hi i'm new to this site, i am looking for people who have ideas on how to fix/replace congress and thus enable us to fix america as a whole. It is my Belief that the first step in fixing the United States is to fix congress. This is my solution please review and or post your own ideas. To precipitate this fix you must first start with the premise that congress is broken or ineffectual. If we can come to this consensus then we can start the process of replacing it. Currently Congress is a bicameral system meaning two parties. http://beta.congress.gov/members Currently in congress there are: 264 Democrats 48.00% 284 Republicans 51.64% 2 Independents 0.36% http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx In contrast current polls show that citizens in the US are: 31% Democrats 24% Republicans 43% Independents This means that a bicameral congress could never adequately represent the American people. What we need to do is recreate congress as a Tricameral system. The way to do this is: Senate: Instead of each state electing two senators who could be both republican or both democrat or 1 of each (and occasionally an independent); what we need to do is have each state elect a group. A group consists of 1 democrat, 1 republican, and 1 independent (independents are anyone not affiliated with either party (which means that tea party are still republicans)). This creates a 150 person Senate that represents all Citizens of the US equally. Now, Party of the Senate elects their own representative these three reps for the council, in the event of a tie in the senate the Council makes the decision as three cannot tie. Each member of the council can bring a motion or bill to the floor to be discussed and voted upon. Each member of the Senate may bring a motion or bill to any of the council members. (These two things stop any one member of congress from blocking a bill or motion (this happens in our congress all the time)). House: Currently the house is made up of 445 representatives according to the constitution it is supposed to be each state has 1 representative per 30,000 people which would put the current house at somewhere around 10,602, even the least populous state would have at least 19 representatives. Congress a long time ago capped the amount of reps to around 435. This has been proven to be in need of update. Again the representatives should be elected in groups. each state should elect 1 group per x amount of population, the population requirement needs to be representative or either the population of the united states or the number of representatives in the house; meaning it needs to be able to change based on the situation. Again each party needs to elect a representative to be in the council Same rules apply for ties, and putting forth motions and bills. In the event of a standoff between House and Senate (meaning House says yes to a bill and Senate says no or vice versa) the two councils would meet in order to work out either changes to bill and vote on outcome. It is my belief that this system would adequately represent the American people and fix the issues that cause congress to be very ineffectual.
Welcome to the forum! First, I'm not sure if the idea counts a tricameral. A bicameral legislator essentially means there are two legislative bodies: the House and Senate in this case. It doesn't really refer to party affiliation. Second, assuming this reform was passed what's to keep Republicans and Democrats from running independently but secretly, or maybe not so secretly, aligning with one of the other parties? I believe the two independents we currently have serving were party affiliated at one point but they simply lost the primary. I also don't believe though, that we should simply "divide" the congress into thirds because the nation appears to be divided into three groups at the moment. What you're describing for the House though is basically proportional representation. I definitely like the idea provided the size of the House was increased. Compared to most representative governments we have the worst constituent to representative ratio (~70,000 to 1 I believe).
I have to agree that the idea seems to misunderstand the meaning of bicameral. George Washington was the first (and I believe only) President to warn against "Party's" (which are nowhere even mentioned in the Constitution) having too much influence in government. AFAIK, all the other Presidents have ignored that good advice. I don't know too much about proportional representation but don't think that a system which "emphasize(s) the political agenda by parties " (according to Wiki) is all that good an idea. The Founding Fathers went to some pains, by my understanding, to make sure that the people's representatives have mainly their Constituents best interests at heart, instead of their party's agenda. Interesting idea though, and welcome to the forum.
Firstly I would like to apologize for my misunderstanding the word Bicameral, I thought it referred to the parties and not the house and the senate as the two sections. Apparently I didn't do quite enough research. secondly i would like to thank you for your critiques as they help me to flush out problems with my plan and give me a chance to try and fix them. As to in think in miss-stated what I meant by independent; what I meant was that the independent seats were for any Person/Party that was not directly affiliated with the Democrat or Republican parties, they're for representing any number of parties/factions that the public feel should have a say in congress. the main reason for having three sections, D, R, I; is to make sure that we don't get into situations where one side directly opposes the other on almost all issues and the only reason that one side wins is because they have more members not because it is necessarily the best thing. Also this allows for the council which can both protect ties and against situations such as the house is having where immigration reform cannot move forward because the Majority leader will not allow it to be put forth. as to I am actually not quite sure what you are referring to... but the system I was proposing was meant so that if a person wants to run for office he doesn't have to compromise his beliefs just to fit into the Republican or Democrat standards as many do right now in order to either get elected or reelected. Often times a bill is voted on not necessarily because they agree with it but because not agreeing with it would cost them reelection. to be honest it is better for members of congress to think more about what is best for the country and less about whether they will be reelected or not. now I know I am stating my opinion and generalizing when it comes to politicians so I apologize if I am wrong or offensive. As to I very much agree and was thinking about it since I read your reply earlier. I believe the solution comes not from the redesign of congress but actually from the redesign of Political Contributions. To give you the short of my idea for that; Communal Political fund that anyone can put as much money into as they want, money is accessible to any candidate that goes through some kind of vetting process where they have to choose which party they are running for that election and what there stances are on the issues. That information would become publicly available and not allow candidates to run for a different party than they choose for that election. Sorry that was so long...please continue picking holes or proposing your own ideas.
I think I would take a different, non-partisan approach. 1. Senators would go back to being appointed by their state legislatures. This will increase the power of the states. 2. A Constitutional amendment that mandates that all Federal spending is outlawed unless the Constitution specifically assigns that responsibility to the Federal government. Our government is too top heavy. Our president is trying to rule by executive order and appointing activist department heads and judges. Congress writes too many laws that don't apply to themselves. (such as 0bamacare) Even judges are legislating abortion and gay marriage law from the bench. The states need more control and people will move accordingly.
Get rid of all the people who care nothing for inalienable rights and civil liberties and who seek to expand the power of the government. Or just shoot them. No joke intended.
That seems both harsh and impractical, and doesn't sound like it would solve any problems; just make America's history more bloody and shameful.
I personally believe the best fix is to enact term limits. Get rid of the low information voters voting a recognizable name. That would force them to pay attention to the actual issues, and ensure a flow of fresh ideas. With a constant turnover in the Congress and Senate, it would create a more level playing field for the forming of additional parties.
I have actually. The only real way to do this is to bypass congress entirely and put it to the American people to vote on. How can we in good conscious allow a governing body that we know to be broken and corrupt to vote upon laws that directly effect itself. That would be like a judge presiding over a case where he was the defendant. - - - Updated - - - I would love to hear more about this.
Get rid of corporations and their 'presidential' protections, then make them accountable to society as a whole. Chop up monopolistic monster corporations into smaller, locally manageable entities and tax the sheet out of outsourcers. Shrink the power base.
