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Election Rules and Term Limits

Section 1: Representatives shall be elected by popular vote from districts that may not exceed a population of 500,000 people, which are to be defined as human citizens of the United States.
Section 2: Representatives shall serve 3 year terms and are allowed to serve for no more than 7 years in their lifetime.
Section 3: One senator shall represent each state and each senator shall be appointed by the Governor or Chief Executive of his/her state.
Section 4: For the election of the president and vice-president, each congressional district shall be given one electoral vote and that vote shall be awarded to the candidate that receives the most votes in that district. In addition, each state shall be given one electoral vote and that vote shall be awarded to the candidate that receives the most votes in that state.
Section 5: The candidates for President and Vice-President that receive more than 50% of the available electoral votes shall be declared the winner. In the event no candidate receives more than 50% of the electoral votes, then the President and/or Vice-President shall be determined by the House of Representatives who shall choose between the two top electoral vote-getters.
Section 6: The President and Vice-President shall serve 5 year terms and are allowed to serve for no more than 7 years in their lifetime.
Section 7: Justices to the Supreme Court shall be appointed by the President and shall be allowed to serve a maximum term of 15 years.

luvmusic, 01.10.2011, 00:50
Idea status: under consideration

Comments

joe, 17.10.2011, 06:53
Term limits are a bad idea because wealthy interests can field endless numbers of corrupt candidates whereas principled high integrity candidates are rarer. The term limit forces voters to send the principled candidates packing regardless. Arguments that it limits the time for officials to "build a relationship" with corrupting influences are invalid. How long does it take to get hired? Answer: Not long at all. Many job interviews lead to on-the-spot hiring.
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Ara Rubyan, 17.10.2011, 10:26
Term limits is a solution to the symptom of a problem, not the problem. Fact is, candidates at the federal level hold office in perpetuity most often because they are really good at snagging corporate campaign cash. The result of that is that in nearly all cases, the candidate with the most money wins the election.

If we instead passed an amendment to get that money out of politics (see "End Legal Bribery of Congress" on the same page) the challengers will have a much better chance at unseating the incumbents.
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MoveForward, 02.01.2012, 02:03
Actually, the key problem with our democracy is the need for Congress members to get money for re-election. Everything else (read Republic Lost) is a consequence of that constant struggle to fund re-election campaigns. We can eliminate the need for campaign contributions by one of two ways:

1. Term limits, with the risks mentioned above (which risk is worse, I wonder? A corrupt Congress like we have today or the possibility of electing corrupt members that only get one term? Can you say: Career Politician?), or
2. We disallow all sources of campaign financing except for those coming directly from taxpayers (e.g. taxes). Goodbye lobbyists.

Can't think of any other option.
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luvmusic, 17.10.2011, 12:30
For the longest time, I too was against term limits. But, I think we have reached a point where it is needed. In any organization, there is a need for new blood. The job of congressman was never intended to be a life long career. In a democracy, we want people to serve in our government for short periods of time and then go back to the private sector.
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DMFairchild, 20.10.2011, 06:20
I am opposed to term limits because you have to throw out the good representatives with the bad. After a while the only people in government with any sense of longevity are the lobbyists. And I don't believe that "End Legal Bribery of Congress" will do the job either. It doesn't limit giving to political parties or issues groups. And, as much as it is abused by our current system, limiting contributions would limit free speech.

I favour the suggestion that the moderator won't post. (Look in "End Legal Bribery of Congress"). 1. Limit the time available for campaigning to limit the cost to the candidate. 2. Have the government fund vouchers made available to each voter in the previous election equal to the total cash spent on the previous election divided by the the number of votes cast. These vouchers could be redeemed by any qualified candidate for the election. So we would get vouchers for the Presidential primary, the Presidential election, the Senate primary in our state, etc. I don't claim to have thought of either of these suggestions (see "Two Percent Solutions" by Matt Miller). But they are the only ones I've seen that make sense. With tens of millions of people with $5 to $10 to give away that they could not spend on themselves, it would be easy for a candidate to raise the money to win an election.
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CJ, 24.10.2011, 02:55
A constitutional amendment proposed below would achieve the following results
1.) Introduce more party representation of the voting public into the government which would stem collusion between the two major political parties working for donating profit-seeking organizations rather than human beings. With collusion stemmed or at least diffused between the new parties representing a more broad spectrum of interests, business and special interest would have less budgetary power to purchase influence in the government.

Reform the house of representatives by distributing the vote to parties of the congressional districts rather than individual politicians. We need to rid ourselves of the notion that one person can represent a whole congressional district effectively. Each district can have a council with seats awarded to political party representatives based on the percentage gained for each party in the election. The council would address the issues and send a delegate to congress to vote the issues based on the council's decision.

At this point in time we have people voting for politicians based on a party platform which is almost immediately violated after a particular politician wins office. Delegates would be required to vote based on the council findings. Removing the winner-take-all district structure will introduce more viewpoints and reduce the ability of corporations to collude with government. In short, individual citizen interests would become more important relative to decisions that tend to only benefit profit-seeking organizations and other special interest groups.
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