The Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission decision by the Supreme Court will forever change our election process in such a way as to take any vestige of democracy out of it. When corporations or the mega-wealthy can buy up the narrative, and the media outlets are no longer bound by a “fairness doctrine,” any opposition voices will be very effectively drowned out. When an electorate cannot get full information on candidates or issues because all the air time is sucked up by the monied side, the term “informed voters” is an oxymoron. A Constitutional Convention, called to address this and other issues that Congress won’t deal with is necessary to save our democratic process.
We need to call for a Constitutional Convention, following the provision in Article 5 of the Constitution: 2/3 of the state legislatures call for one, and it meets in Philadelphia, where the original Constitutional Convention was held. In Article 5, the framers of the Constitution provided for the contingency of a recalcitrant, unresponsive Congress, and left a door open for direct action on the part of the people. So, the energy from the "Occupy" movement can be turned toward state legislatures, demanding that they call for a Constitutional convention. Each "Occupy" can start the call in that state. In states "Occupy" hasn't yet reached, any number of political organizations can be contacted to take up the cause.
Here is a possible list of amendments to start with. Some of these ideas have been talked about before, and some are new ideas, with the issue of Citizens United being on the top of the list. Someone with Constitutional legal expertise will probably have to do the wordsmithing. There are 27 amendments now, so I started this list with #28:
28) Corporations are not people, and money is not Free Speech; therefore, corporations are not granted any of the rights specified in the Constitution itself, or any amendments thereto, including, but not limited to Freedom of Speech. Corporations can never be citizens.
29) Electoral College shall be eliminated, and election of the president shall be based on a simple majority of the votes cast.
30) Future amendments to the Constitution can be ratified by a direct vote of the people in each state via statewide special election with no other issues or candidates on the ballot, not the state legislatures. A simple majority of the voters would be all that is necessary. Number of states to ratify stays the same.
31) Separation of the Federal Reserve from the US Treasury, and the US Treasury becomes the only entity that can issue money, credit, or bank charters. No banks with foreign ownership will be chartered. No one who is not a US citizen can be a president, vice president, or a member of the BOD of a bank.
32) No one who is not a citizen can own land in the US, nor can corporations that are not headed by American citizens, and have a majority of American citizens on the BOD.
33) The lifetime appointment of Federal Court judges, including Supreme Court justices was intended to make them "immune" to the zeitgeist and be able to take the long view and vote in the long term best interest of the country. In practice, this has been spotty, but there has to be a way to make impeachment easier and to force any justice with conflicts of interest recuse himself from a particular vote. This is especially true when we have a Congress that will not start impeachment proceedings because they are owned by the same people who own the Supreme Court. There has to be a way to get a second process to get around such a Congress.
34) Revive the ERA.
35) No non citizen can contribute money to any candidate for elective office in any state, local, or federal election. US citizens will be limited to contributions not to exceed $100 per candidate or per issue, per election. (If the other amendment that addresses the issue of corporate personhood is enacted, this would apply to them as non citizens) This amendment would also prohibit foreign interests of any kind (businesses, corporations, governments, or people) from contributing to candidates for office in the US.
36) The Fairness Doctrine in media must be reinstated. Each media outlet must provide balanced and fair reporting of all the candidates and issues in the area served by that media outlet.
The people of the state of Wisconsin had a law on their books in 1919 that said no corporation doing business in that state could by direct or indirect means contribute to a candidate, political party or organization for any reason, and if they did, the officers of that corporation went to jail, and the corporation was dissolved.... We should enact something similar on a nationwide scale.
Very well written, which is why I kept bugging you to do this. Welcome to the blogosphere!
ReplyDeleteCouple more ideas:
ReplyDelete37) No more secret votes done in committee behind closed doors... All congressional votes must take place in the open, on the floor of each house.. Each member must be present on the floor in order to cast a vote...
38) The Congressional Record is not amendable... You cannot insert speeches or remarks that you did not make on the open floor because you want your constituents to believe that you were impassioned enough to rail against this or fight the good fight for that. If you want it in the Record, you must say it out in the open. You cannot change what you said later because it "wasn't intended to be a factual statement."
39) You must be physically present on the floor in order to filibuster anything. You can't call in from your European vacation and say, "hey tell everyone that I am invoking a filibuster on that bill for xyz comapny." You have to be willing to get off your dead ass and show up for 8 or 10 or 12 or 20 hours or whatever and say what you are going to say in order to prevent a bill from being passed. If you aren't passionate enough about it to do that sacrifice, then... well... it just gets voted one, now doesn't it? And it should only take a simple majority vote to to tell you "too bad, we are gonna vote anyway."