How would YOU reform the government?

We all have our gripes about how government works, and I imagine, our own ideas about how to fix it, so let's get those out and analyze these ideas. Please also state the goals of the changes. And which country you'd be changing could also be helpful to know. I'm in the USA, so that's what I'm looking at changing.

My basic idea is to replace the entire House of Representatives with a 500 seat, nationally elected (rather than state elected), proportionally elected representative body using party-list proportional representation using Jefferson's Method (mathematically equivalent to the D'Hondt method) in which any party that can get at least 1% of the vote gets seated and receives seats accordingly, rounded to the nearest whole number of seats. To determine House offices such as the Speaker of the House, a party must either have an absolute majority or establish a coalition with another party, such that the Speaker has (theoretically) the support of at least half (plus one) of the House. At the same time, the filibuster is to be eliminated from the Senate (which is otherwise to be pretty much entirely unchanged) and the POTUS would be chosen by direct popular vote (meaning that the Electoral College would be abolished). The POTUS would still require an absolute majority, and as such, would face a two-stage general election in which in the first round, each party's chosen candidates would all be on the ballot, and if none of them secures an absolute majority of the votes, then the two candidates with the most votes face off in a second election (basically a shortened IRV system). On top of this, I would like to make voting mandatory like it is in Australia and then make Voting Day a federal holiday.

Regardless of all of the above, Citizens United must be repealed and SuperPACs eliminated. In its place would be a limit of a $10,000 (inflation adjusted to 2012 dollars) donation to each party per person with the presidential candidates given $50,000,000 (inflation adjusted to 2012 dollars) for their election, plus whatever their party sees fit to distribute to them. All publicly funded campaign money is to be stored in a separate account, with its use monitored for misuse and all unspent money automatically refunded to the government.

Additionally, all amendments or "earmarks" to bills would have to pass a non-partisan panel to determine if the proposed amendment is sufficiently related to the bill it is trying to piggyback. If it is not, it is thrown out. The panel would also have the responsibility to determine if a proposed amendment is intended to make the rest of the bill unpalatable, and if it is such an attempt, it is to be thrown out. Attempts to reintroduce the amendment to hold up the bill or repeated failed amendment attachment attempts (3 strikes and you're out) would get a Representative banned from attempting to amend a bill.

The goals are to help reduce pointless pork barrel spending (such as ordering more Abrams tanks for the Army when the Army itself doesn't want or need them because they have parts made in nearly every state and district), allow states to retain representation (via the Senate), eliminate the Electoral College, allow minor or "third" parties to have political significance, take money out of politics, and stop stupid shit like the infamous NDAA amendments or piggybacking the Keystone XL Pipeline on other bills. As a bonus, with this change, gerrymandering's impact on national elections should be greatly reduced, if not eliminated.

So, what would you guys change?

Didn't we have this thread already?

Sort of.

United States government reform

United States legislature reform

That been said, I've had a few additional ideas since.

• Lengthen House term to 4 years. But, since this may cause incumbency advantage, have House elections be like some recall elections: you get two choices. First is yes/no on the incumbent. Second is your candidate of choice, if voted no on the incumbent. That way, incumbents must have an absolute majority to win.

• I don't like the Speaker of the House being the majority leader. Have a national election on which party should select the Speaker (this can be done with an open party list during the House election, where a vote for your representative gets pooled into the nationwide poll as a vote for your party). The winning party then gets to pick the Speaker.

• For Senate filibusters, limit the number of times it can be used, probably as a percentage to number of bills put on floor vote.

• Allow state legislatures to put term limits on their own congresspersons.

While I see the appeal of this, I don't trust them not to fall under the same issues as current committees. Requiring all changes to bills to pass a majority line item vote so that people can't just tack on bits all willy nilly should do the trick for laws. Simply barring congress from having a say in how the departments spend the money sounds like the other best way to prevent congress critters from voting for whatever brings their constituents jobs.

Sounds good to me.

Also, I did not know that we'd had the legislature change thread.

Well, not sure if this also covers the State as well as the Government, but...

I would introduce proportional-representation using single-transferable voting. The constituencies would be based upon the NUTS-2 areas, and would elect between three and seven members per constituency.

All Quangos (but not executive agencies) would be removed, and their functions restored to their respective Government Departments (e.g. the Office for Standards in Education [Ofsted] would be restored back to the Dept for Education).

Each of the English Regions would have an established Assembly, with similar powers to that of the Welsh Assembly.

Basic stuff I have thought of:

President—One 7 year term then you're done. That way we get rid of sitting presidents having to campaign while they are still doing their job. No more lame duck presidencies either. While we are at it—term limits for everyone else in government as well.

Have a real three (or more) party system.

Get rid of the electoral college.

Make voting mandatory with a fine being the punishment for not doing so. (this one prolly won't be popular but I am sharing it anyways.)

Make the minimum wage a living wage.

I have more ideas but those are just a couple I am throwing out there.

If we did have a three-or-more-party system, runoff elections should be implemented to avoid somebody winning with 40% of the vote just because the other two candidates got 30% each.

edited 10th Aug '12 7:33:48 PM by RTaco

If you want more than two parties, drop the first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all system that we have. FPTP reinforces the two party system. It was also why I propose completely replacing the House with a lower house based on Proportional Representation.

I don't see why we need a "lower" house of any sort, given the reasons we have the House and the Senate; to balance out the effect that the more populous states have over the smaller ones, and how smaller states can sometimes unduly influence others.

I'd increase the amount of seats in both houses myself, because around five hundred people is a ridiculous amount of representation for a country of three hundred million people. Probably easiest to do this in the Senate, since in there it requires all states get an equal number of seats. Maybe make it so that in the House each state gets a minimum of three seats, everything else shuffling around as it does right now.

@Balmung—I agree.

I also would want religion TOTALLY out of politics but considering that certain groups are very vocal that is going to be a no-go.

And when I get in a really bad mood I sometimes ponder as to how a basic comprehension and IQ test might be a good idea for those running for office and for those voting.

I only support religion being out of politics if the same applies to atheism.

There's nothing wrong with individual politics that happen to be religious and to practice their views via the 1st amendment.

Atheism is basically the absence of religion/religious belief in a human. How do you keep an 'absence' of something out of politics?

I am going to reiterate that religion really has no place in politics. You don't need to be a Christian/Buddhist/whatever to have good ideas and you shouldn't use your religion as a crutch. Be religious if you want but keep it out of your JOB.

edited 11th Aug '12 5:54:42 PM by EveXOXO

No, atheism is the belief that enforces the no-religion. Some atheists I met actually claimed it as a religion in a sense. You can certainly have establishment of that belief through state atheism. If atheism is protected under freedom of religion, it needs to obey establishment rules.

edited 11th Aug '12 5:59:10 PM by abstractematics

Atheism is a religion in itself? That's an intersting theory that some of your friends have though. I personally don't go for that and I don't think that most religious people would either. You can call a dog a duck but that doesn't make it so.

Of course religion is protected by the first amendment, but as I said earlier, it doesn't belong in the workplace. Period.

I suppose this is just changes made to the government itself rather than specific policies implemented.

Let's see:

• Voting is considered a civic duty and any who do not vote will be charged a fine. The fine will be waived if the individual can prove they were out of the country, hospitalized, or unable to reach the nearest polling location due to weather or other outside factors.
• All candidates running for public office will be required to make the following public on a non-partisan government run website: Their short form birth certificate, tax returns dating back at least ten years, and a transcript of their high school grades (and college if applicable) along with any honors or degrees they earned. Failure to disclose these forms will make the candidate ineligible to run.
• The Senate will be composed of 200 members with four for each state. Additional seats will be added as needed. Senators serve four year terms with two senators from each state up for election every other year.
• Congresspersons are required to pass a budget by September 1st of every year. Failure to pass the budget by September 1st will cause the pay of all congresspersons to be withheld for the next year. Failure to pass a budget by January 1st of the new year will cause the suspension of all congressional pay until those officials currently in office are reelected.
• The electoral college will be removed. Presidents will be determined based on popular vote.

I had more but I either can't remember the specific points or don't feel like typing them out right now.

edited 11th Aug '12 6:04:14 PM by Kostya

x2 Religious beliefs are just beliefs. Saying that religion should be out of the job is to cast out religious people from holding the jobs. That's an unfair discrimination.

You're thinking of a secular state, not state atheism. You can say the government shouldn't hold any religious bias, which might be what you really meant to say. But if religion doesn't "belong in a workplace", neither does an "athiestic bias", meaning policymaking and actions that promote atheism. That's obviously unworkable, so just let the politicians be themselves.

edited 11th Aug '12 6:07:41 PM by abstractematics

I think whether or not Religion has any place in politics is something that people should take into consideration rather than the government.

"x2 Religious beliefs are just beliefs. Saying that religion should be out of the job is to cast out religious people from holding the jobs. That's an unfair discrimination."

Its not discrimination at all. I never said you can not be religious and hold office. I am saying don't let your religious beliefs control your behavior in your job. I know religious people—they do their jobs without bringing religion into it.

"But if religion doesn't "belong in a workplace", neither does an "athiestic bias", meaning policymaking and actions that promote atheism. That's obviously unworkable, so just let the politicians be themselves."

What promotes atheism? No one is saying churches and the such should be banned just that it doesn't belong mixed with politics.

That would be very hard to enforce though. How do you define when someone has a belief caused by religion and when someone just feels that way independent of it?

I think that would be obvious. Just look at how a lot of Republicans are so closely aligned with fundamentalists. Do you really think that some of them don't want a country based on a christianity and/or eventually a theocracy (see Bachmann for the last one)?

As for enforcing it? It will never happen but people policing themselves would be nice.

edited 11th Aug '12 6:15:04 PM by EveXOXO

While that is very true that won't stop them at all. They'll just claim something else influenced them to think that way. Honestly I think restricting someone's beliefs based on their religion is wrong. If it's not causing any harm to individuals or their rights I see no reason to restrict it.

I am not talking about legislation being passed. I simply wish people would leave their religion at the door. It is a private thing and not for mass consumpion.

ETA: "religion is wrong. If it's not causing any harm to individuals or their rights I see no reason to restrict it."

That's what I am talking about. The root of my problem. Once your religion starts interfering with other people's rights via things you want to implement policy wise then I have a BIG problem. Don't like porn/BC/et al...well don't use it or view it but pass laws keeping it out of the hands of anyone else.

edited 11th Aug '12 6:20:31 PM by EveXOXO

Oh I agree with that. I thought that since this thread was about reforming the government you wanted to pass some law that prevented people from letting their religion influence them.

I'm saying that by your reasoning, beliefs that are atheistic shouldn't be mixed with politics either. You might be thinking of atheism as apathy, as in "not believing in God", but it's actually "believing in no-God".

That been said, I don't think this restriction should hold. Politicians are allowed to put their forth their views and ideas. If they are religiously influenced, so be it, as long as they don't actually intrude upon the government policy of establishment/religious freedom.

Different (religious or not) beliefs shape different policies of different politicians. That's just how politics work. There's no need to make any special mention of religion, even to prohibit it.

I wouldn't force people to vote, especially if they're dissatisfied with the candidates. Well, there should be an option to select "none" and allow other votes to make the decision if you don't want your vote to swing in any direction.

edited 11th Aug '12 6:20:15 PM by abstractematics