district has 10 members of congress (break up the 2-party system, forcing coalitions to fill the committee chairs with a diverse cast, ensure that ever party that can gain 10% of the vote in a district gets represented.

Ranked Voting: for senate and presidential elections (avoid primaries where a minority of a party decides on the main candidate).

Single Subject Rule: every law may only tackle one topic. No more bribing a representative with an infrastructure investment in his district in a law about something else.

More Transparency: mainly in campaign finance, but I'm no expert here...

 

[metalhead]

1- formally establish that the provisions of the 14th amendment apply only to natural persons, not corporations.

I would add on to this that any criminal activity or fraud carried out in the name of a corporation is to be imputed directly to its executive officers and Board of Directors, and that corporate duty flows solely to the public good and not its shareholders.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

This is obviously wrong but okay.

Not sure if you got the context there. I was referring to jobs. The vast majority of hours spent working by people are spent in a mad race to see if we can in fact consume an entire planet worth of resources in a single generation. If humans could manage to prioritize "food, shelter, clothing, goof off and enjoy each other's company" and divided the labor needed to make that possible for everyone equally no one would be working more than a couple hours a day.

I wasn't suggesting that the constitution doesn't need much work.

 

[Lexicus]

Not sure if you got the context there. I was referring to jobs.

I did get the context there. I know you were talking about jobs. There is obviously a tremendous amount that needs doing. Most importantly and most obviously we need to basically change entirely where our whole global civilization gets its energy from in about ten years.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I did get the context there. I know you were talking about jobs. There is obviously a tremendous amount that needs doing. Most importantly and most obviously we need to basically change entirely where our whole global civilization gets its energy from in about ten years.

Maybe we wouldn't if we weren't burning so much energy on make-work.

 

[Commodore]

It was always intended to be amendable.

Amendable, sure. But the core of it was never intended to be completely and radically changed, only tweaked here and there. That's why the Founding Fathers made the process for amendments and calling another Constitutional Convention so damn difficult.

Furthermore the US is what it's people want it to be,

No. That is just a fancy way of saying the US should be governed by mob rule.

All US citizens 18 or older are entitled to vote. Those who are institutionalized (prisoners, psych patients, etc.) are considered to live at their most recent address for voting purposes.

Why not just use the prison or institution they are in as their current place of residence? And while I am okay with allowing prisoners to vote, I cannot get behind letting psych patients vote. The argument could be made that while they committed a crime, prisoners are still mentally competent enough to make informed political choices. The same argument cannot be made for those whose mental disorders are so severe that they had to be institutionalized.

 

[uppi]

A form of mixed-member proportional representation is used for the House. The House is expanded to 450 district members plus 150 party-list members elected through a national party list. The number of list seats a party wins is equal to the number they would receive under ordinary PR minus the number of district seats they won, with a threshold of 5% required to receive list seats. I’ll make another post soon that gives a couple examples of how this would work.

You proposal doesn't have enough list seats to support a true multi-party system. It would work as long as you have two major parties and very few minor parties. But as soon as you have a third party at 25% or so, you start to run into problems.

Suppose you have three parties: Party A gets 40% of the vote and party B and C get 30% each. B and C have similar positions and are opposed to party A. with your seat distribution, A could win all the 450 district seats, because they have a plurality in all the districts. The 150 list seats for B and C are not nearly enough to compensate that. So A could get a 3/4 majority with 40% of the vote. Of course, you can add additional compensation seats, but in this case you would need 525 additional seats, almost doubling the number of seats.

The mixed-member proportional representation system for the federal elections in Germany has 50% of the regular seats decided by districts. Any overhanging seats are compensated with additional seats, but in the last elections this has resulted in 111 extra seats in addition to the 598 regular seats.

If I were to design such a system from ground up, I would limit the number of district seats to maybe 1/3 or so to avoid all the problems that arise with having too many district seats.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Why not just use the prison or institution they are in as their current place of residence? And while I am okay with allowing prisoners to vote, I cannot get behind letting psych patients vote. The argument could be made that while they committed a crime, prisoners are still mentally competent enough to make informed political choices. The same argument cannot be made for those whose mental disorders are so severe that they had to be institutionalized.

I've tossed around the idea of whether we can assume that a citizen is qualified to vote, based solely on their age. Mostly I think the answer is no, which is my main argument against mandatory voting. If somebody is uninformed, and doesn't care enough to read a newspaper the week before an election, I don't want them to vote, and if they decide to recuse themselves, I think that's probably for the best. The people who are not well-informed but choose to vote anyway are a conundrum (as are the people who are, but don't), but I don't like the idea of the state deciding who votes and who doesn't. I've fantasized about some kind of quick quiz that a local high-school teacher could score in 10 seconds while you're standing in line, but that probably raises some questions that I haven't figured out the answer to. Merely being 'institutionalized' shouldn't disqualify you from voting, imo. I suppose there are probably cognitive disorders that make a person incapable of understanding issues, or how the US government works, or whatever, but we don't require that healthy people have any understanding of those things in order to vote. I do agree that prisoners should be allowed to vote, fwiw.