Image of Johnathan Swift
Years ago, Johnathan Swift made a "Modest Proposal" to deal with starving related to the Irish Potato Famine. It was satirical and meant as social commentary. However, my set of "Modest Proposals" are much more serious, and are related to changes we can make to the United States Constitution to promote a more responsive government that serves the will and needs of the people.
Proposed Constitutional Amendments:
28. Direct voting for President/Vice President.
The current method of electing presidents is imperfect, due in part to the unequal power of an individual citizen's vote. A voter for "Candidate A" in California has 1/3 the voting power as that of a voter in Wyoming who votes for "Candidate B" due to the nature of allocating electors in the Electoral College.
What I propose is direct popular vote for the presidency/vice presidency. If no candidate pairing gets an absolute majority, a follow-up vote between the top 2 candidates takes place 4 weeks a fter the general election.
29. Recall Voting.
All elected offices in the federal government will be subject to recall if any one of the following conditions are met:
A. For the president or vice president of the United States:
- If the legislatures of 60% of the states vote for recall.
- If 5% of citizens in each state, 60% of all states vote for recall.
If a recall election is called for, this official must receive 50.1% affirmative votes to remain in office. Otherwise, the next in line for presidential succession will take his place for a presidential recall. In the case of a vice presidential recall, the office is declared vacant, and the president may nominate a new person for the vice presidency.
B. For Congressmen/women and Senators:
- If 5% of the citizens of the congressional district (for congressmen) or 5% of the citizens
of the state (for senators) vote for recall:
If a recall election is called for, this official must recieve 50.1% affirmative votes to remain
in office. Otherwise, a new election for this office must be held within 60 days of recall.
30. Term Limits for Federal Office Holders.
Upon enaction of this amanement, all currently serving elected office holders are exempt from
term limits for the offices they hold.
A. No president may serve more than 10 years in total as president.
B. Senators and Congressmen are limited to 18 years of service in each office.
C. Supreme court justices will be limited to 18 years in office. The longest serving justice on the
court must retire on 2 year intervals, so that 2 justices will be replaced in every presidential
term. In cases of death, inability to serve, resignations, or other early departures from the
court, the president may nominate a new justice to complete the former justice's 18 year term.
D. The supreme court may have no less than 9 active members or no more than 13 active members/
If the court is expanded beyond 9 members, a random selection of 9 members must be selected
to hear any cases before it.
31. All federal office holders must adhere to a code of conduct enacted by congress, and be subject to
the rule of law.
A. The president is subject to all laws governing his actions. No immunity may be given by any
court for actions which have been prohibited by congress.
B. No federal office holder may profit from inside knowledge of information gathered by the
government. All insider trading laws that currently apply to the citizenry must apply to all
federal office holders.
C. All federal office holders are required to faithfully exercise the powers of their offices. Failure
to do so will subject them to penalties under the law (both civil and criminal) after leaving
office (in the case of the president) or while in office (for all other office holders).
32. Repeal of the 11th amendment. All states are subject to federal law, and may be sued by individuals
in Federal courts.
33. All territories of the United States with populations larger than the smallest population state will
be offered the right to vote for statehood every 10 years. If the population of that territory elects to
become a state, it will immediately be given the number of seats in the house and senate based on
its population.
34. The apportionmet act of 1929 is to be repealed, with the formula for allocating representatives in the
House of representatives based on the law which was supposed to be used for the 1920 census.
35. Three senators to be elected by each state, with one seat open for election every 2 years.
36. Election Reforms:
A. No individual or corporation may contribute more than $5,000 to any election campaign,
nor may any individual or campaign bundle its contributions to a campaign..
B. Campaign ads may only be shown within 2 months of any election.
C. All votes to be tallied and totals reported within 3 days of any election.
D. People running for office may only use verifiable facts in their campaign literature and
speeches. Deliberate lies will result in diswqualification for the office being saught.
37. Revocation of Presidential Pardons.
On adoption of this amendment, The House and Senate may repeal a presidential pardon if
both houses vote for a repeal with a 60% majority for a period of 6 months. Afterwards,
Any presidential pardon issued within the last 6 months of a president's term may be repealed
in the first 6 months of the new president's term.
38. Neutrality in designing congressional districts.
On adoption of this amendment, all states have 90 days to have a non-partisan committee to
draw up new congressional districts for the following congressional election. Failure to show
that a state's congressional districts have not been gerrymandered may subject all people
responsible for illegal district design for criminal punishment, which may include the death
penalty.
I have kept this list as short as possible. Ideally, I'd have been able to reinstate the "Fairness Doctrine" for all domestic news and opinion sources: Print Media, Broadcast Media, and Internet Sources from within the USA. This would have prevented both left and right from distorting fact and presenting misinformation labeled as "news". Additionally, I would have looked to put guardrails on the right to keep and bear arms, so that crazy people can't own guns. However, I would want the public to retain the power to overthrow the government when the ballot box is ignored or corrupted. Realistically, I don't expect anything like these changes to be adopted. But they should serve to start an honest discussion of what is needed to be fixed, so that our nation lasts another 250 years.
