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Structural changes you'd like to make to US national government

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TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#1: Feb 22nd 2012 at 11:45:40 AM

So, this was a topic that was done on another board I'm on and I was curious what some of the more politically aware posters over here would have to say.

PLEASE NOTE: Structural changes are changes in the basic way that the government operates. Not every issue is a structural change. For example, nationwide recognition of gay marriage (which I would love) is a major change of life but doesn't directly effect the way the national government runs. (Indirectly it does, but lets not go into that right now). Something like, say, eliminating the filibuster is a direct change to the way the government and politicians can function and perform the business of the government.

Some of my picks for structural changes include:

  • 'Make all bills and laws have to be written in conversational English: As it currently stands, most bills are written in legalese that often requires a lawyer to interpret them, (and 5 lawyers will have 5 different interpretations) and seem to be written with the goal of obscuring the meaning and intent of a law as much as possible. Lets keep it simple and understandable, especially for the general public, rather than trying to pull the wool over their eyes.

  • Limit the length of bills: All bills aside from budget bills must be 100 pages or less, with a summary of no more than 10 pages presented to members of Congress. None of this hiding stuff in paragraph 10, subsection b on page 873 crap. If your bills fills up more than 100 pages, I guess it either needs to be broken into parts or you need to work on your editing skills.

  • Eliminate "poison pill" bill attachments: It often happens that when one party has a perfectly legitimate idea (I.e. Universal Health Care) the other will shoot it down by either making abhorrent attachments to it (I.e. the Let Rapists and Pedophiles Have Unlimited Viagra attachment) or things they want and would never otherwise pass Congress (I.e. No Taxes For The Rich attachment) which then embarrasses or forces anyone in favor of the original idea to either vote against it or vote for it despite this.
This practice needs to be ended. The only attachments that can be made to bills are things that directly pertain to it, the raising of funds for it, etc. No more childish stunts to get your way and stop the other party from getting theirs.

  • Limit the filibuster: it's a necessary tool for the minority, but as recent years have shown, it's ripe for abuse. As such, it can only be invoked so many times per year, (say, 25) you have to actually stabd up and speak, and can be overridden more easily. (Lower the votes to override it to 55 in the Senate, for example.)

  • Strip annonymity from holds, procedural sidelining of bills, etc.: Currently, Senate Holds can allow a single senator to hold or sideline proposed bills while remaining anonymous. That's a bunch of bull in my opinion, if you're going to unilaterally place a hold on a bill, be prepared to do so publicly without having to face up to any consequences.

  • Sensible non-gerrymandered districts: Districts outside of major cities largely follow county lines, or town lines if a county would have multiple reps. Districts inside major cities go along neighborhood lines that are near each other and share basic concerns. (I.e. a couple of low income neighborhoods bundled together instead of diluting the vote fo the poor by bundling them with rich neighborhoods that carry more weight than the low income areas.) Lets try to avoid districts that look like barbells and whose only concern is making a seat as safe as possible for a party.

  • Eliminate conflicts of interest: People who gets into Congress, the Supreme Court or the Presidency must step down from any outside business positions, (no being a part time member on the Board of Directors for a company you may have to pass legislation for or against) and any investments by themselves or their immediate family must be placed in a blind trust. If you'd rather be rich and in control than honest, godspeed. But if you're going to serve the nation, I'd rather you be willing to be honest, even if it means giving up certain things for a few years.

  • Reform the use of money in politics: Citizens United and Super PA Cs are a recipe for vote buying and influence peddling. (Just look at the current run of Gingrich, which is being kept afloat almost singlehandedly by a billionaire backer.) What to do about it is a rather tough question, so these are my current thoughts: re-establish limits on the amount an individual or organization can donate to a candidate, (allow it to be tied to the rate of inflation and other economic factors such as increased staff costs, etc.) Also, candidates that make it onto the ballot get a certain amount of airtime that they get on radio and TV for free, which takes some of the need for the excessive amounts of cash out of the equation. Candidates with tons of support and cash can obviously still buy more however.

  • Create a review that tracks the flow of budget money: Certify that money is not being mishandled, misdirected, or misappropriated by a tough audit of all bills funded, expenses claimed by Congress, etc. Make sure that cash goes where it's supposed to, rather than having billions of dollars go missing as happened in certain circumstances in the Iraq War. Stiff jail penalties for anyone who knowingly embezzles government money or skims off the top.

  • Limit the pay/perks of Congress: Let the pay be equal to, say, 5 times the average US salary, plus the costs of thigns like travel expenses, etc Congress in unable to vote to raise its own pay or incentives. If you're a member of Congress and want your life to be better, make the lives of American people better.

  • Make going to war harder: Because while there are plenty of causes worth intervening in, (Libya, Syria, Darfur) we need to do more to assure that fuckups like Iraq are harder to get ourselves into.

  • Kill the PATRIOT ACT: Create a special, more streamlined means of getting a warrant or wiretap for terrorism cases, with the provision that any evidence of any other crimes is inadmissible in court. No warrantless wiretaps, no indefinite detention, no torture.

So, what are your ideas?

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
Vericrat Like this, but brown. from .0000001 seconds ago Since: Oct, 2011
Like this, but brown.
#2: Feb 22nd 2012 at 12:12:58 PM

Hm, I'll have to come back with my own ideas for structural changes, but first I'd like to respond to two of yours:

· Make all bills and laws have to be written in conversational English: As it currently stands, most bills are written in legalese that often requires a lawyer to interpret them, (and 5 lawyers will have 5 different interpretations) and seem to be written with the goal of obscuring the meaning and intent of a law as much as possible. Lets keep it simple and understandable, especially for the general public, rather than trying to pull the wool over their eyes.

Limit the length of bills: All bills aside from budget bills must be 100 pages or less, with a summary of no more than 10 pages presented to members of Congress. None of this hiding stuff in paragraph 10, subsection b on page 873 crap. If your bills fills up more than 100 pages, I guess it either needs to be broken into parts or you need to work on your editing skills.

I completely understand what you're trying to do here, but there's a huge problem with the implementation that you're suggesting - the way our judicial system works. Oftentimes, a judge has to parse through language of a law to determine exactly what it's supposed to do in the unique situation presented to him in a particular case. Without clarification, such laws can become ambiguous and are left to the judge's discretion. While this will always happen, and isn't necessarily a bad thing, lawmakers should have the ability to limit ambiguity to the largest extent possible.

Sometimes this will mean writing in "legalese" (though usually it doesn't; statutory interpretation often includes the rule that words are to be taken in the plain, everyday meaning). Sometimes it'll mean writing in examples or what to do in exact situations. These can make the laws long or obtuse, which is unfortunate.

Much to my BFF's wife's chagrin, No Pants 2013 became No Pants 2010's at his house.
AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#3: Feb 22nd 2012 at 12:25:54 PM

For the President, at least, they generally already have stepped down from whatever position they may have held before. They are not allowed to earn any income but what they make as president or something. (All their stuff has to be run by someone else while they're president.) And being in the Supreme Court, well, you're most likely been in law for most of your life, and probably just came from being a judge in a lesser federal court.

Basically, that particular suggestion for eliminating conflict of interests is redundant because they're already doing just the one thing usually, and it doesn't actually eliminate conflict of interest because most of it comes from lobby groups and bribery and other things.

I'd reverse whatever decision it is that froze the Congress at under five hundred representatives, because in a country of three hundred million people five hundred is not representative of our population. I'd up the minimum number of House of reps members states can have, and triple the number of Senate members. That could get us closer to actual representation. (And, you know, have the side effect of increasing employment. funny now the government thinks it can't hire people.)

Octo Prince of Dorne from Germany Since: Mar, 2011
Prince of Dorne
#4: Feb 22nd 2012 at 12:28:40 PM

This practice needs to be ended. The only attachments that can be made to bills are things that directly pertain to it, the raising of funds for it, etc. No more childish stunts to get your way and stop the other party from getting theirs.

Good luck defining that.

Now, personally I'd abolish the Senate and make the remaining unicameral parliament be elected by proportional representation elections, via nation-wide lists, but that's just an outsider's point of view and I know nobody will support thattongue

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic
AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#5: Feb 22nd 2012 at 12:32:23 PM

[up]I think unicameral houses make more sense at the state level, myself. The basic structure of Congress is not something I have a problem with, it's the insanely small number in comparison to the number of people we actually have here. There is no fucking way that five hundred can represent three hundred million accurately. If we can at least double that number, we get closer to something. (And the more congress members we have the harder and more expensive it is for folks like Norquist to control them and for businesses to bribe them.)

edited 22nd Feb '12 12:36:32 PM by AceofSpades

Octo Prince of Dorne from Germany Since: Mar, 2011
Prince of Dorne
#6: Feb 22nd 2012 at 12:34:23 PM

Well, in a PR system it makes few difference if it's 100 or 500 or 2000 people, anyway... which is why you probably wouldn't like that idea, either, heh.

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic
Inhopelessguy Since: Apr, 2011
#7: Feb 22nd 2012 at 12:56:12 PM

Well, even though I'm an outsider, I would like to see STV (a PR system) introduced to elections to the lower house. That would a) limit the amount of gerrymandering possible (as there are many members in one district), b) give a more reasonable electoral result (the share of votes in an area can be represented better) c) give a fair share of views within the House.

There's also the point that because it's a presidential system, and not a Parliamentary system, the make-up of the seats can be independent from the make-up of the Executive, therefore, STV can work excellently within the US lower house.

edited 22nd Feb '12 12:56:54 PM by Inhopelessguy

OscarWildecat Bite Me! from The Interwebz Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Bite Me!
#8: Feb 22nd 2012 at 1:00:22 PM

I would either go to a unicameral congress or repeal the 17th amendment and have senators appointed by state legislatures.

The original purpose of the senate was to balance the interests of the small, less populous states against the those of the larger, more populous states. However, with the direct election of senators via the 17th amendment, that purpose seems to have fallen by the wayside in favor of two variations on the "directly represent the general populace theme" (i.e. the original and current purpose of the House of Representatives.)

Given this, I think that if we feel that direct representation of the population is all that's required, we should bite the bullet and consolidate the two halves of congress (and call those who are elected represenators*

). On the other hand, if we feel that the balance of power between the various states is a good thing, that interest would be better served by letting legislatures appoint senators.

Unicameral legislatures make sense, however. The only reason I think that we see bicameral legislatures is that the states are emulating the federal government.

EDIT: I wouldn't have a problem with a STV system.

edited 22nd Feb '12 1:18:25 PM by OscarWildecat

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AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#9: Feb 22nd 2012 at 1:19:04 PM

Which house are you considering lower here? Because my understanding is that they're essentially equal in influence, and bill have to pass through both to get made into law.

Inhopelessguy Since: Apr, 2011
#10: Feb 22nd 2012 at 1:20:09 PM

Representatives. I guess in most states, the House that's population-based is usually considered the lower house.

OscarWildecat Bite Me! from The Interwebz Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Bite Me!
#11: Feb 22nd 2012 at 1:23:16 PM

The House of Representatives (and its state equivalents) are considered the "lower house", while the Senate (and its state equivalents) are considered the "upper house". Don't know how that got started, though...

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abstractematics Since: May, 2011
#12: Feb 22nd 2012 at 1:24:55 PM

  • Eliminate electors in the Electoral College. Not sure about direct election, but electors themselves are completely pointless.

  • Make the standard of state legislatures, if not all of them, unicameral. Then make the citizens themselves the lower house of legislature and better accommodate their direct-democracy powers.

  • Specify the mechanism for constitutional convention so states can more readily use it.

  • Proportional representation applied, at least partially, to House of Representatives districts. This reduces impact of gerrymandering.

  • Have national elections for Speaker of the House and President Pro Tempore, to be selected from the elected House/Senate members, instead of the members themselves playing party majority with those roles.

  • Limit filibuster, as OP said. Filibusters should not be allowed in certain kinds of bills.

  • Separate the two houses by giving each some exclusive authority, instead of having both houses agree on everything. Give more power to the House of Representatives, in particular.

  • Judicial recommendation - sections in court opinions that allow justices to recommend changes to laws or constitution, keeping it separate from interpretations. This clearly allows judges to say "law says this is right, but I personally believe law should be changed".

  • Make Vice President official member of the Cabinet and allow certain delegation of powers by the President, so that VP really becomes second-in-command in some aspects.

  • Eliminate the Vice President's role of tiebreaker, and simply require majority plus one vote for passage.

Now using Trivialis handle.
AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#13: Feb 22nd 2012 at 1:26:00 PM

I've never heard them referred to that way, actually. *shrug* It's usually just "House" and "Senate" when making a specific reference. In any case, I'm for the states going unicameral; Republicans are always complaining about governmental waste and the like. Having only one House to worry about seems a way to cut down on that.

But yeah, there's no way the federal government could force that on the states. It's an explicit right of the states to structure their local government how they want; I think the two house system happened because it was what they were familiar with when the state governments formed. Nebraska changed it, though.

edited 22nd Feb '12 1:27:22 PM by AceofSpades

Inhopelessguy Since: Apr, 2011
#14: Feb 22nd 2012 at 1:27:16 PM

Hmm... unicameralism. There's not a point having two equally-weighted Houses.

abstractematics Since: May, 2011
#15: Feb 22nd 2012 at 1:28:15 PM

The one concern I have with unicameral house is how impeachment is handled, but fortunately, there are other mechanisms to make up for that.

Other than that, I don't see a single reason to have two proportional houses.

Now using Trivialis handle.
AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#16: Feb 22nd 2012 at 1:28:29 PM

Well, the point was to compromise based on population; even back them some states were clearly bigger and they didn't want to weight anything too in favor of smaller or bigger states. That is the primary reason for the number of members in both houses. They weren't exactly thinking about political parties back then, as they seemed to have the naive idea that they could prevent that from happening.

Also, I am pretty sure that Senate seats are supposed to be apolitical. I might be wrong about that, though. If it's not, then I'd make that a requirement to the Senate; that you don't run for that office based on your political party. I'd make it so you can't mention that at all when running for Senate.

edited 22nd Feb '12 1:30:19 PM by AceofSpades

OscarWildecat Bite Me! from The Interwebz Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Bite Me!
#17: Feb 22nd 2012 at 1:32:10 PM

Originally the US congress had one branch directly (proportionally) elected, and one branch indirectly elected via state legislatures. This was changed with the 17th amendment. If "the other wiki" is to be trusted on this, this amendment was enacted (in 1913) because the dual problems of corruption and deadlocks. I don't need to go into the corruption bit, except to say that it was a bit worse back in the day due to the fact that there weren't nearly as many ways to shine light on those sorts of things as there is now. The deadlock issue was the more serious problem, as a number of state legislatures at the time were so infested by political infighting that they couldn't properly select a senator, leaving the states in question without any representation in the senate.

edited 22nd Feb '12 1:38:41 PM by OscarWildecat

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Flyboy Decemberist from the United States Since: Dec, 2011
Decemberist
#18: Feb 22nd 2012 at 1:33:22 PM

Repealing the 17th Amendment is a bloody awful idea, and popularly-elected Senators in no way makes the Senate worse compared to the abjectly horrible system that was electing Senators via State legislature.

As for this:

Make going to war harder: Because while there are plenty of causes worth intervening in, (Libya, Syria, Darfur) we need to do more to assure that fuckups like Iraq are harder to get ourselves into.

Well, I'd focus on this, a lot.

Specifically, I'd have a constitutional amendment that makes the declaration of war for non-defensive military actions require a direct popular referendum, in which at least 60% of the population must vote for it to be valid, and in which a vote of "yes" constitutes an enlistment into the military for the duration of the conflict.

Of course, it would need to be slightly more complex than that, but that would be the gist of it.

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Inhopelessguy Since: Apr, 2011
#19: Feb 22nd 2012 at 1:34:44 PM

Well, you could increase the number of Representatives. I mean, having 435 members representing 300 mn people is quite insane, considering most other national parliaments have 500 members representing 30 mn.

Flyboy Decemberist from the United States Since: Dec, 2011
Decemberist
#20: Feb 22nd 2012 at 1:39:37 PM

I'd probably make it so we have 750 representatives—and I might consider making representatives popularly elected throughout whole States and do away with districts entirely.

I'd also have 150 Senators. Three for each State.

"Shit, our candidate is a psychopath. Better replace him with Newt Gingrich."
OscarWildecat Bite Me! from The Interwebz Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Bite Me!
#21: Feb 22nd 2012 at 1:42:54 PM

[up][up][up]I'll admit that the election versus selection of senators is a huge YMMV issue. That's why I put out two options. (If you want to stick with the current system, that's your prerogative.)

EDIT: I don't see a point in increasing the number of senators, but I do agree that there shouldn't be an arbitrary cap on the number of representatives, be it 435, 750, or 1000.

edited 22nd Feb '12 1:47:53 PM by OscarWildecat

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Inhopelessguy Since: Apr, 2011
#22: Feb 22nd 2012 at 1:43:47 PM

So, that creates a magnitude of 400 thousand per member. And if we implement STV, with three members per district, this means that three members represent one district, meaning that there are 250 districts in the entire country.

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#23: Feb 22nd 2012 at 1:44:12 PM

That's what I've been saying in this thread, hopeless. I'd add more senators than Flyboy, though. MORE REPRESENTATIVES.

Inhopelessguy Since: Apr, 2011
#24: Feb 22nd 2012 at 1:48:30 PM

Well, I think... 2500. That way, you can have variability with the amount of seats per district (if using STV), creates a magnitude of 120 thousand per member, and could create between 500 and 800 districts.

Flyboy Decemberist from the United States Since: Dec, 2011
Decemberist
#25: Feb 22nd 2012 at 1:52:34 PM

The arbitrary cap is a necessary evil. It wouldn't be possible to directly keep it proportional, as it would be both impractical and prohibitively expensive to have the some 5,000 members it should actually be, if it were actually proportional.

"Shit, our candidate is a psychopath. Better replace him with Newt Gingrich."

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