Laws I’d Like to See [Reader Post]

I like your train of thought. . . Ideas of value!

Some additional thoughts:

—Ideas on laws defining how to draw up Congressional districts and reduce gerrymandering.
In NC some districts were drawn to insure the lifetime re-election of certain Congressman
and diminish conservative areas by breaking them up into pieces and then assigning
to blue areas — the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill region is a case study for these shenanigans.

—Compensation for Congressmen & Executive Office? Tie it into how well the country adheres
to it’s budget and stays out of red ink. Similar to compensation packages for CEOS, COOS,
CFOs/Financial types, ETC., in large companies.

My opinions:

1. No elected official may hold consecutive terms. (in regards to congress)

First, a clarification: Just for Congress? If so, change the wording.
I disagree here. as long as there are elections, corruption can be dealt with. The real problem with terms are length. I think yearly would be better.

2. No elected official may accept a campaign contribution of any kind while in office. (in regards to congress)

Not even for a re-election campaign? Now, I see if you are saying here that re-elections don’t exist with your previous law, then what about for running for the next office the official would then run for? I think perhaps maybe no contributions from companies is a good idea, but none at all probably is not good.

3. The number of representative shall be one for every 30,000 citizens.

100% agree. The more representatives they are, the less one black sheep can misrepresent the people.

4. Congress shall receive NO PENSIONS

Also agree here.

5. Repeal the 17th Amendment.

Do you really want this? This is taking more power from the people, and giving it to politicians! How could you be sure to even affect who would be your Senator? Each time you pass on an election or political pick to another official, you decrease your own power to change and uphold the law.

6. Repeal the 16th Amendment and institute a value added tax.

An excellent plan in some respects, but it still has problems with taxation of imports and exports. To much tax, and highly imported products will be extremely taxed and cause unrest (oil), and other countries will not pay for our exports. Too low, and companies will outsource and ship in like they do now.

7. Nationalize the Federal Reserve Bank.

Define your meaning of nationalize

8. No business is too big to fail and bailouts of private business entities shall be prohibited.
Agreed- Enough of the picking and choosing and waste.

A. Executive pay shall not exceed a multiple of 50 of the average compensation of all employees.

Not a good idea. This is anti-Capitalistic. This kind of a law would encourage basing whole companies in different countries. Companies that would likely be in violation of this would be such companies as NewsCorp (Murdoch) and Microsoft, and thousands of others. How about addressing the real issue you mention instead of trying to cover it in a blanket of more law?

Executive bonuses/stock options etc. shall be be identical to the workers as a percentage of base compensation.

Overall a good idea, but make sure that it doesn’t become “everyone gets an equal bonus in a company no matter how well they perform.” Everyone should only get bonuses they deserve.

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Interesting food for thought. Thank you for your post.

Speaking about gotomeeting.com… and other electronic forms of communications, I make this suggestion:

Given that on many occasions Congress believes that they are, in going against the will of the people as demonstrated in various polls, doing what’s good for the public, how about (now that we have the Internet and verifiable, secure communication links) letting the public vote ONLINE AND DIRECTLY more often on MOST of ALL of the issues (legislation) that come up?

Just think. Year 2011. Elections are routinely held in such a manner that Senators and Representatives in Congress merely write and formulate proposed legislation. Then at regularly and at certain times during the year, possibly less often (we have too many laws already), all registered voters vote electronically online. Connections over the Internet, in private or at public places, are as secure as connections to your bank accounts. Voting takes place over SEVERAL days not just one day from 7am to 7pm. This greater amount of time would ensure that, weather good or not, people will have a better opportunity to vote. In fact, if you were on business traveling in Hong Kong you could verify and vote from there or anywhere online.

And, yes there would be voting security officials who are trained computer programming professionals that can spot cheats and discrepancies, thereby guaranteeing connection and processing security much as your bank does with your bank balance. Not perfect, but mostly 99.999%. Penalties for voter fraud would be extremely severe.

Thus, we will eliminate Congressional hijacking of the issues. It is often they say that the laws are updated to reflect the changing times. This is one idea that is coming soon. And, it means truly POWER TO THE PEOPLE.

Yes, repeal the 17th. It would give the states a voice at the federal level which would provide a counter-balance to the unfunded mandates and it would end the confirmation grandstanding that currently goes on in the Senate to appeal to voter special interests. The Senate was designed to represent the interests of the states, not the people directly. Also, the benefit of one representative per 30,000 is that it makes it a lot harder to gerrymander “safe districts”. “Safe districts” are one of the main ways that our republic has gone wrong.

To your list, I would add some sort of provision prohibiting the delegation of powers. What that means is that Congress shouldn’t be able to tell the EPA, “You decide what’s dangerous and how to regulate it. Here is a blank check to write whatever laws you want.” Laws and regulations should come from the Congress and be voted on, not delegated to unaccountable bureaucrats.

No vote for any public office may be cast except in person with proper identification including proof of citizenship. Currently, phony registrations and registrations of aliens are converted to votes through the absentee ballot process as are votes of the dead.

An exception should be made for active duty military assigned away from their states of residence.

All voters should be required to register anew and all prior registration records should be purged.

A few would be disenfranchised but the process would regain much integrity.

I agree with the others, great start! I like the idea of returning the Senate to the states, no pensions and make the states pay. I like any sort of taxation based on consumption or a flat rate. I do not support any sort of limits on private business to pay whatever they want, but in the same vein, I would abolish their right to donate to campaigns OR I would mandate that all contributions be made public.

We should work towards limiting Federal regulatory powers over the states. The use of the commerce clause should be a target of reform. The powers of the Federal government regulatory agencies over the states should be limited and controlled.

There should be no exemptions for federal politicians from laws inacted by them on their populace. There should also be instutued a mandatory sunset or review of all federal orders/regulations requiring congressional votes of continuance and not to be lopped in with other bills.

Term limits should be worked to 3 terms say for a Senator and 5 for a congressman. There should be a ban on lobbying of government by a former congressman/senator of 10 years after office. And too, for the federal government regulatory agencies… a ban of 15 years after employment or total ban to stop the revolving door.

Ever effort should be focused on reducing the influence of the Federal Government on our lives. The Federal Reserve/ Central Bank should be reviewed and have to face audit. The Congress should have to face an audit and all programs/agencies should have to face a review of budget and/or rationale for being.

@Bigpapa

All this discussion is a healthy airing of ideas.

There is a feature box at this site —

http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/

. . .on the lower right of the home page entitled, “Give em the Boot.” Currently featuring Larry Sabato’s swipe at citizen voices — I nominated your comment as an alternate selection for the box.

You can give up. . .it is your perogative. . .but I will not nor the millions of other Americans who will shake up the country next year in the voting booths. . .

Yes American Voter please tell me you inspiration????

Is it the EPA declaring CO2 a pollutant this week????
Is it the POTUS flying to Denmark????
Is it the Senate trying to pass the health care debacle???
Is it the myriad of liberal judges passing illegal “legislation” on us..?????
Is it the whole of congress and the senate ignoring our constitution????

How many websites have you been to???
How “good’ does it make you “feel” to voice your opinion???
And how much difference does it actually make???
That is the REAL question. I come to this site and many others every damn day and it makes no difference what i think, type, say, wish or desire..
PROVE ME WRONG!

Whining, bitching, crying, wishing is nothing.. big freaking nothing…

I never said I was giving up, you assumed so judging by my frustration…
I think everyone who wants and wishes and like puppy dog kisses has given up…
Forgive for me for having a “healthy airing of ideas” other than you wish to hear…

Donald,

I’m not sure what you mean by “thinking outside the box”..

I recently was blessed with my second daughter… 22 years after my first..
I love my girls and I hate they direction of this country for them..

Yes,, we are less capable, yes we do not have the media, we do not have politicians who care for no one but themselves…
Yes, bitching and moaning and wishing here will serve no other purpose than to make us feel we “did our part”..
Even though it makes no difference….

You have a better idea??
I’m all ears…

How about a law that makes it mandatory for broadcast and cable networks to show a 5 minute clip of 9/11 before every top 20 rated show to impress upon mush -brained Americans that we’re at war.

Very well intended article.
Obama is going to be re-elected with all his radical croonies via Masive electoral fraud financed with our Stimulus money. Now, how are we going to stop that!
Are we going to need Russian hackers to unveil the hoax of the American elections just like GW?
We forget sometimes that we are dealing with Chicago Mobster style of government and they don’t go out quietly.
G-d help us.

Donald,

About 3 million people should be in Washington D.C. right now and show these good for nothing politicians that we are against socialized healthcare.

When you have a Third world country President with his croonies, what can you expect?
Corruption and fraud in their veins.

@URI:

INDEED!

The States need to step up and enforce their 10th Amendment! Also, All states should institute a recall procedure to be able to get rid of Senators like ARlen Specter instead of having to wait until his term is up (happily, that is next year!).

Enact a law that any law passed by Congress (such as the ubiquitous Hell Scare) should be mandatory for ALL federal, State and Union employees!

I like #5m however I think that Congress salaries should be on the ballot every two years. I am sick and tired of them giving themselves raises and COLAs while taking more money away from the people who need it.

No more franking privileges – they get an allowance, make them spend it on the post office – I hear there’s a 3 billion shortfall.

No more private jets – they can fly coach like the rest of us.

No more voting to give OUR money to other countries until we have helped the people at home first!

Any advisor to the prez – like the Czars – should be vetted or they do not get any gubmint funding. I don’t want my money going to the likes of Cass Sunstein, Holdren, Van Jones and the rest of the marxist cast of characters.

But, most of all, we need to VOTE THESE MORONS OUT OF OFFICE!

Then count me adamantly against such an amendment, Donald (INRE comment #45). We can’t have courts making up various scenarios, guessing as to what agencies will determine as regulations prior to such events. Talk about an unruly court docket….

This is a function of the AG’s office now. It should remain so, IMHO.

Now, back to your “fair compensation” arguments. The only way for what you’d “like to see” is to create a formula for “fair compensation” via law. Slippery slope indeed. And why should elected officials be granted unConstitutional powers to determine what is “fair” and how a business should structure it’s payroll compensation?

Again, we have civil courts for such disagreements that can be brought by the affected parties. At that time, a judge would decide if something is unreasonable for a particular circumstance. That, however, generally results in enriching class action trial lawyers only.

However you cannot legislate/law “fairness” without unConstitutional intrusion any more than you can legislate/law hate out of the heart of man.

I liked this well enough that I expect to link to it in my blog posting tomorrow.

The only immediate idea of mine is to require that left over campaign funds would be used to pay down the national debt.

This post has been linked for the HOT5 Daily 12/10/2009, at The Unreligious Right</a

Any pay raises to members of congress must be voted on at the next general election. Three options will always be present on the ballot when congress asks for a raise:
1) Approve – Raise congressional pay by the percentage they asked for.
2) Deny – Give congress no pay raise.
3) Punish – Cut congressional pay by the percentage they asked for.

Senators will be limited to 2 consecutive terms (12 years), after which they may not be elected or appointed to the senate for a period of 1 full senate term (6 years)
Representatives will be limited to 4 consecutive terms (8 years), after which they may not be elected or appointed to the house for a period of 2 terms (4 years)
Any time accrued as a result of a special election or appointment to fill a vacated office shall be considered a full term if the office was vacated within the first half of the term (3 years for senate, 1 year for house)

Any member of congress running for a different federal office (house->senate, house/senate->president) must vacate their existing seat upon announcement of their candidacy.

I don’t believe I read anything into your suggestions, Donald. I understand you want the legislative concept reviewed prior to becoming enacted law, and I understand your intent is mired in good intent. Sounds so simple on the surface, yes? Most potential laws do, but unfortunately the repercussions are the devils in the details.

It’s as convoluted as witnessing one who wishes to feed the poor, donating food… only to find that some had allergic reactions, other got ill, and the donor of good intent finds himself being sued by those individuals as well as under prosecution for providing food not up to FDA standards. Know what I mean? Start from a place from the heart, and watch the intent explode into misuse and ill targeted prosecutions.

As I said, you cannot legislate hate from the heart of man, nor sanctify intent with laws created by flawed men. Nor can you substantially affect mankind’s behavior with laws. It only gives you recourse when they “misbehave” per a law’s standards. The Founders Constitutional intents were to prevent federal government from possessing the power to pass legislation designed to control an individual behavior.

Most legislation is merely a template – a bare bones concept that Congress then delegates to some agency to implement with the specifics. And it is generally within that implementation that the Constitutional boundaries are severely breached. Therefore it becomes somewhat of an impossibility for the Supremes to determine that the template, itself, is unConstitutional.

i.e. is intelligence interrogation unconstitutional? Holding an enemy combatant prior to charges? Or does that battle commence when someone questions the methods of interrogation used, or how long that combatant is held? Can the SCOTUS look at these issues and determine, in advance of actual implementation, each and every method to create a shopping list of dos and don’ts?

Yet this is, in essence, the burden you wish to place upon them. I, personally, think that would put us in a world of hurt… allowing them to create precedents without actual specific events. Precedents are a nasty piece of business that is nigh on impossible to rid ourselves of.

Tho I will say, in your somewhat utopian revisionist founding, if there were any single legislation that I would like to see your suggestion come to fruition, it would be universal health care. But even my own wishful thinking is tempered there, knowing full well that if they determined it to be “constitutional” using your method, any ensuing lawsuit that could break thru hasn’t a chance. You’ve thwarted it before it was ever introduced into the lower courts by that simple pre-enactment SCOTUS decision. Ugly… *very* ugly.

Thus, another glimpse into the unsurpassed wisdom of the founders and framers.

The EPA… yes, been planning a post on that one for days. Latest events on this attempted blackmail may just have backfired on the Oval Office occupant while the progressive Dems heave a deep sigh of relief. It’s an interesting twist and just may be a stellar illustration of my debate points with you here on this pre-enactment opinion making.

I agree that William Edward articulated your point very well, Donald. That, however, still doesn’t make me agree with any of the concept of government involving itself in financial compensation within private enterprises.

Whether I agree that some packages are obscene (and I do, as a matter of fact) does not mean that what you or Edward suggests is Constitutional in it’s construct. Government is not the solution, as Reagan eloquently pointed out. Or perhaps put another way, just because you see what you consider a financial injustice does not mean “there oughta be a law….”

Now, go back to the “incentive” latest suggestion. So who in the corporation gets the incentive rebate? Or are you going to add another law that tells them how they are allowed to use that rebate?

Again, I say, you cannot legislate behavior in men. And that includes greed.

A year ago had this string, somehow, suggested that the federal government had a lick to do with the amount of compensation paid to company employees–public or private–the conversation would have gone something like, “What, are you crazy?” Now, the concept is spoken of as if the government actually has a “right” to regulate same providing certain guidelines are met. It doesn’t. It’s a slippery slope we are on and it’s vary unsettling….like most of the other attempts at power grabbing that are now occurring in the seat of power.

For the most part, the fact that this discussion thread was conceived, I think, is only because our wonderful 535 over time (and of late 535+1) have diluted our Constitution to such a degree that we barely recognize many of the original tenets therein (separation of church & state?????). Many of the thoughts on this thread are great ideas (probably when massaged, all of them)….but they are mostly “band-aids” to fix symptoms that has arisen due to the fact that our legislators down through the years–in the case of many of them, well intentioned–have continued to address one perceived problem and in the process created ten more, which have in reality trashed (the disease) the founding document. Our laws, therefore, problems, continue to grow exponentially and we find ourselves in the midst of a looming storm.

Our current situation is Washington, i.e, the ongoing battle of the Founders vs. the trashers, reminds me of the old story of the five caged primates being sprayed by cold water whenever they reached for a banana (http://www.wowzone.com/5monkeys.htm). The moral being, “it’s done this way because we’ve always done it this way.” And new monkeys come every two years.

Since it’s become stylish in Washington for many of the 535 to ignore the wishes of the people, perhaps we can actually solve some of our problems (treating the disease instead of the symptom) by a flurry of national referendums that will put the trashers back in their rightful places through constitutional amendments. I guess to do that, though, there needs to be enough people who actually want the real America back.

@Donald Bly

By its very nature politics is a very messy business, and in the end we are all dependent upon men and women doing the right thing for their constituency. No matter how many new rules, laws, or regulations you pass we come down to men and women doing the right thing.

If you become too specific you tie yourself in a knot, too loose and the bad apples run amuck. In the latter instance the “good apples” are supposed to reign in the “bad apples,” but in our current situation the whole barrel seems rotten. And that is why we have elections. Unfortunately, the wait between them is maddening, but blogs like this one give prospective candidates, incumbent or otherwise, food for thought and indicate what the people are thinking. And right now it ain’t pretty.

I wonder if any of the incumbents read these, or do they just go about their merry way talking to each other?

I just emailed this to my congressman and one senator, before reading this thread.

EXERPETED FROM USA TODAY:

“Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months — and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.
Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.

The highest-paid federal employees are doing best of all on salary increases. Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available.

When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.”
Now that congress is suggesting that doctors cut their income and medical devise manufactures cut their gross revenues, and pharmaceutical companies also cut their incomes, and hospitals also drop their incomes how about government employees take a 5% cut in pay for a two-year period? Just two years.

That would include senators, congresspersons, their staffs and all non-military personal.

Congress is great at cutting everyone else’s income show some real leadership, cut your own.

Now, Donald, I did agree that debate over tax percentages were fair game. But certainly not abolishing property taxes for local and state revenue.

INRE your senior citizens comment…. I’m actually wondering why you just confine it to senior citizens? Surely this isn’t a “for the children” type ploy, eh? tsk tsk. Now don’t you be resorting to progressive/Alinsky playbook rules, guy. You’re way cuts above that one.

Fact is I think property taxes should be reassessed often. However that works well for consumers when the property values drop, but is a real bear in a bull real estate market. Because all that costs the state money, the standard practice is to require each individual to petition the tax assessor’s office for a re’do of assessed value. At this time, it’s not only senior citizens, it’s everyone. Taxes are extraordinarily high for declining market values.

Here in Oregon, for example, they raise property taxes 3% every year because they can. One of those “well intended” ideas that the population passed in a referendum that said the state legislature couldn’t raise their property taxes more than 3% in a year. So how’d the bozos in Salem respond? They raise them 3% annually, no matter what the market. Hey… they’re just doing what some “well intended” referendum suggested.

This is the problem with most of the ideas I see you’ve presented. They are simply a Pandora’s box, or as you say, a band aid to the real problem. The cure isn’t more regulation to cure bad regulation and law. It’s to force a Congress to revert back to founding priniciples and strip away the power they’ve absconded in ever increasing increments since the New Deal.

Thus my tongue in cheek suggestion that for every new law enacted, five must come off the books. It’s time to start house cleaning the Congressional Library book of rules. And perhaps we should start being proactive using the progressives biggest tool… lawyers and the courts. ala start challenging some of these powers in class action suits until we start making a dent.

Donald, that’s a rather blanket assumption, alluding that I wanted to discard all amendments. Certainly there are those I agree with… specifically those that clarified the original principles of freedom and pursuit of happiness to all citizens… i.e. voting rights and prohibition of discrimination based on gender or race.

There are others that started the assumption of powers never intended. Prohibition, the 18th Amendment, for instance and it’s repeal in the 21st. A stellar example of nanny “good intent” far beyond the scope of the Founders. Nor am I fond of the 16th Amendment, expanding the powers of taxation.

The revisionist improvements that I genuinely object to are the delegation of powers that Congress assumes when it tasks sundry agencies for implementation and specifics/details of their laws. A great example of this is what is happening with O’healthcare. Devil in the regulation details. It is in these agency regulations that the questionable acts of government overstepping it’s bounds come into play.

I might remind you of your own title to this post… “laws” you’d like to see. Not Congressional… sorry, brain fart… *Constitutional* amendments. Amending the Constitution is not an endeavor I believe should be taken lightly. There has only been 33 proposals in our history, of which on 27 have resulted in ratification. Yet our Congress averages (if you believe Wiki) around 200 attempts annually to “improve” our foundation – most of which never make it out of committee (thank heavens…). This means that the idea that “debate” doesn’t occur on Congressional “improvements” is quite mistaken.

However most of the proposals you have yourself cited, most especially the reference to property taxation, provide yet another “band aid” or abuse of a Congressional power, achieved by a very liberal interpretation of a Constitutional amendment.

Which brings me to your “any suggestions”, comment. I made my suggestion. Our system allows for laws to be challenged in our court system. Surely you don’t believe that Congress is simply going to change their mind and yield their increased powers. A perfect example of this is the ACLU/Gitmo assault on the DTA and MCA.

It’s an expensive proposition and highly unlikely to be handled by anyone with their eyes on their wallets first. It is, however, the singlemost effective way of slapping Congress down. If you have the bones for a good enough oral argument before SCOTUS to attack the very foundations of a law… i.e. is government health care mandates Constitutional… that precedent comes in very handy for other similar assumptions of power. And it starts clearing da sheeeet off the books.