Ideal Constitution

[John Kerry VonErich]

I came across a post from another thread that one DUer said we needed a constitutional convention. That got me thinking. What is the ideal constitution (no toy jokes for those who remember Ideal the toy company) if we end up having a constitutional convention? Do you think what we have now is best? What do you guys think?

[leftofcool]

1. You want to change our Constitution?

GWB already did that

[John Kerry VonErich]

2. Actually here is what got me thinking...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2981201#2981334

[magellan]

3. The Constitution is fine as is

What needs changing is the politicians and how they buy their way into power. IOW, crooks don't care about laws except how they can get around them. The longer we keep tolerating crooks in DC the less respect will be given to the Constitution...and the more clamor there'll be to amend/overhaul it as it appears not to be working....

[better tomorrow]

4. if so, I hope they model it on the 10 Commandments

but, actually, I like what we have/had now. Just give us back some of what we lost, please.

[MonkeyFunk]

8. really?

You want the constitution to outlaw adultery, declare a holy sabbath day, require us to have no god above God?

[Selatius]

5. Proportional representation or run-off voting. Keep the Bill of Rights.

Break the two-party grip on power. France has parliamentary districts in similar ways to our congressional districts, yet they elect representatives by majority, whereas we only require a simple plurality. They use a two-round voting system, run-off voting. We don't. Our system, single-member district plurality, tends to favor only two parties becoming viable except in cases where very strong regional parties appear. Our system tends to overrepresent majority views and underrepresent minority views as a result.

Another avenue is party-list proportional representation, but only for the House. The Senate will use run-off voting. Party lists are drawn up in party primaries or caucuses or whichever the party prefers. Then, when lists are decided ahead of parliamentary elections, the lists are published for all voters to see. People then vote for the lists they find preferable. Under a parliamentary system, executive power is divided where chief executive and head of state roles are separate. The head of state would be the president, but the chief executive is the prime minister, usually of the ruling party or coalition government.

The difference between two-round voting and party-list proportional representation is that with the first, you vote for the candidate. With the latter, you vote for the party. However, in both situations, you are far better in a position to avoid the type of monopolization of power two parties can establish in a nation such as the US.

[Kutjara]

6. In this era of widespread citizen ignorance, endemic political criminality,...

...primary-school-level public discourse, and boundless fear, any Constitution we produced would be a document of little value at best, great harm at worst.

It's a task best left to a wiser generation.

[backscatter712]

7. Some modifications:

Switch to proportional representation in the House of Representatives - I think multi-party governments work a little better than two-party governments. That implies modifying the rules to eliminate winner-takes-all dynamics and replace them with proportional dynamics.

Abolish the electoral college and elect the President directly.

While we're modifying elections, switch to instant-runoff voting.

Add a no-confidence vote, as an escape valve when the .gov is at its most dysfunctional - call for new elections. Also make it easier to bring up proceedings against misbehaving officials - Presidents, Congresscritters, Supreme Court Justices.

As far as the Bill of Rights goes, maybe replace the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms with an enshrined right to self-defense against criminal and tyrannical attack, with a subclause indicating law-abiding citizens have the right to arm themselves for such purpose, as long as such weapons don't excessively endanger public safety.

Though some people do have a philosophical problem with the Bill of Rights, including some of the Founding Fathers. They expressed that objection in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, and those amendments should be more than mere terms of art, but actually enforced.

[Trillo]

9. The Executive Branch has grown too powerful

I've realized that the Democrats, who seem largely for increased regulation, have a push-pull contra-goal with the Executive Branch and the Balance of Powers. On the one hand, there's much hand-wringing about the Executive Branch not following the law, on the other, support of increased regulation which is typically performed through and under the Executive Branch, and is sometimes referred to as bureaucracy, is supported.

Over the years I've wondered about the growth in the size of the Legislative Branch versus the growth of the Executive Branch. It seems that in order for "power" to be shared between branches over long time periods, the relative size of each would seem to need to remain a somewhat constant ratio. If, indeed, increased regulation through more Executive Branch bureaucracy is desirable, then it seems that the size of the Legislative Branch needs to grow a similar amount in order to act as a "check and balance" to the Executive.

It also seems that over the years as population increases, the number of citizens for each Senator and Representative increases (while the number of legislators does not) meaning that there's less representation per citizen than in the decades and centuries past.

So as corporatism has grown prominent (over 140+ years), Executive Branch regulation of corporatism hasn't acted as a check on abusive corporate power in spite of larger and more bureaus to supposedly regulate them, and the citizens end up living lives that are highly and increasingly regulated in a police state. I believe this is due to the relative shrinking of the Legislative Branch relative to the Executive and relative to population growth. We're now living under a King, or an increasingly large and powerful Executive Branch, and BushII has certainly helped to focus this fact.

So I'd suggest that this is a problem in need of a constitutional solution. The Balance of Powers needs to be reasserted, as it seems to have grown 'out of balance' slowly and methodically for quite a long time period.