Something should be done about gerrymandering but it’s tougher than it looks. A precise mathematical definition is very difficult. Consider, for example, a state like Utah. Almost all of the democrats would be in Salt Lake City. Let’s say it has five representatives. If you draw a small circle around Salt Lake City, it would have one blue district. If you draw a larger circle and split it in half, you could get two red districts. The rest of the state would of course be all red.
Seriously?
Forty-eight states are “winner take all” when it comes to choose electors in presidential elections. Maine and Nebraska are the only two states which aren’t.
I can see your point, but IMHO Thomas is on his way out anyway, and anything there is too old. The allegations are like 35 years old, I dont trust anyone’s memory that far back. But yeah, Kavanaugh- however the worst accusations vs him is from the 1980s. Too old.
True. Which is what Gerrymandering by race was not Kosher, but the current Courts seem to be turning a blind eye to that.
Yeah, good point- I should have said only two states arent. But still, even tho they are as blue as can be, the small states will say “No thank you.” And remember, only two elections in memory were changed by this. Gore vs Bush, which was really close anyway, and Hillary Clinton vs you know who.
Again, changing the Constitution because of one man.
Back in my school days, they emphasized that most of the checks and balances were in response to George III. The one we have now has demonstrated what someone determined to abuse it is able to pull off.
I’m not too fond of imposing qualifications. I’d honestly prefer mandatory voting a la Australia - fail to vote without a valid excuse and you get a fine, not a huge fine, but enough to make it sting. Throw in universal mail-in voting with barcode verification. Ranked choice voting in House primaries, proportional representation in the general - a party shouldn’t be able to get 45% of the vote nationwide and yet have a House majority. Unfreeze the size of the House and set it at a ratio of 1/the population of the least populous state.
I don’t like the idea of adding too many qualifiers to who’s allowed to run, either. Age limits and service requirements are just arbitrary. Requiring candidates to make their financial and medical information fully available to the public and subject to an independent audit would probably better address the issue.
When it comes to APPOINTED officials, however, I’m all for it. I would require Cabinet members to have relevant experience in their field - e.g., SecDef should be a flag officer, AG should be a federal judge or US Attorney, SecState should have held an ambassadorship, or at the very least the secretary should have a four-year degree in the field and a certain number of years working in it. Supreme Court justices should be selected from state Supreme Courts and the federal judiciary. I’d also limit the president’s choices to a pool of candidates vetted by the senior non-political staff of that department.
Pardons - strip the power from the presidency entirely. I would create a Board of Pardons, Parole, and Clemency, composed of fifteen federal judges chosen by lot for a two-year-term, who would meet once a month or so. Any citizen can submit a name for consideration, any three can bring their case to the whole board, and a vote of 12 would be necessary to approve it. This board would also be the final court of appeal for all death penalty cases and its ruling would have to be unanimous to approve a death sentence.
Instead of abolishing the Electoral College outright, declare all adult voters to be electors. I prefer to keep the states in control of the process instead of federalizing too much of it.
End the filibuster but keep a supermajority requirement for certain things. Confirmation, impeachment, and expulsion votes should be done by secret ballot.
Hmm, I wont say no. Along with Voting Rights for all citizens.
Right, if the People want a 75 yo Representative, it isnt democratic to say no.
Delaware and co says Nay- courteously.
Did Biden abuse pardons? Obama? Clinton? GW Bush? Carter? Again, reacting to one bad man. The Head of State- including Governors- have had this right for a long time.
Allow only the old kind of Filibuster- standing there and talking. None of this “needs 60 votes” thing, but maybe yes in some situation.
Georgia famously had a governor who sold pardons once. Now the governor doesn’t have pardon power there anymore.
And the specific idea behind this thread is how to prevent a future president from repeating Trump’s abuses.
If a democratic president can’t get the approval of 60% of Congress for their pardons, then so be it. Job done.
And why do you barge into threads quoting every post like you’re some kind of authority? You are not.
I’m sure you meant to refer to the 25th amendment and not the one that gives 18-year-olds the right to vote. 
I see two possible fixes for the 25th, one of which would require an amendment and the other wouldn’t.
The first is to take the Cabinet out of the equatiion. The text of Section 4 allows Congress to create a body to delegate this task to. Let’s create that body. We can call it the Council on Presidential Fitness. It can be chaired by the Surgeon General and made up of a number of qualified medical experts from various fields selected in some nonpartisan process. Give them unfettered access to all of the president’s medical records at all times. Limit their power to removing him only in the event of a specific diagnosis that would make him unfit to serve.
The second is an amendment to remove the president’s power to unilaterally fire Cabinet secretaries. If the president can fire anyone at any time for any reason, then Section 4 can never be used for its intended purpose because any secretary who chooses to act on it would effectively be signing their own resignation.
Which is why I say remove the president from the process altogether. The idea of a presidential pardon is a holdover from days when kings were the divine fount of justice and the source of all law. If we’re going to recognize that sometimes the legal system makes mistakes and there needs to be a safety valve to undo wrongful convictions or excessive sentences, it shouldn’t be subject to one man’s personal and unreviewable whim.
I agree, which is why a super-majority in Congress takes pardons away from the whims of one politician and puts it on the entire legislative branch. Some pardons are worthwhile and the mechanism should remain.
That still makes it too subject to partisan pressure, though. Putting in the hands of a panel of judges selected at random makes it more merit-based.
How about this:
The President has the power to grant pardons, but they must be ratified by the Supreme Court. People with proper standing may appeal them and present argument why the pardon should not be granted.
Grounds for appeal should be limited, the appellant needs to show the pardon being granted for corrupt reasons, such as bribery, rewarding people who did a service to the President, or one of his conies, or under the influence of blackmail, or while suffering from mental impairment.
Not this Supreme Court, for sure. We’ll need to reform the Court from the top down first.
Ban convicted felons from holding office?
A swing and a whiff!
For pardons, I’d have them one of two ways, either of which would keep them safe from Trump. First, you could have it be that pardons come to the President’s desk after going through some pardon panel (non-partisan and not part of the Administration) so all the President is doing is signing off to say yes indeed these folks have paid their debt to society. Alternately, you could have the President be the first step in the chain, picking who he (or she or they) wants to pardon and then forwarding these to the pardon board for further review. If you make this process into actual work, Trump will never do it. I would also take politics out of pardons. No pardoning oneself and no pardoning the previous President if they are from the same party. No blank pardons (sorry Tom Clancy) and no “for any crimes they may have committed” pardons either. Someone upthread mentioned the idea of no pardons before a conviction and yes, that seems like such a basic requirement I’m surprised it isn’t already in there.
I would also make it very explicit in the Constitution that a President may not declare an emergency to extend their term. A President may not take a lesser office (such as VP) and then ascend to a third term by having a lackey resign (like Putin and Medvedev’s “tandemocracy”). A President may not declare himself into a third term by claiming his first and second ones were stolen. The terms are this many years, months and days and no longer, enforced by the Secret Service turfing any squatters in the same manner as how they treat fence jumpers at the White House. If the Secret Service can’t or won’t do it within two hours, the National Guard will do it.
I’d also put very explicit protections for a free press in the Constitution and make it blatantly illegal for any politician to brand the press as “the enemy of the people”. Is it possible to put something in there to prevent Fox News from being what it is right now?
I’d update the First Amendment to specify that Nazi salutes or Nazi rhetoric such as “poisoning the blood of the country” is hate speech, which is grounds for immediate impeachment and/or 25th Amendment removal. I agree with posts upthread about strengthening the 25th so it can actually be used.
I won’t get into what I would do with the Second Amendment but gun owners wouldn’t like it. Seems like fodder for a different thread though.
I don’t know if it requires a Constitutional update but I’d also fix the rules for Congress so they can do necessary administrative stuff before choosing a Speaker. No more tying the government in knots with these dumb dick measuring contests. I’d also make it impossible for a government shutdown to happen. If you can’t pass a budget the previous budget repeats. No debt ceiling either. The number is so high it is meaningless and it will never be paid back by anyone so let’s stop pretending.
This is also one of those things that should go without saying but since we have Trump… being on trial is an automatic disqualifier for any office. Sort your shit out first and then run for office. Absolutely no indulgences for someone to bark about political persecution even if it is true. Deal with it and then come back.
There needs to be something done about political accusations of cheating/voter fraud too. Making such an accusation should be as ruinous as making any other false accusation although I know mileage varies considerable depending on what kind of accusation it is. But still, bring proof or die.
This seems like it would be far too easy to weaponize by indicting a candidate for some trumped-up offense, thereby disqualifying them from running.
Winston both thrived and failed in an electoral system that does just that. There is a kind of fiction that the electorate votes for an individual locally (their constituency MP), but in practice, they vote for the party they either support no matter what or that offers them the best deal. Increasingly, the charisma, record or personality of the party leaders has become much more significant.
Voting in the UK does not require an intelligence test, but all voters must prove their identity.
Convicted criminals can still be MPs until their electorate boots them out.
Yeah, and same for disqualification by any prior felony record: too many things are classed as “felony”.
I don’t think “This is all in response to one man” is a valid objection to implementing any of these reforms. One man has shown the weaknesses of the system and we can’t assume that no one after him will do the same or worse if they can. Let’s shore up the weaknesses so no other man can exploit them.