[RD] CFC Constitutional Convention

[rah]

You never cease to surprise me.

At the U of I, the football players were given similar jobs to earn pocket money. One of the RBs lived down the hall. He was assigned a patch about the size of a football field. He went by it at practice to verify that it still was there. He never had to mow it since it was Astro Turf. Good work if you can get it.

 

[Cutlass]

Wasn't Thomas Jefferson quite clear that he wanted there to be a new Constitutional Convention every 50 years at most in order to draft a whole new Constitution for every generation?

(Of course, he was an Anti-Federalist who recognized that the Constitution that came from the last convention was a deeply flawed document, worse than the Articles of Confederation, which centralized power more than he would like and which once ratified should be followed strictly lest people use vague interpretations to allow even more centralized power than it authorized.)

The irony of that is that Jefferson was an anti-federalist because he believed that the constitutional philosophy of a Thurgood Marshal was correct, and that the constitutional philosophy of an Antonia Scalia was wrong. And he disapproved of that.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You never cease to surprise me.

At the U of I, the football players were given similar jobs to earn pocket money. One of the RBs lived down the hall. He was assigned a patch about the size of a football field. He went by it at practice to verify that it still was there. He never had to mow it since it was Astro Turf. Good work if you can get it.

We had a population of about 1500. To give everyone a job, which of course has to be done since we don't want the crime and punishment set to think that prison inmates get to just lay about, you have to be creative. The entire complex was about the size of a suburban high school and mostly buildings, and we had over two hundred grounds guys. The only way we were really going to work full time would have been if we were 'mowing' with toenail clippers.

I liked grounds because during the work day I could pretty much go anywhere I was brazen enough to go. Every patch of grass, every bush in a planter; there's a grounds guy for that. No one is likely to call out to the grounds shop and ask if I happen to be that particular grounds guy. And of course even grounds guys have to pee, so the library, the gym, anywhere with a bathroom is fair game for a "yeah, grounds guy, I just came in to pee and I'm leaving right now." Lounging outside reading a book was always "grounds guy, waiting for my partner to get back with a mower and some clippers so we can touch that up <wave vaguely towards some patch of greenery>. As long as my assigned patch never caused anyone to call the grounds shop and say it needed mowing the grounds cop didn't much care what I did.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

This prison labor talk is getting a bit off topic, but I'd say that those hiring prison labor should have to pay at least minimum wage (if we are to have a minimum wage at all, there should not be any exceptions to make prisoners cheaper to hire than free persons). However, their should be a lien on the income making most of the funds go to compensate the criminal's victims rather than the inmate himself or his upkeep. If there is no victim, it shouldn't be considered a crime. If the victims died and have no family to compensate, then those funds could be donated to charities instead.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

This prison labor talk is getting a bit off topic, but I'd say that those hiring prison labor should have to pay at least minimum wage (if we are to have a minimum wage at all, there should not be any exceptions to make prisoners cheaper to hire than free persons). However, their should be a lien on the income making most of the funds go to compensate the criminal's victims rather than the inmate himself or his upkeep. If there is no victim, it shouldn't be considered a crime. If the victims died and have no family to compensate, then those funds could be donated to charities instead.

True. This could be split to it's own thread. I actually responded to a question without looking to see what the topic even was, but that excuse has worn thin by now.

Anyway...When I went to work for Unicore half my pay went to fines and restitution, and I was still at the top of the prison economy. If they had taken 85% I'd have had the same income I made as a grounds guy...and I'd have gone back to being a grounds guy. If I had been paid ten times as much, and then taxed 90% I'd have netted about the same so I guess I'd have done it. Maybe. Dunno. Probably wouldn't matter because without cheap prison labor what's the point of putting the factory in a prison in the first place? We'd have just had a bunch more grounds guys.

 

[Ajidica]

-Term limits for congress and senate

This is something I stridently disagree with. The danger of individuals becoming entrenched through a lack of term limits is tiny compared to the "revolving door" that would become even more entrenched, and it would also force out good people in Congress.

 

[Sommerswerd]

What a great thread idea! I'm offended that I wasn't invited

Anyway, my idea.... I'd like the terms of all national US offices to be set so that they come up in POTUS election years... essentially doing away with the "midterm" election. House members would be elected for four years and Senate members for eight. That way, nobody would be able to sneak into reelection when a POTUS election wasn't happening (and participation was low).

 

[Bootstoots]

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.

I want the majority of seats to be made up of people representing a single geographic district, if possible, and then add as few seats as possible to ensure proportionality, or at least something fairly close to proportionality. So that's why I favor MMP over other types of PR, and also why I chose a comparatively small number of list seats.

I didn't mention overhang seats because I wanted to make my post relatively short, but yes - if we end up with 6/7 represented parties as in the current Bundestag, or some very disproportionate district outcome with a smaller number of parties, we'd either have a large number of overhangs or we'd greatly deviate from proportionality, depending on whether we wanted to limit the House to 600 seats or let it expand quite a bit beyond it. I'd prefer the latter, or perhaps some messy compromise (e.g. overhangs are allowed up to a limit of 300 PR seats past which we cap the House at 750 total seats and stop caring about proportionality because an enormous House would become unwieldy).

 

[Hrothbern]

I want the majority of seats to be made up of people representing a single geographic district, if possible, and then add as few seats as possible to ensure proportionality, or at least something fairly close to proportionality. So that's why I favor MMP over other types of PR, and also why I chose a comparatively small number of list seats.

I didn't mention overhang seats because I wanted to make my post relatively short, but yes - if we end up with 6/7 represented parties as in the current Bundestag, or some very disproportionate district outcome with a smaller number of parties, we'd either have a large number of overhangs or we'd greatly deviate from proportionality, depending on whether we wanted to limit the House to 600 seats or let it expand quite a bit beyond it. I'd prefer the latter, or perhaps some messy compromise (e.g. overhangs are allowed up to a limit of 300 PR seats past which we cap the House at 750 total seats and stop caring about proportionality because an enormous House would become unwieldy).

That too enormous House was the reason I added in my old post in another thread on this the possibility to give the Chairman of a party the needed votes.
By that mechanism you can cap the number of extra seats to a sensible amount and yet achieving better PR. A hybrid where small parties always get seats and big parties could votes in the hand of their chairman.
It's all a matter of accuracy vs practicalities.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Break up California, either into 3 or 5 states. NYC/Long Island becomes an independent state.

Would you still support this if there were an option to increase Senate count based on population to some extent?

Thanks for your reply.

@hobbsyoyo suggested near the start of the thread that prison labour should be abolished as part of the US constitutional reform so it it is on topic unless it is ruled that the treatment of prisoners should not be part of a future amended constitution.

As I noted in the post you replied to, which was my response to hobbs my main concerns were that it was voluntary, paid and does not unfairly compete with normal business. The make work grounds guy where you have to volunteer to stand around for a small amount of money seems a bit stupid. Why not grow some salad in greenhouses to feed the prisoners which would be more labour intensive than cutting grass. If Unicore were to sell furniture or other products on the open market there should be some sort of independent body that sets the prices. The main problem I can see with the rate of pay for the prisoners is there lack of goods to buy, and the problems that could be caused by this if there are few good well paid jobs. To overcome this problem it maybe an answer to increase the wage to a fair share but keep the payment to the prisoners the same, the prisoner would then get the balance on release or over the year following release.

So hobbs why do you think that the constitution should stop prison labour. It seems to me the problem is in the application.

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.

I already qualified my earlier statement. I think we can find instances where prison labor is 'done right' but I think on balance it is an abused system and does more harm to society than good. My overall focus with those amendments were mostly about justice system reform, of which prison labor is only a part of the overall problem set I'm trying to address. I am open to restricting and regulating prison labor rather than outright banning it, however.

hat too enormous House was the reason I added in my old post in another thread on this the possibility to give the Chairman of a party the needed votes.
By that mechanism you can cap the number of extra seats to a sensible amount and yet achieving better PR. A hybrid where small parties always get seats and big parties could votes in the hand of their chairman.
It's all a matter of accuracy vs practicalities.

We have sufficient communications and organizational technology to allow for expansion of the House to an arbitrary size.

It would also help tremendously if campaigns were publicly financed so that congresscritters can stay in DC to get to know one another rather than jetting off to fundraisers every weekend. One of the takeaways from the fawning coverage of HW's funeral was that many interviewees from his era commented on how much time members of congress used to spend going to dinners and plays and so on with their families and their colleague's families. It did a great deal to cut down on hyper-partisanship but these days apparently congresscritters don't even bring their children with them to DC.

It is hard to work as a team when you never meet most of them and if they had more time together they would likely work together better. This would help make a larger Congress functional, though I still think that's a problem with a purely technical (and straightforward) solution.

 

[metalhead]

Is there a straightforward way to switch over to a MMT understanding of budgeting that can be put into a constitution, so that we no longer have to have silly fights over "deficits?"

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The best training for a job is doing the job. You can learn a lot in the class room but when you are actually doing the job you understand far more about what you have been taught. This is the reason that employers prefer to employ people with experience. In my first reply to you I provided a link to a restaurant that is open to the public but is inside a prison and staffed by prisoners. Do you think that those prisoners would learn to work in a kitchen if they were just taught in a class room.

FWIW every prison has a restaurant staffed by prisoners, generally called the chow hall. I don't see how the benefit in terms of work experience is increased by having one open to the public. Any money made would be consumed in trying to deal with the massive security issues that that would create, and still not really deal with them. That said, chow hall jobs are highly desired in prison and generally only inmates who come in with some sort of food service experience get them, which obviously runs totally counter to the point you are making.

 

[Silurian]

@Timsup2nothin I think the food may be slightly better in the restaurant I linked £30 for lunch £40 for diner.
But no alcohol for some reason.

Obviously trying to train them for a reasonable job.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

@Timsup2nothin I think the food may be slightly better in the restaurant I linked £30 for lunch £40 for diner.
But no alcohol for some reason.

Obviously trying to train them for a reasonable job.

There are a lot more jobs in high process kitchens than in fine dining kitchens. If an inmate is looking to be released with work experience the chow hall is a good option. The biggest problem is that the work experience is worthless in terms of a resume. Putting "Prison Chow Hall" in as previous employer doesn't exactly leap off the page screaming "hire me!" It also doesn't provide a verifiable reference, since listing the prison general access phone number and the name of the chow hall head hack in charge is pretty pointless. You can come out with skills, which if you had absolutely none to start with might be of some use, but you still have a giant resume gap that puts off most potential employers so most inmates just try to ride the 'prison employment' treadmill as painlessly as possible.

 

[Silurian]

The people that that restaurant trains get a City&Guilds which is a vocational qualification which would not show that they acquired it in a prison.
I agree that many employers would not accept a prison as a reference but many will accept a piece of paper saying they have been trained in a working kitchen.

 

[Hygro]

President by popular vote.

 

[EgonSpengler]

President by popular vote.

I'll definitely sign that petition. This minority-party rule we've suffered through - twice in the last 20 years - has just got to stop. That the particular minority presidents have been among the worst disasters to befall our country may just be an accident of history, but then again, maybe not. If you believe in "wisdom of crowds", then it's possible we really would be better off, in the balance of time, with a majority-elected President. There's no way to go back and take a "do over" on George Bush or Donald Trump, but maybe we could prevent some future President Dingbat III.

 

[Farm Boy]

It takes a unique type of narrowness of vision* to trigger the power of the EC. I'd like to end it being relevant as well, but I'd prefer a different solution. Ah well. Pipe dreams.

*it's not a monopoly, so don't go reading that in there. Not everything is one thing.

 

[Hygro]

It takes a unique type of narrowness of vision* to trigger the power of the EC. I'd like to end it being relevant as well, but I'd prefer a different solution. Ah well. Pipe dreams.

*it's not a monopoly, so don't go reading that in there. Not everything is one thing.

What could possibly be better than having the president elected by popular vote? A national senate elected by popular ranked voting?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I don't have an ironclad solution to prison labor. I would rather it be banned than continued as is. Maybe there is some version that is overall productive for society and is less apt to be abused but I have not seen any solid, encompassing proposals.