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Politics

Journal Zirnike's Journal: Er^Hlection day. 14

Journal by Zirnike
Just in time to see whether we elect an idiot we know can't do the job of president or an idiot we suspect can't do the job of president, I present my comments on what I would do if I become Supreme Dictator Zirnike.

I actually probably would use that name.

First: Most of the constitution would be used. The problem is re-writing it for clarity, and attaching a 'commentary' section so that the intent cannot be misinterpreted again.

Number of senators goes to 3. Senators are elected by the government of the state, most likely by the equivalent of the House of Representatives. The government should have been elected no later than 1 year previous to the election. Each senator's election date 'rotates' (one senator voted in every other year, 6 year terms).

Increase number of representatives to something more representative of the people. Each should represent no more than 250,000 people. Representatives for a state are elected in a parliamentary fashion (i.e. if you get votes in a state with 50 reps with 40% Lib, 20% Republican, 20% Democrat, 10% green, 10% reform, then you get 20 libs, 10 reps, 10 dems, 5 green and 5 reform representatives).

Bills must concern the topic of the bill. A bill on reforming education, in other words, will not have a increase of appropriations for health care, for example. Amendments to the bill are not allowed without the consent of the writer of the bill. Amendments must follow the 'on topic' rule. Yes, I know (to quote) 'this is how our democracy works'. It needs to change - I don't consider that an argument.

President is elected in an instant runoff country-wide vote, no electoral college. The president has the following powers, and THAT'S IT: He may veto bills. He may veto a bill and send it to the supreme court for review (constitutional challenge). Vetoes must be overridden by 3/4 of the house and senate. Challenges must be overridden by the same margin, but the SCOTUS decides on constitutionality. He may introduce bills to the senate to ratify treaties (the only bills he can introduce). He is in charge of the armed forces (but the senate still declares war with the House approving) He may sponsor committees that may recommend options to the house and senate (the equivalent of having a non-voting position or appointing a non-voting position on all house and senate committees)

The first amendment will be rewritten to explicitly rather than implicitly have the separation of church and state. The gov. shall not say 'in god we trust', or 'in no god we trust', but 'e pluribus unim'. No state sponsored prayer, and no banning private prayer in public places, etc. The right to privacy will be made explicit. Consensual crimes being legal will be made explicit. The fact that 'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State' is justification for gun ownership, not a requirement for it, will be made explicit.

Interstate commerce: Phrasing on that will be hard. Probably something like adding the phrase 'direct effect', disallowing the tortured 'he grows corn for his own use in one state, and therefore doesn't buy corn from out of state, having an effect on interstate commerce, so we can prevent him from growing corn on his property' logic the government uses currently (and that is actually a SCOTUS decision, BTW)

Courts are explicitly told that in any case where the rights of the people and the powers of the government are in conflict, and the conflict is not explicitly decided in the Constitution, the people win.

Taxes and finance: All money costs in any bill are computed on a 'today-dollar' basis. If the law says minimum wage is $5.00, and there's 100% inflation, the next year the minimum wage is $10. The deductible part of your salary is equivalent to the average cost of living in the area you are in plus 10% (add 1/2 this for each dependent). Taxes are stepped, but not much (in 2004 dollars, I'd say 15% (states limited to 1/2 federal rate) to $100,000 (after deductions), 20% to $250k, and 35% after that. Deductions for charities, interest on mortgages, medical expenses, retirement plans (this requires more definition), salary for employees (for companies), R&D (for companies) business expenses (for self-employed and companies) are allowed: no others. Companies moving overseas must pay taxes equivalent to taxes on their last year's revenue (no deductions, however) plus an additional 10% of the cost of their capital investment. Companies entering the country have 2 years tax free. (this applies to main offices only, not branches). Companies may not own subsidiary companies, and must comply with their articles of incorporation (which states the primary purpose of the business): If they buy a company, it must be integrated within 1 year (no mega-companies that have 30 different unrelated products. AOL-Time-Warner would be 3 companies: A ISP, a magazine company, and a TV/Movie house)

Workers: There is no such thing as an 'exempt' employee. All employees are entitled to overtime. Standard work week is set at 40 hours. More than 40, Saturdays, and Sundays are all at time and a half. 3 weeks paid vacation is the base required vacation (1 week for part time), with an additional (4? 5?) days sick time. Companies will be required to maintain at least 2 seats on the board for employees. One must be an engineering/product development/etc. representative (voted on by the employees of that part). The second must be voted for by the equivalent of the line workers (this would need to be fleshed out somewhat to add acceptable replacements given various corporate purposes). They each have votes total to the voting shares of the member of the board with the most shares (this needs to be tweaked to prevent 'I don't own any shares, but the company I represent does' crap). (management and finance employees are already represented on most boards)

Minor things: Marriage, consensual crime, etc. and things like it are not affected by the government. The Gov does not approve marriage. The gov. cannot ban pot. The government cannot grant tax-exempt status to churches, just to their associated charities. The gov CAN regulate companies strictly - they are explicitly not people and do not have the associated rights. One thing I will probably explicitly state is that a corporation's highest paid person cannot have total compensation greater than (we'll make it open - this is a max, it may be lowered later) 70X that of the lowest paid employee (or maybe 'standard line worker', or something. The exact definition will require a bit of work). Unions may be formed, but may not require all people, or even all in a certain job position, to be members (but the union negotiates salaries across the board, no saying 'let the non union ones take a 10% cut to give us 1% raise). Unions disband unless 50% of the members explicitly vote to maintain the union (abstain=disband, in other words). Amendments to the constitution may be challenged as against the intent of the constitution (an amendment to create a monarchy would be able to be dismissed by the SCOTUS)

Any other ideas? I'm looking to simplify. A lot of that is longer winded than I would use. The 'commentary' section of the constitution would have a lot of it (for example, if we had that in the current Con, the founders would have written "Second Amendment: blah. Commentary: We feel that the people must have a right to own guns to protect themselves from the government running amuck. Weapons equivalent to the arms available to the government should be available to the people" (yes, this is the kind of thing they would have written, and I feel they are correct).

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Er^Hlection day. More

Er^Hlection day.

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  • Interesting ideas. Let me offer a couple of comments:

    Nobody may receive more than, say, 70x the average salary of employees from the 10th to 90th percentile. This keeps really low wage interns and similar from being counted, and hopefully keeps from giving insane salaries to top management to allow other top management to get insane salaries by skewing the average.

    Any union employee, official, negotiator, etc. must be a full time employee for at least the previous X months, years, whatever. None of this w
    • GM, Supreme DZ, and everyone:
      Can the gov. tax or regulate pot without outlawing it completely? How about heroin? Do the States or the Feds get to have any interest at all as for what is best for them? Marriage can be argued as good for the government. Helping addicts whose lives are being ruled and ruined by drugs may be in States' interests. The same can be said for homelessness. After all, we expect the government to create good conditions for business to create jobs. Expecting government to get th
      • I've got plenty to say about homeless, marriage, etc, but I didn't feel like raising it in my earlier comment. I just wanted to tweak and clarify the positions presented.

        That being said, I see no reason for not treating pot exactly like alcohol.

        Heroin? Let's develop a test like a breathalizer. Go get wet.

      • The gov (legally) can't regulate pot, heroin, etc. or outlaw it. I expect the equivilent of the UL to show up (maybe spin off the FDA into an independant not-for-profit...) to do the equivilent of the food testing on them to be sure they are labelled correctly. (most ODs occur because people thought they were getting 30% and really get 60% or something).

        I don't think it's the government's job to sponsor anti-drug things. I will allow for things like welfare (modified) to keep people off the streets, I

  • If a state is 60% Republican, 20% Democrat, and 20% Libertarian, and the State legislature represents that too, all the senators will be Republican, won't they? Congrats, your system hinders the viability of minority parties. At least when the people get to elect, there can be some crossover so a Libertarian might have a shot.

    I notice your plan didn't include a constitutional amendment against gerrymandering. Some may say that right belongs to the States. I say if those legislators are voting to declar
    • "Congrats, your system hinders the viability of minority parties."

      As opposed to today, where we can't get senators OR representitives from minority parties? Look, the senate is supposed to be small to work together better. Upping the senate isn't going to help - pushing it to 3 is only a compromise, but it's the best I can think of.

      And my plan did have protections against gerrymandering. Notice how the reps are now elected by the entire state, not certain areas. The senate is totally 'at large'.

  • Is a fantastic idea, but are you okay with drawing the election race only to the large population centers? You might give some slight incentive to have campaigns reach out to less populated places like Oregon or Missouri. I admit there is no sane system that could make North Dakota worth the candidtates' time.

    Also, will there still be primaries? If so, could we please have an open primary with instant runoff voting? That way I could've voted for McCain, Gore, and the Green party candidate.
    • I'm fine with shifting a popular election to the population centers. That's mostly the point.

      Primaries are not part of the election process. They're part of what the political parties decided was the political process. If you don't like how your local party's candidate was elected, talk to your local party. The government isn't in control.

  • All you have to do to simplify is leave out a lot of the arguments in favor of your proposed powers granted, and then put "powers not explicitly granted to the federal government under this constitution are reserved to the states and to individuals. We really really mean this."

    Most of this sounds really good. I'm not sure I like the senators being elected by state governments though -- why do you want to do this?

    • Suppose the state next to mine is letting pollution foul the air and water that flows into where I live. Regulating this at a national level would be very useful. If the framers of the Constitution didn't foresee that arising, perhaps there are other issues we aren't seeing in the future. Should all those powers really be left to the States? What are the odds 3/4ths of the States will amend the Constitution for small stuff that might not be in their interests?
      • Suppose the country next door is polluting the environment. What do you do about that? You try to get them to sign international treaties, that's what you do. In this case, the constitutional amendment would be the equivalent.

        You have a strong point though. I just don't like allowing the government to expand its powers in an open-ended fashion.

        Maybe you're right, though: maybe what you need is a list of powers you will never grant under any circumstances. But that defeats the purpose of simplification!

        • I don't think simplicity for the sake of being easy to understand is reason enough for making a constitution so. Every amendment has added to the complexity. More importantly, 200+ years of case law has made interpreting it extremely hard. If we could do it over again, I'd like to think that using twice as many words in the Constitution, incorporating the amendments and more, might halve the millions of pages of case law that we have now.
  • I agree with much of what you've written. Zirnike for President... errr, Evil Overlord.... errr Supreme Dictator... yeah, that's the one! The on obvious bit I'd take issue with is:

    Unions may be formed, but may not require all people, or even all in a certain job position, to be members (but the union negotiates salaries across the board, no saying 'let the non union ones take a 10% cut to give us 1% raise)

    So let me get this straight... I don't have to join the union, but any pay deal they negotiate with

    • Oh, I know the wording needs to be changed... Basically, I'm trying to prevent the current union leadership mentality that it's good for a union to be a perminent institution. It's not. They become just as bad as any other large, constant beurocracy. Look at the UPS strike a little while ago... UPS had agreed to all their demands. All they wanted to do was keep the pension plan because they were getting a better rate of return than the union was. The strike was all about that point. The union wanted

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