Four Consitutional Amendments proposed by JB

I'm all for #4.

We need term limits badly.

you have term limits....its called voting the guy out....

Come on. You know there is more to the situation of incumbents being re-elected.


Yeah - its because people love their OWN representative because he or she brings their district funding.

Take an approval poll of congress and you'll get what, 20, 30%? But every two years an approval poll (called a vote) is taken asking "do you approve of your OWN congressman" - and overwhelmingly people say yes.




Maybe instead what we should be doing is voting for other people's representatives. Louisiana's 1st district voters could pick the rep for the 2nd district, and the 2nd district for the 3rd, etc, etc and the 7th can pick the rep for the 1st.
(just kidding)
 
Agree with #4 because there is no other practical solution IMO.

Beyond that, without suggesting any specific wording, I believe any proposed local,state and federal legislation should be subject to the public calling for a referendum based on x signatures, the results of which will be binding.

While Switzerland is a much smaller country, it has a 4-party system and this feature of their democracy has proven very beneficial for the country. The primary problem we have today is accelerating federal over-reach and separation from public will and foundational governing concepts.

Accept the masses are asses characterization, but a referendum measure would force issues to be argued in public and won or lost according to the, then informed, decision that would result. Understand this is not a purely representative form of government, but I believe that aspect of our system is dysfunctional.



Wish we had a 4 party system - Greens, Libertarians, Democrats, and Republicans. Each of those parties (with the possible exception of the Greens and the Republicans) has something in common with the others, but they all have big fundamental differences.
 
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Agree with #4 because there is no other practical solution IMO.

Beyond that, without suggesting any specific wording, I believe any proposed local,state and federal legislation should be subject to the public calling for a referendum based on x signatures, the results of which will be binding.

While Switzerland is a much smaller country, it has a 4-party system and this feature of their democracy has proven very beneficial for the country. The primary problem we have today is accelerating federal over-reach and separation from public will and foundational governing concepts.

Accept the masses are asses characterization, but a referendum measure would force issues to be argued in public and won or lost according to the, then informed, decision that would result. Understand this is not a purely representative form of government, but I believe that aspect of our system is dysfunctional.



Wish we had a 4 party system - Greens, Libertarians, Democrats, and Republicans. Each of those parties (with the possible exception of the Greens and the Republicans) has something in common with the others, but they all have big fundamental differences.

That is close to what Switzerland has. They rotate the presidency and use the referndum process to stop things from getting out of hand in Bern
 
Oh, and new states don't ratify old amendments. Upon granting of Statehood, the new State adopts the Constitution as it stands at the time of admission

But according to you, the 14th amendment wasn't ever legally part of the Constitution in 1868. Which is it? You can't have it both ways. Either a) the 14th amendment was legally passed in 1868 or b) it wasn't, in which case it was not part of the legal Constitution - but it was still a legally proposed amendment - meaning new states had the right to ratify it (just like the 27th).

which one is it? Make up your mind.

(emphasis added)

The amendment was 'ratified' by illegally refusing to seat any states that refused to ratify it. It's like saying that blacks can vote, then having the KKK running the polling booths- the outcome is meaningless, as their hands are forced to vote one way. it's as meaningful as an election with a single candidate- like Iraq or N. korea.

Here's an obvious gerrymandering here:


AZ-districts-109-02.gif



See that line connecting parts of the district? its a fucking river!

Go, Arizona...
We should require that districts not only a) have roughly the same number of people in them each but also b) are drawn in such a way as to minimize the total perimeter of all the districts.

That makes sense


Personally i think we should also extend house representation to all territories of the U.S. whose citizens pay federal income taxes. This would give DC 1 member. If Puerto Ricans decided they wanted to start paying taxes and get representation, they would get like 6.

only states should have a vote, not territories. If they want to vote, they should petition for statehood. Until then, they are our property and should be our bitch.
The fact that citizens of DC are taxed without representation is perhaps the most high level of hypocrisy ever demonstrated in this country. The idea of DC was proposed and it was built before the income tax - so it might have been a different situation if back then the residents of DC weren't in fact getting taxed by the feds. They get taxed by the feds but have no vote in how they are taxed. that's a crime.

Does anyone recall why DC was given no reps?
 
The fact that citizens of DC are taxed without representation is perhaps the most high level of hypocrisy ever demonstrated in this country. The idea of DC was proposed and it was built before the income tax - so it might have been a different situation if back then the residents of DC weren't in fact getting taxed by the feds. They get taxed by the feds but have no vote in how they are taxed. that's a crime.

Does anyone recall why DC was given no reps?

The specific why was that it is in the Constitution.

The motivational why, I believe it was because they wished to have the seat of government free from political BS. That's why Congress controls what happens in DC (despite homerule).

Remember, when DC was created, it was a swamp and not much else. There were exactly a bunch of people living in DC. There was the small village of George Town on the banks of the Potomac that was subsumed by DC. They lost their voting rights. Everyone else moved to the place where they had notice that they would lose their voting rights. No sympathy.
 
Oh, and new states don't ratify old amendments. Upon granting of Statehood, the new State adopts the Constitution as it stands at the time of admission

But according to you, the 14th amendment wasn't ever legally part of the Constitution in 1868. Which is it? You can't have it both ways. Either a) the 14th amendment was legally passed in 1868 or b) it wasn't, in which case it was not part of the legal Constitution - but it was still a legally proposed amendment - meaning new states had the right to ratify it (just like the 27th).

which one is it? Make up your mind.

(emphasis added)

The amendment was 'ratified' by illegally refusing to seat any states that refused to ratify it. It's like saying that blacks can vote, then having the KKK running the polling booths- the outcome is meaningless, as their hands are forced to vote one way. it's as meaningful as an election with a single candidate- like Iraq or N. korea.

You still can't have it both ways. Either it wasn't ratified in 1868 and was later ratified when other states entered the union and later ratified it - or it was ratified in 1868. Take your pick, its still the law today.

Does anyone recall why DC was given no reps?

It doesn't matter. Its still taxation without representation.
 
You still can't have it both ways. Either it wasn't ratified in 1868 and was later ratified when other states entered the union and later ratified it - or it was ratified in 1868. Take your pick, its still the law today.

As I and others have said, be states never voted on it, so no new states ever ratified it. It was not legally ratified, but it was pushed through and forced upon the Southern states by refusing to seat them after they had been recognized and seated already. In other words, tey basically ignored the majority of the states and effectively rejected their status as member States (illegally), using their statehood as ransom to force their hand

Does anyone recall why DC was given no reps?

It doesn't matter. Its still taxation without representation.[/QUOTE][/quote]
It does matter if one is to understand the subject and the issue
 
I'm all for #4.

We need term limits badly.

Gents, I think that court cases have used "incorportation" to apply the constitution in the manner you have suggested:
Federal courts used the 14th amendment to expand the liberties of the Bill Of Rights to state governments. Through incorporation, the Bill of Rights constitutes a restraint not only on the federal government but also on the states. The argument for the Incorporation Doctrine relies on the 14th Amendment, passed soon after the “War of Northern Aggression”, and claims that the language of that amendment alters the meaning of the Bill of Rights as it had been understood previously by the Framers and John Marshall.
Basics Project | Constitutional Literacy: Judicial Activism Undermines the Integrity of the Constitution

On term limits, I'm thinking that an educated electorate should, in principle, be the answer.
 
New states don't vote on past amendments, they adopt the Constitution as-is

On the contrary, they do. All 50 state legislatures have, at some point between the end of the War of Northern Aggression and today, passed measures to ratify said amendment. There is nothing in the Constitution prohibiting a state legislature from passing a measure to ratify a past amendment, nor has any such ratification ever been declared illegal by the courts.

Not to mention the fact that you still can't have it both ways. If it wasn't legally passed in 1868 then it wasn't legally a "past amendment", hence the ratifications of the new states did count.

You keep trying to have it both ways but you cannot. Regardless of how you argue about the past, it is indisputable fact that the 14th amendment is, at present day, a legally adopted Constitutional amendment.
 
i'm not having anything 'both way'; you're just too stupid to comprehend that illegal methods were used to force the Southern states to vote to ratify. It's like saying Saddam Hussein was re-elected. Technically, yes he was- but the vote was under duress and meaningless
 

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