Govt & Election Reform Mega Thread

[TGHusker]

No doubt our system needs some fixing.   I thought I'd start a thread where we can discuss the reforms we'd like to see in govt, elections,

and other related items.

 

  There are those who are calling on an Article 5 Convention of the States to address federal govt overreach

https://www.heritage.org/the-constitution/report/consideration-convention-propose-amendments-under-article-v-the-us

 

There are others who want to see other reforms. 

1. Ending of Gerrymandering

2. Ending the Electoral college

3. Reverse Citizens United

The following article notes that even if Trump is removed, our problems remain - the dysfunctional atmosphere of DC.  The article proposes

some fixes.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/23/17233952/trump-democracy-decay-decline-coup-war-collapse-impeachment

 

What does that look like? An unsatisfying litany of heavy political lifts, most of which will fail, and each of which on its own would only mildly improve matters if adopted. We should abolish the filibuster and Electoral College and eliminate midterm elections by having the House, Senate, and president serve concurrent four-year terms. We should adopt the Fair Representation Act to end gerrymandering and move toward proportional representation. We need a robust right to vote in the Constitution, public financing for elections, and more transparency for corporate and nonprofit political spending.

[RedDenver]

Wolf-PAC is a non-partisan group to remove money in politics through a Constitutional Amendment.

[RedDenver]

Somewhat related is this idea of economic bicameralism:

 

[BigRedBuster]

1)  End Gerrymandering.

2)  Get money out of elections....if that means reversing Citizen United....great.

3)  Nationalize the organization of the election including Primaries.

4)  Reorganize primaries so that several states go together in a regional primary.

5)  Cycle the election schedule so the same state/region isn't the first Primary every election.

6)  Require ID to vote.  Make ID free and as easy to get as possible.

7)  Shorten election cycle.  Make first primary in June...last one in July.  General election runs from July to November.

8)  Move elections to weekend.  Open Polls on Friday afternoon, close them at 8PM on Sunday.

9)  Include in our Government, the ability for a Vote of No Confidence similar to the British Parliament.  

 

 

 

 

[TGHusker]

2 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

1)  End Gerrymandering.

2)  Get money out of elections....if that means reversing Citizen United....great.

3)  Nationalize the organization of the election including Primaries.

4)  Reorganize primaries so that several states go together in a regional primary.

5)  Cycle the election schedule so the same state/region isn't the first Primary every election.

6)  Require ID to vote.  Make ID free and as easy to get as possible.

7)  Shorten election cycle.  Make first primary in June...last one in July.  General election runs from July to November.

8)  Move elections to weekend.  Open Polls on Friday afternoon, close them at 8PM on Sunday.

9)  Include in our Government, the ability for a Vote of No Confidence similar to the British Parliament.  

 

 

 

 

Hey - I think you nailed it.  I can agree to all of those. 

 

I still like the idea of term limits.  Yes, voting is the best term limit but wt that said, we still end up wt career guys and gals.  House 12 years, Senate 18 years

Have House Reps elected for a 4 year term so they aren't constantly campaigning. 

Prevent Congressmen from being able to lobby Congress for 5 years after leaving congress.

[TGHusker]

3 hours ago, RedDenver said:

Wolf-PAC is a non-partisan group to remove money in politics through a Constitutional Amendment.

I viewed their website but couldn't find the proposed wording of the Amendment. 

[RedDenver]

1 hour ago, TGHusker said:

I viewed their website but couldn't find the proposed wording of the Amendment. 

You're right, and that website is badly designed. I know I've seen a better version of the wording somewhere, but here's the best I could find:

http://www.wolf-pac.com/28th?page=6

 

If somebody has a Twitter account (I don't), you could ask them.

[methodical]

The only real way to get money out of politics at this point is to publicly fund all elections and basically outlaw outside groups running political ads.  That still doesn't fix the trump style media coverage though, where through spouting complete bulls#!t 100% of the time you can saturate the airwaves for effectively free ads.

 

The system we have now of campaign contributions by large business and billionaires where it's not a bribe *wink wink, nudge nudge* is ridiculous.

 

The other nice side effect of that is it would probably mean a better class of candidate, since now to get elected and stay elected they're basically a high profile telemarketer.

 

Problem is neither D or R would go for it because their overlords love money.

 

I'd be fine with everything on BRB's list as well.

[RedDenver]

16 hours ago, methodical said:

The only real way to get money out of politics at this point is to publicly fund all elections and basically outlaw outside groups running political ads.  That still doesn't fix the trump style media coverage though, where through spouting complete bulls#!t 100% of the time you can saturate the airwaves for effectively free ads.

 

The system we have now of campaign contributions by large business and billionaires where it's not a bribe *wink wink, nudge nudge* is ridiculous.

 

The other nice side effect of that is it would probably mean a better class of candidate, since now to get elected and stay elected they're basically a high profile telemarketer.

 

Problem is neither D or R would go for it because their overlords love money.

 

I'd be fine with everything on BRB's list as well.

We could repeal Title 3 of the Telecom Act of 1996, which allowed media cross-ownership. Then at least media ownership could not be concentrated in the hands of a few.

[TGHusker]

1 hour ago, RedDenver said:

We could repeal Title 3 of the Telecom Act of 1996, which allowed media cross-ownership. Then at least media ownership could not be concentrated in the hands of a few.

Good point. So much power in the hands of a few.  Look what Fox has accomplished in a few short years since then.

[BigRedBuster]

I wish we could get back to reasonable discussions. 

 

 

[TGHusker]

Here is a good reason we need campaign financing reform. 

 

 

http://thefederalist.com/2018/04/24/bombshell-fec-records-indicate-hillary-campaign-illegally-laundered-84-million/

Quote

 

That lawsuit, filed last week in a DC district court, summarizes the DNC-Clinton conspiracy and provides detailed evidence from Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings confirming the complaint’s allegations that Democrats undertook an extensive scheme to violate federal campaign limits.

From Bundling To Money Laundering

Dan Backer, a campaign-finance lawyer and attorney-of-record in the lawsuit, explained the underlying law in an article for Investor’s Business Daily: Under federal law, “an individual donor can contribute $2,700 to any candidate, $10,000 to any state party committee, and (during the 2016 cycle) $33,400 to a national party’s main account. These groups can all get together and take a single check from a donor for the sum of those contribution limits—it’s legal because the donor cannot exceed the base limit for any one recipient. And state parties can make unlimited transfer to their national party.”

This legal loophole allows “bundlers” to raise large sums of money from wealthy donors—more than $400,000 at a time—filtering the funds to the national committees. Democrats and Republicans alike exploit this tactic. But once the money reaches the national committees, other limits apply.

Suspecting the DNC had exceeded those limits, a client of Backer’s, the Committee to Defend the President, began reviewing FEC filings to determine whether there was excessive coordination between the DNC and Clinton. What Backer discovered, as he explained in an interview, was much worse. There was “extensive evidence in the Democrats’ own FEC reports, when coupled with their own public statements that demonstrated massive straw man contributions papered through the state parties, to the DNC, and then directly to Clinton’s campaign—in clear violation of federal campaign-finance law.”

 

 

[RedDenver]

On 4/23/2018 at 3:32 PM, RedDenver said:

You're right, and that website is badly designed. I know I've seen a better version of the wording somewhere, but here's the best I could find:

http://www.wolf-pac.com/28th?page=6

 

If somebody has a Twitter account (I don't), you could ask them.

I reached out to wolf-pac and the reason they don't have a single text is that they're doing it individually for each state so that there can be debate over the exact language of the Amendement once the Constitutional Convention is called by the States. Here's the webpage with the text for the Colorado call for a Convention (which coincidentally is getting voted on today):

https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hjr18-1015

 

[RedDenver]

This is about implicit and explicit rules of politics and well worth a watch:

 

[Omaha-Husker]

I brought up the Alaska voting change in another thread that will surely get lost there and I wanted to look into it a bit more.

 

https://thefulcrum.us/big-picture/alaska-ballot-measure

 

Quote

As a result, starting in two years Alaska will replace traditional partisan primaries with single contests open to all candidates for governor and other state executive offices, each seat in the Legislature and the three spots in Congress. The top four finishers, regardless of party affiliation, will advance to the general election, at which point voters will rank their options to decide the winner. And all legislative and local races will face strict new disclosure requirements about the sources of campaign spending.

 

While a handful of states have adopted open top-two primary systems, Alaska will be the first with primaries that advance even more candidates to the November ballot — increasing the likelihood that people who are not Republicans or Democrats will be able to compete in many races.

 

 

I am a fan of ranked choice voting, but I think the real big change here is the open primary. Apparently in Alaska over 60% of eligible voters aren't registered with either Rs or Ds so less than half of the population was determining the choices with closed primaries. This will hopefully allow politicians to avoid having to move to the far end of the left or right if they don't really belong there just to win their primary. 

 

My one worry with this is that I could potentially see 3rd party candidates being boxed out of the final election. For instance if Murkowski, Palin and two respected Ds in the state all run there is a very real chance a Libertarian and Green Party candidate could be boxed out of the final ballot. Will need to look deeper to see just how the open primary is going to work exactly.

 

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in their next election cycle. Could be a model for reform nationwide that goes even further than Maine's recent changes.