Yeah, I basically agree with this, in that I can’t see how the power - even as used by the President’s I’ve admired - has been a net benefit to the country in my lifetime. It essentially amounts to a sort of judicial lottery ticket, but one only accessible to those fortunate enough to have unusual or high profile situations. What are the circumstances under which presidential pardon is a good thing?
My limited understanding is that presidential (and gubernatorial) pardons were intended as a check on the judicial branch, in the event judges and juries awarded excessive or unjust punishments. The extent to which this is working as intended is probably the same as everything else in the government: not very well.
The real answer is for the voters to not elect an incompetent corrupt small-fingered vulgarian to the office of the fucking Presidency.
If the voters can’t be trusted not to do that, then a long list of formal rules won’t help a thing, because those rules will just be ignored.
I beg to differ. What you call “a long list of formal rules”, others may call “the Constitution.” It exists exactly for the purpose of checking and balancing and enumerating the powers of the branches of government. Recent experience shows that it needs tweaking, as happens from time to time.
The point is that a constitution works exactly because the people want it to, and won’t work if they don’t care about it, no matter what it says. There are even long-standing, successful democratic republics that don’t even have them.
If not checked with definable controls, instead of ‘sense of decency’, then Trump will become the new normal. He, along with Mitch McConnnell and a meek media, have demonstrated that there are no consequences (as of yet) to ignoring process and precedent.
Here’s my idea:
Per law, all persons appearing on the ballot in at least 45 states (e.g. no third party fringe candidates) are automatically subject to an FBI investigation following their nomination. Once completed, the FBI shall report the results to Congress, which is required to produce a bipartisan report for public consumption at least 30 days prior to the election.
Now, in practice, the whole “bipartisan” part will have to be worked out, and the idea begs the question of what happens if the report is not finalized timely. The intent, though, is for this to be a comprehensive, “warts and all” exposure of the candidate before we all vote. Their finances; their personal life; their connections/friends and business associates. A full picture.
This seeks to solve several issues:
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Nobody can use the specter of an FBI inquiry to tarnish the other candidate. Everybody is going to be subject to an FBI investigation!
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We can get the nonsense scandals out of the way before the presidency starts. The president once invested (and lost) money in a land deal where he partnered with a friend who later got implicated in the Savings & Loan crisis? Eh, the people still voted the guy into office, so it’s a non-issue. Let it die, rather than wasting time and tax payer money.
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If there are legit questions or concerns about somebody, they are thoroughly vetted. This is the most important job interview in America. We should all know if the person is possibly compromised by a foreign power. It can’t stop them from being a candidate (since the qualifications are set by the Constitution), but a law can, and should, empower the entire country to know when there is evidence that a person is an obvious crook.
January 2025 is not too far away…
One reform I would like to see is foreign contributions to any USA campaign is illegal, or caped at a reasonable amount.
To ensure the integrity of our elections, voter ID should be required.
A few observations from an outsider:
- Re: Gerrymandering… Set up an independent Electoral Commission to determine and maintain electoral boundaries based on a neutral algorithm.
- Run elections on a weekend, so that everyone can easily vote. Or have a national Democracy Day public holiday for this purpose. Have sausage sizzles at the voting booths.
- Have one person = one vote, rather than basing national election on 6 states.
- Greatly reduce political donations.
Absolutely. Also, Presidential pronouncements should never be made over the telegram, telephone, radio, or television either. The only appropriate method is newspapers and the bellowing voice of a duly appointed town crier.
I don’t really use most of these social media tools, not twitter or facebook or instagram or whatever else, but I think it’s nonsense to act as though there’s something inherently wrong with the medium. It’s what is said, not the medium by which it’s said. While I disagree with almost everything Trump says or does, I actually think his personally sending messages on Twitter when he feels like it is a positive thing. If only the things he said were coherent and reasonable, as they would be under a reasonable president.
I’m not sure this should require all three to be of the same party. I think any individual Senator or Representative should be able to somehow insist on a vote. Whoever is in the majority shouldn’t get absolute control over what can even be voted on, because it gives the majority too much power.
Even something that is bound to be defeated can be valuable to have voted on simply to force the Senators and Representatives to go on the record with their choice. In order to prevent such things from clogging up the legislative branch’s time, one possible control would be to give each one a limited number of such calls per elected term, or per year, or per legislative session. Whatever works to keep them from using such a system to clog the chamber’s business with frivolous votes but still allow them to periodically go ‘no, this is really important and I refuse to allow it to simply be buried and forgotten’.
Also, I wouldn’t limit it to just legislation, either, because this would also resolve the problem of the Senate ignoring a nominee instead of voting on them. Any Senator could insist on holding a vote for a nominee.
“Nonsense”? You read a lot between my lines there, Bubba. I didn’t say there was anything inherently wrong with social media. I never mentioned the word “newspaper.” I did not mention telegram, telephone, radio, or television either. You reductio ad absurdum’d my point.
I said that he should not make presidential pronouncements known through Twitter. Maybe I should have inserted the word “official.” I think the fact that he urps out every stupid thought through Twitter is a good thing, too, because it reveals his ignorance. Every day.
Are you okay with the president using Twitter as the official channel to announce, say, the firing of cabinet officials? Declarations of war? Nominations to the Supreme Court?
He uses Twitter precisely because fundamentally he doesn’t have anything to say. He just wants attention. The medium is the message.
Yes, your idea is better than mine. It drives me nuts that with something like DACA, there can be a solid majority for passing a bill but it can’t get a vote because the Speaker won’t allow it. That’s nuts. Any member should be able to force a vote.
There is a method. The discharge petition in the House is just two or three votes short.
a lot of people voting for trump did so explicitly to throw a “monkey wrench” into your democracy. this is the expected result.
This. It’s not what technology Trump uses to communicate (after all, Obama tweeted aplenty, too.) It’s how he talks.
It’s the ubiquity of the technology AND how he talks.
Yes, a lot of people fell for his bullshit dog-and-pony show straight out of reality television, thinking that they were somehow how going to make a statement by voting for him.
There’s always someone running on this conceit–there was nothing new about the narrative that Trump was selling. This time, however, there were more gullible dumb-asses duped than ever before–that’s what was different. That’s what happens when you have a whole nation that increasingly is doing nothing but sitting on its lazy ass watching TV or dicking around on Facebook. They have no critical thinking ability.
The pardon power needs to stay. It is meant to function as a last resort check against unjust judgments.
EVERYTHING is subject to abuse. That’s not a reason to destroy it.
The direction to go in is towards more, not less, checks. The list of abuses of Executive power is long, very long. There is one thing that will go a long way towards curbing those abuses: paring down the military.
Federalist Number 8: “It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority.”
That’s the US problem in a nutshell. To some extent it’s inevitable and comes with global success: the national interest of the US is to keep its supply lines open, and you can’t do that without a large navy and, these days, Air Force. China’s rapid ramping up of its military is for the same purpose, as they are now the primary buyer for most global commodities.
But ours is crazy expensive and dominates the national budget to an extent that is nuts. As Dubya showed with the Iraq War, moving the existing standing army into place creates a fait accompli that makes war momentum irresistible.
So, first thing, eliminate the standing army. Force the President to have to federalize and call up the National Guard if he wants to wage war, or make a call for volunteers or institute a draft.
Lots of good things will flow just from that.
Yeah, actually, I don’t see anything wrong with using Twitter as an official channel, as long as the announcement is of something that is reasonable in itself. Would you raise an eyebrow at the President (any President) announcing such a thing via a televised announcement? If not, what makes Twitter different than other mediums of communication that you find it inappropriate? The only difference I see is that it is comparatively new, just as those other mediums were at one time, new.
I suppose I just react harshly to the idea because it feels like because it’s Trump doing it, it’s ‘tainting’ the means of communication in people’s minds, even though I see nothing wrong with using the medium for official announcements. If a reasonable president announces their nomination of a reasonable candidate for the Supreme Court via Twitter, that doesn’t seem like a problem to me. Or the firing of a cabinet official, depending on how much detail he wants to give the public. One does have to take into account the limitations of the medium, after all. But if he would stand up in front of a podium and basically say “I hereby announce the nomination of X” and have it broadcast by radio or television, I see no reason not to make that same announcement over Twitter.