How about this:
House, senate. One term each. No perks, no pension. Graft conviction carries the death penalty.
38 comments Og | Uncategorized
Thursday 25 Feb 2010
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Fuck’in A Bubba
And when you finish your term, it’s off to the hoosegow for a year just on general principle.
Where do I sign?
No elections. Members of Congress are chosen by lottery. No exemptions.
I’d bet we’d do far better.
M
We couldn ‘t do much worse
(apologies to Lennon)
While this appeals to a part of me, I just have to say no. It goes too far.
I want people like Tom Coburn and Mike Pence to get re-elected and have leadership roles.
Or my other favorite Cogresscritter, Jeff Flake. It’s ironic that one of the best members of Congress is a Flake, isn’t it?
Kind of takes the power away from the people to choose, doesn’t it? I understand the voting system and the process for running has grown increasingly hard over the past few decades (McCain Feingold, etc), but I personally respect the democratic way and our system of representative republicanism. It’s not perfect, but, we don’t need LESS choice–which is what term limits are via removing one candidate automatically–we need more access.
Yep, CT, it’s just workiing out fine the way it is now.
12 years max in federal service for all of them, it gives continuity of service but limits having to look at some of their mugs……
House
Senate
President
and Supreme Court
with the supremes you could start with the oldest of them and cycle them out every 16 months.
and your time carries house/senate/president….
with manditory retirement at the end of the term you reach the age of social security retirement.
I’ll always have an issue with term limits. As bad as it is that we get some of the same clowns for-seemingly-ever, throwing out the good ones is just as bad.
When you factor in how politician’s voting habits can and will change once they know they don’t have to worry about getting reelected, and it’s just not a good idea.
OK, I will retract my position if anyone can name ONE good politico that should be retained for every TWENTY that should be thrown out.
Oh, wait, you can’t.
Burn the chaff. If one or two grains of wheat get burned too, so be it. The field will be ready for fresh planting afterwards. Good men will be followed by other good men, if people realize that stepping up is not a life commitment and a lot of good can be done in one term if the incumbent doesn’t have to spend most of it campaigning.
Term limits completely backfired in California. We now have a revolving door for lobbyists who have little motive to learn the job and no fear for voter anger. As far as your death penalty for graft idea, we’d be served well IF we could get convictions under existing law (put in place by the political class that fears it might be used against them).
So here’s an idea. Use the voter initiative process to pass graft laws. Put teeth into them like full restitution plus double damages and/or long prison sentences at hard labor.
I can wholeheartedly by into tossing all the bums (and the few good ones) out, and having a “do-over”.
That being said, keep the limit at two terms total in the holding of any position at the legislative level. The President is already restricted to term limits, so that doesn’t need to be changed. And keep SCOTUS as it is.
You want better critters to hold office, change the way they are offered to the public.
Get rid of the need for large sums of monies needed in order to run for office and you might find a greater number of folks who are qualified to hold office would run. To this end, have the three main television stations (and their respective radio outlets) be required to provide “free” campaign commercial space. This would be an equal amount allotted to any who are seeking office. You would not be able to buy any time, and would not be able to have corporate/special interests/PAC do so either. (Although you could allow for any of these groups to “take” some of your allotted time for their commercial spot, if so desired.)
This provides for a so called level playing field. After the primaries are over, and the formal race for any given office is underway, the amount of candidates for any given position are, in most cases, only going to be two, one from each of the major parties. There may also be an independent in the mix, but as often as not, this will not be the case. At this point the amount of time given to each candidate will be “re-set”, with the same rules above still in place.
In short, you either have enough public support, which would see you winning at your respective primary, and thus allowing you to be able to solicit funds from these folks for campaign posters, pamphlets, and the like, but the over all campaign expenditures should be considerably lower than they are now.
Other then the above, I also have some concerns in “messing” with things as laid down by the Constitution. Look how much better the Senate has become after the Constitution was “modified” by the Seventeenth Amendment.[/sarc]
Pascal: That’s because it’s california. You need some bad weather there to kill off the worst idiots.
Here’s an addendum: if an incumbent can garner a 75% approval rating in any term, he can RUN for re election. Otherwise, out with the bum.
Populist blather, sorry, og.
I mean, the Founders had experience with the British Parliament, which had life members in the Lords, and no limits in the Commons… and they deliberately* did not introduce any limits to how often or how many times the People could choose a particular representative.
If there is a problem, it is that the people keep electing porkers, because the people like pork. That can’t be solved by fiat – indeed, I don’t think it can really be solved at all.
(And approval ratings as basis for allowing candidacy? That just means that the Wicked Folks** will corrupt the polls even more than they already are.)
*“A few of the members, as happens in all such assemblies, will possess superior talents; will, by frequent reelections, become members of long standing; will be thoroughly masters of the public business, and perhaps not unwilling to avail themselves of those advantages. The greater the proportion of new members, and the less the information of the bulk of the members the more apt will they be to fall into the snares that may be laid for them.”
** This crosses party lines, naturally.
Sigi: So, in order to get rid of Dorkchop 1(r) I have to vote him out by voting in dorkchop 2 (d)?
Sorry, I’m not convinced. Come at me with an argument that holds some water.
Maybe there is something to be found in the line Shakespeare puts in the mouth of his instigator, Cassius:
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
The “we are underlings” is usually omitted when that line is repeated, and we are sorrier for it. Our “betters” benefit from us thinking we have no power.
We are NOT underlings. Each American is technically sovereign; we simply lack sense to organize our own blocs that we find to be an acceptable compromise.
Run for office yourself Og.
Alas, I cannot. The skeletons in my closet would curl my intended constituent’s hair en masse.
I think Mitch Daniels said it best:
“You are entitled to all the lousy, crummy, graft-ridden government you want and are willing to pay for. I guess after five years of trying to speak always to the positive and encourage people to move in a positive direction, that I’m trying to express candidly my thought that I’m a little tired of waiting.”
Face it, we who want a tiny, graft-free, efficient government at any level are the definite minority. Tinkering with the rules will just make the crooked a lot more wily, and they’ll still hold the ball. Look at term limit Lake County, where the same people rotate, this time assessor, then treasurer, then sheriff, then, recorder, etc. Or have a stand-in be the office holder, like Medvedev for Putin in Russia.
We have crap to contend with because a critical mass of The People want crap. Instead of E Pluribus Unum, the national motto needs to be Ubi Est Mea (where’s mine). More people worry about who wins American Idol than who wins President. It’s a long assed winter, and I’m not talking about the weather.
mts, I hate to say it, but that appears to be the case which is more firmly entrenched with each passing day and generation.
That the schools give little more then lip service to what the Constitution is about (and what it says) along with virtually nothing about ones “real” civic duties. (And no, going and doing some sort of “community service”, in and of itself, is not the sum total of one’s civic duty. But try explaining that to the moron’s … err, educators at the local skrewal.)
We used to acknowledge, with a wink and a smile, that we had the finest congress money could buy, at least somewhat confident that at the end of the day, even those bastards would, if pressed, do the right thing.
Sadly, even this is no longer the case.
Og, you’re almost right with the 75% approval rating to run proposal.
My spin on it is let ’em all run. But to win a 3rd or more term, you must win by at least 60% of the vote.
Thus, some districts may keep especially favored representatives. However, said Representative runs for 3rd and subsequent terms at great fiscal risk. If his polling tells him he’s not likely to net 60% of more at the polls, I doubt he’d roll the dice.
It also means a 3rd+ term rep would have to have balls to run for that 3rd+ term, which isn’t a bad character check in it’s own right.
Whadya think?
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
The problem isn’t just with the elected; the answerable-to-no-one civil service bureaucracy is where the real problems begin.
I’d be all fer it except for one thing: It would be too easy to game the system. There are far too many true believers who would say anything to get elected, then vote however they wanted once they got their because they wouldn’t have to worry about reelection. Followers of a particular -ism got themselves elected en masse and under the radar, and then work their will without fear of retribution at the polls. And, unfortunately, you’re more likely to get true believers than regular joes if you don’t have at least a little personal incentive to run.
Two hundred years ago, such a system would have worked beautifully. But now? It would be a complete disaster. We, the ones with common sense, are too outnumbered to make it work.
Plus if you stuff congress with the common-sense folk, there’d be no one left at home to take care of the rest of the country.
“Game the system”? Yeah, because that never happens now.
I find it personally difficult to believe we could do any worse than we do now. And I like Mark’s idea of the Lottery.
I like the Lottery Idea too. Nobody evah fixes the outcome of a Lottery.
Kill them all and install me as Emperor.
I’ve been in a Ming the Merciless kind of mood lately.
Here’s my twist, based on Prof’s suggestion in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress:
Repeal the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments. Leave the Senate to be appointed by the State Legislatures. Make the House of Reps a lottery system similar to jury duty. The Senate needs a 2/3 majority to pass laws. Spending bills still originate in the House, and the House can repeal laws with a 1/3 minority.
Oh, and spending bills need 2/3 majority in the House before moving to the Senate for ratification.
Of course you can game the system now. But it’s currently a lot harder than it could be.
It doesn’t seem all that hard to me now. How in the hell could it be easier if we knew everyone was going to be gone in 4 years?
Knee-Jerk. And not even a sexy one, imho. I still don’t understand how limiting terms served to one does anything for you. What you’ll end up with is a GREATER desire for these donkeys to mess things up in their 4 year term. More collusion and bipartisanship will occur, more laws will be passed, and there would be absolutely no incentive for them to listen to their constituency…because they won’t have to fear re-election battles. Sorry, It’s just a really, really stupid idea.
Yep, it’s reeel dum. Jus like me, I’m reel dum.
So what’s you’re brilliant idea, since you have a magic ball that proves to you what would happen if this idea were implemented? of course, you don’t know, you’re making assumptions. I’m making suggestions. They may nt be brilliant, but I don’t hear anything else but “That’s STUPID!!!”
And again: The current system is working REALLY WELL. Name 10% of our current elected reps that shouldn’t be thrown out. No, wait, you can’t.
“Need” now means wanting someone else’s money. “Greed” means wanting to keep your own. “Compassion” is when a politician arranges the transfer.” – Joseph Sobran
The politicians are simply enabling the transfer that “Americans” have voted for.
One thing I know for sure after reading both the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist Papers:
The Anti-Federalists were right. They won that fuckin’ argument. It took a couple centuries to come to fruition but they nailed it.
Alllllll these problems go away as soon as I’m Emperor….
Actually, we have a pretty good system. It often has some rough patches, and we’re in one now. In a few years it will work itself out and there’ll be better times. Or it may go all the way to “RE-SET” and a shooting war over it. Kinda depends on whether or not the democ-rat party decides if it wants to survive as a party or not. All the other ideas are fine, except that they are impossible to put into effect.
I’d go for Emperor Graumagus. As long as we can depose him via the Spartan method. His word is law for ten years, his every whim catered to, then honorably and painlessly put to death and his chosen successor installed. All Hail Graumagus, Honorable Emperor of America ! ! !
Boy is this gonna piss off the Algore and Teh Iwon.
As for me, I’m still loading all my empty brass and accumulating .22 shells. 500 each week, cheaper than a case of beer.
I’m also submitting my application for Imperial Chief Executioner, second choice is Imperial Chief Interrogator.
Gerry N.