Political what-if: A second Constitutional Convention

[hazard]

This board's rules are "Have Fun, and Play Nice". It's time to have fun in this sub-forum.

If there was to be a second Constitutional Convention (Yes, you had one before -- almost nobody remembers the Articles of Confederation) called today, what would you like to see included in its results?

Here's my wish-list - implement all of these and you'll drag the political system in the USA kicking and screaming into the 20th century. (Yes, I know this is the 21st century. I'm not expecting a miracle to happen here.)

Well, let's see. Here's my inexpert opinion.

[*]Dissolve the Electoral College and have Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections by direct vote.

Seems sensible, although you'll probably want to determine how you define 'direct vote'. Do you mean 'state wide popular votes, count by state', or 'nation wide popular vote', or 'US citizen wide popular vote'. It matters a fair bit.

Puerto Rico currently does not have any capacity to vote for the US presidential election, despite it being bigger than several states of the US combined. Nor for that matter does DC IIRC.

[*]Get rid of the time lag between the election and the taking of office, which leads to "lame duck" office-holders. Once the votes are counted, the winner takes office immediately. (FedEx and UPS can get packages anywhere in the USA overnight, and this internet posting was available to you as soon as I posted it; there's no need for a delay any more.) And "immediately" means immediately -- the Chief Justice is standing beside the person who announces the Presidential and Vice-Presidential vote totals, bound copy of the Constitution or religious book of the elected candidate's choice in hand, ready for the winners to take their oaths then and there.

Sorry, the lag isn't completely stupid. That doesn't mean it should be the months of delay it currently is, of course, but taking a few weeks to a month to brief the incoming administration, make sure they have the right security clearances and all the other things necessary for a smooth transfer of power is wise.

[*]Each electoral district must be contiguous in and of itself. (This won't eliminate gerrymandering, but it'll reduce it.)

This one's already true. Yes, every accursed gerrymandered blot on the map is contiguous, even if it's only connected by a single road. You'd have better luck by requiring that electoral districts must be drawn as compact as possible. It makes it harder to draw districts that are certain to vote one way or another on the average. Even betterer than that is turning every state into a 1 district state with requirements on how many polling stations there must be per however many people and/or maximum travel distances to and from polling stations.

Even a partial bundling of representation (not state wide, necessarily, but something like per 10 or 20 representatives) would help break the 2 party dead lock simply because now there are options beyond 'winner takes all regardless of how thin the margin'.

[*]In order to remove the appearance of conflict of interest, anybody who is responsible for drawing the boundaries of electoral districts must surrender the right to vote. (This won't eliminate gerrymandering, either, but it'll reduce it.)

Which right, the active or the passive (that is, the right to cast a ballot or the right to be elected).

[*]One from the Canadian model: Electoral district boundaries are to be drawn and elections are to be overseen by a civil service body made up solely of civil servants who have the power to spend whatever is necessary in order to ensure all elections are free and fair.

Even better is turning electoral districts into administrative areas rather than something power can be drawn from. The English electoral model with first past the post representation is famously non-functional.

[*]One does not lose the right to vote simply because one is in jail. Anyone serving a term in a federal prison (owned by either the government or the private sector) is deemed to be resident at the person's last address of record before being arrested, or if the person had no address of record is deemed to be resident in the district where the arrest took place.

Or the address of the jail. If nothing else, it makes it easier to administratively track where ballots need to go. Yes, this incentivizes pushing all prisoners into a single district for first past the post system, that's part of why you break the first past the post system.

[*]Cap the total amount of money that any individual can contribute to all candidates and PACs put together, and forbid corporations and governments from contributing to candidates or PACs altogether.

Another option is that prior to the election a party can petition to run, and any party with a large enough support on the petition (say, a number of autographs) will be provided a government mandated budget for their election. No other resources other than that government mandated budget may be used for election purposes, and any excess funds left over must be returned to the government.

Likewise, constitutionally requiring that any organization giving or receiving funds to or from election campaigns, PACs or similar entities to publish in real time the movement of the money would help a lot. Private individuals, of course, would be capped, and at 1 day's wage at the minimum wage and presuming 8 hours of work.

[*]All Justices of the Supreme Court must retire from the Supreme Court at age 85.

Also, no Justice of the Supreme Court may be seated for longer than 10 years per stint on the Supreme Court.

[*]Separate the powers of the Head of Government and the Head of State. Let the Head of State handle all the ceremonial stuff (meeting with other Heads of State, pardoning the Thanksgiving Turkey, holding parties in the Rose Garden, staging photo ops, etc.) and defend the Constitution from a Head of Government who's gone too far, and let the Head of Government concentrate of governing (meeting with other Heads of Government, working with the House and Senate Majority leaders to turn bills into law, issuing executive orders, etc.).

You won't ever see this happen in the US. There's simply too much political power vested in the president being the Head of State, that the president as Head of Government won't want to give up.

[*]The total hourly remuneration (salary and benefits added together) of a Congressperson may not exceed five times the legislated hourly minimum wage in that Congressperson's congressional district. Any benefit available at no charge to everyone in a Congressperson's congressional district does not count toward this salary and benefit cap. (It's taxpayer money that funds their salaries and benefits - no fair asking those taxpayers to fund putting a Congresscritter into The 1%.)

Or the federal minimum wage, whichever is lower. Any district with no minimum wage is considered to have established a minimum wage of $0.00.

I'll note that at 5 times minimum wage, presuming 15 dollars as the minimum wage, is only 75 dollars. And yes, that's a lot of money, per hour. But it may be a little too little, once you account for the fact that a Congresscritter has a lot of responsibilities, and often works long hours, with the expectation that they are on call for emergency work regardless of their own desires.

On the other hand, maybe that should be considered only for hours the Congresscritter is attending the people's business. Time spent working for the party (like begging for donations) or for their own interests (like begging for donations) should not be counted.



Oh, as for the Head of State thing; IIRC both France and Germany have elected heads of state that are not the head of government.