- NEW!
by Glenn Blaylock on September 14th, 2009
There are a number of things that I would like to see enshrined in amendments.
First of all, I would like to see term limits for the members of Congress. Too many of them are making a career out of it and I think that spending that much time in Washington, they lose touch with what it is really like for the rest of us. I think that I would like to see both houses limited to three terms with the option to run again after sitting out for one full term.
Second, I would like the line item veto given to the President. This would make it a lot easier to strip the pork out a budget.
It seems to me that there were others, but I can't think of them right now.
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Addendum:
I just remember the other amendment that I would like to see. I would eliminate the winner take all system that most states have for their electors. Instead, I would prefer the electors awarded for the House districts be chosen according to how their districts vote. As it is, in a state like California, those who live in rural areas are pretty much disenfranchised by Los Angeles and the Bay Area because those two areas tend to dominate the elections. If you take a look at the maps from the last election (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/statemapredbluer1024.png http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/countymapredbluer1024.png), you can see how much of the country was not really represented by the election results.
One of the main reasons for the electoral college was to insure that Presidential candidates could simply ignore the smaller states when campaigning. However, the winner take all system creates a different inequality. It makes it possible for Presidential candidates to simply focus on urban population center and ignore rural areas. By apportioning representation in the college according to how the Congressional districts vote it would prevent the urban areas from dominating a state's delegation.
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Comments
I could go with those. I'll ring up my congressman, no doubt he'll get right on it.
by Factotum on October 8th, 2009
The problem is that I doubt that we could get the needed two thirds of both houses in Congress to get the ball rolling on either of these amendments because they would mean a reduction in power for them. Additionally, I don't like the idea of throwing the whole think open to a constitutional convention because that would open things up for whatever crazy amendments various people can come up with.
by Glenn Blaylock on October 8th, 2009
I have always maintained that Presidents should have as many terms as they can be elected to while Congressmen and Senators should be shown the door.
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The way the do business with committees that kill bills long before they can ever be voted on is a disgrace.
by Factotum on October 8th, 2009
No, I like the idea of term limits for all of them. Otherwise they come to think that they own the office to which they are elected and become unresponsive to the people who elect them. What is going on in Congress is a very good case in point. The Democrats are pushing ahead with their agenda despite the fact that the people are more and more telling them that they don't want it.
by Glenn Blaylock on October 9th, 2009
Aye. There is the possibility, though, that term limits might accidentally make politicians more efficient. I personally fear a lawmaking factory that works double shifts.
by Factotum on October 9th, 2009
Glenn: The past eight years have seen a tremedous increase in presidential power, do you really want to increase that power even more by giving presidents the line-item veto?
by ExactlyTwentyLetters on October 16th, 2009
States where the Governors have the line item veto tend to be much better about managing the people's money than those that don't. One of the things that allows legislators to pass a lot of pork spending is that they add this spending to important bills giving the executive the choice of either accepting all of the spending or vetoing the important provisions along with the pork. This can be an especially big deal when it is the actual budget that is loaded down with pork and the result of an outright veto would shut down the government. So, giving the president the ability to veto specific parts of a bill without having veto the whole thing places a very valuable check on the spending of the legislature.
by Glenn Blaylock on October 17th, 2009
Yeah. Especially bills that the president needs.
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So, for example, Congress lards up defense spending bills to an obscene degree.
by Factotum on October 17th, 2009
why were there no term limits in the original Constitution?
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why was there no line item veto in the original Constitution?
by purplecows on October 31st, 2009
I put it to you, Cow, that the term limits in the Constitution were the expected mortality rates of citizens at the time and that the line-item veto was based on the idea that Congress didn't have rules for secret votes and was made up of men who, if not more moral than us at least didn't collude in manufacturing pork. Remember they didn't have a federal income tax. The simply didn't have obscene amounts of tax money to misuse. Their job was to protect the interests of their particular states as balanced against the interests of the country as a whole, not to 'bring home the bacon'.
by Factotum on November 1st, 2009
there are term limits in the Constitution. they are called elections.
I think that some of the people who have "made a career out of it", who have dedicated their lives to congress, have done the most for the people, and some of them are very in touch. you don't get in touch or out of touch by how long you work in washington. it's part of who you are, what kind of politician you are, what kind of person. and there's no law or limit that can help with that. john q. adams went from the presidency back to congress, being a voice for the people. and he did a lot of good too. was he out of touch from spending so much time in washington? from having been president? or did he dedicate his life to his country?
we have elections, why are they not good enough?
by Slightly less anonymous on November 1st, 2009
Why are they not good enough? Because we have a lazy electorate that mostly doesn't take the time to study the issues and actually vote. You can look at what is happening right now in Congress. The polls are turning more and more against the policies that they are pushing, but the leadership there is ignoring the will of the people. They seem to think that they know better than we do what is good for us and are bound and determined to shove their changes down our throats despite the increasing opposition among the people. That is being out of touch with what people want.
by Glenn Blaylock on November 1st, 2009
I take your point, Anon and it's a good one. But as long as committee positions can be used to bring home pork we will have the kind of behavior we see now.
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It's kind of telling that no other presidents have returned to serve in Congress.
by Factotum on November 1st, 2009
yes, they have. a list of the other presidents who have returned to serve the federal government after leaving presidential office
john tyler (who served out william henry harrison's one term after his death), didn't run for a term of his own. he served as president from 1841-1845. In february of 1861, he was elected chairmen of the peace convention in D.C. (trying to stave off the civil war). he did however at the end of the month suggest that virginia secede...and so he joined the Virginia Convention on Policy. In May he was elected to the Provisional Congress of the Confederacy, and later that year, elected to the permanent Congress of the Confederacy...but he died before he could take his seat, so technically, he gave his life to serving his country, sorta.
continued..
by Slightly less anonymous on November 1st, 2009
andrew johnson served in the senate after his presidency. actually, he ran for the house of reps, lost, the senate, lost, but in 1874, the tennessee legislature appointed him to the senate, and he served in the senate from March 4, 1875 until he died from a stroke on July 31 that year. In his first speech since returning to the Senate (he's served before his presidency), which was also unfortunately his last, Johnson spoke about political turmoil in Louisiana. His passion aroused a standing ovation from many of his fellow senators who had once voted to remove him from the presidency
Ulysses S Grant, spent two years traveling with his wife after leaving the presidency. He then came back and attempted to run again for a third term but lost the nomination to Grant, whom he then campaigned for. In March 1885, now President Grant returned him to the generals list (he was a general before a president) with full pay. He died in June.
continued...
by Slightly less anonymous on November 1st, 2009
William Howard Taft had a great legal and judicial career before becoming president. In 1890, President Benjamin Harrison appointed him Solicitor General of the United States. He served on the newly created United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 1891. He was on track to serve on the Supreme Court, Chief Justice, that's what he wanted.
But, in 1900, President McKinley appointed Taft chairman of a commission to organize a civilian government in the Philippines. He accepted the appoint reluctantly, serving as the first civilian Governor-General of the Philippines.
In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt offered Taft the seat on the Supreme Court he wanted, but he reluctantly declined since he viewed the Filipinos as not yet being capable of governing themselves and because of his popularity among them.
continuing...
by Slightly less anonymous on November 1st, 2009
He later served as President Roosevelt's Secretary of War, then as President himself. When he finally left the white house--job after job he didn't want, including president, he had served his country over and over again, never getting the job. Serving three presidents, serving as president, and never getting the chance to do what he wanted to. He appointed 6 justices, including Chief Justice during his term. He gave 6 people the job he'd aspired to all his life.
After his presidency, he returned to the law. He taught, he wrote, he advocated. Even before WWI broke out he promoted the idea of a League of Nations. When war did break out, he founded the League to Enforce Peace, and was co-chairmen of the National War Labor Board between 1917 and 1918. Finally, June 30, 1921, following the death of Chief Justice Edward Douglass White, President Harding nominated Taft to take his place. He served until 1930. He retired due to ill health and died five weeks later.
by Slightly less anonymous on November 1st, 2009
You got me. Two more presidents, so three out of 44.
by Factotum on November 1st, 2009
Dwight D. Eisenhower, had his military rank restored after leaving office. On March 22, 1961, his commission on the retired list was was commissioned a five-star general in the United States Army, by President Kennedy.
by Slightly less anonymous on November 1st, 2009
fine then, let's start at the beginning:
George Washington:
commander of the Continental Army: 1775–1783
President: 1789–1797
oh, and in between, in case you were worried he had time off, he was busy, you know, creating the country
"On July 4, 1798, Washington was commissioned by President John Adams to be Lieutenant General and Commander-in-chief of the armies raised or to be raised for service in a prospective war with France. He served as the senior officer of the United States Army between July 13, 1798, and December 14, 1799. He participated in the planning for a Provisional Army to meet any emergency that might arise, but did not take the field."
Why did his duties end on December 14, 1799? Because he died!
by Slightly less anonymous on November 1st, 2009
I could seriously go through just about every President. You'll find out they either died in office, or shortly after or served their country in some way afterwards. Maybe it wasn't the senate. Maybe the current President asked them to go on a peacekeeping mission. Or meet with world leaders that they couldn't, that no one "official official" could, but they wanted someone of similar standing to. You think President Clinton just drops by foreign countries for fun? Sometimes, you get a call. And the call says, I can't do this, I can't be seen as being a part of this, but you have the right amount of legitimacy and not. I need you to.
And, frankly, I think our leaders should get to retire. Washington deserved the joy he got from farming. He didn't want to serve a second term. He did so reluctantly. Some of our best leaders have been reluctant ones. But we don't notice that so much.
by Slightly less anonymous on November 1st, 2009
One last thing, because I'm not going to waste my time going through every president--you want to learn from history you can learn how to read yourself.
Elections work. You don't like our leaders? You don't like our voting system? Or how uninformed people are? Or some other part of the system? Then do something about it. Start by saying something about it. Do I see problems? Damn straight I do. But I don't see any problems that term limits are the solution to. And the things you've been complaining about-I don't see how term limits help. So complain. Tell me what the problems are. Tell me why term limits are the solution. Do SOMETHING. Don't just repeat term limits over and over again. Then you sound like a duck. And we have more than enough of those to go around.
History is great. Learn from it. I get being jaded and assuming life doesn't change. But assuming you know what happened when it's at your fingertips? When you can look? The point of history is to learn
by Slightly less anonymous on November 1st, 2009
What do you have to say about the Congressional fiefdoms and the uneven distribution of power that comes from the seniority system? Does the fact that certain Congressmen wield special bill-crushing power not fly in the face of the whole idea of representation by state and by populace?
by Factotum on November 2nd, 2009
Ok...I feel like a teacher pulling teeth trying to get a student to make an argument. Pretend you're writing a paper, or trying talking to someone who knows nothing about this. You can't just make a statement and assume that from that, everything, including your position is obvious and falls into place.
But, you've started. You've finally made a complaint. I'm not going to argue over the validity of it or whether or not I agree. Pretend it's true, absolutely factual--it IS a problem. Now, how will term limits help? How will they stop this from happening? Make your case. Go for it. Give me the complaint. In detail. Tell me what's wrong, tell me why, and tell me why and how term limits will fix this problem. Tell me why they are the best fix for the problem. Then, then I'll respond. But until you do that, you're just spastically throwing out complaints and half arguments. There's nothing to argue against, no one to debate with until you do this. Go ahead. Make your case.
by Slightly less anonymous on November 2nd, 2009