In this thread – “How would you change the US constitution?” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=327557&page=1&pp=50 – nobody really responded to my specific proposals, so I thought it try a separate thread. The following changes are expressly intended to make the U.S. less of a republic and more of a democracy, in the terms of that old “a republic not a democracy” cliche, if it has any meaning:
Abolish the Senate; devolve all its powers and functions on the House of Representatives. In addition to eliminating the undemocratic malapportionment of power the Senate represents, this would strengthen the legislative branch as against the executive branch, by streamlining its decisionmaking process. See these threads: “Should the United States Senate be abolished?” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=181890 And “Which is better: A one-house legislature, or a two-house legislature?” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=254557
Abolish the Electoral College. Elect the president by direct popular vote using the instant-runoff voting method, which allows third-party candidates to compete without acting as “spoilers.” See this thread: “Instant-runoff voting: avoiding the third-party “spoiler” problem” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=261969
Create a separately elected fourth branch of government, a “Tribunate,” to police the other three, and also to take over all “metagovernmental” functions such as running the elections; the Tribunate to be run by a board of ten tribunes elected by the party-list form of PR; each tribune to have independent investigative powers, but prosecutorial powers to be exercised by the ten tribunes collectively. See this thread: "A fourth branch of government: The Tribunate " – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=264462
Empower Congress to redraw state boundaries, abolish states, merge/consolidate states, create new states, without consent of the state governments affected. This would enable the creation of more rational state units. See this thread: “Do we really need fifty states?” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=239981
Provide for amendment of the Constitution by national referendum, if Congress votes by 2/3 to submit an amendment to referendum.
Provide for a new Constitutional Convention every 20 years, its delegates to be elected by the same method as the House of Representatives (multi-member district PR), but sitting members of Congress not eligible to run. The Convention would be empowered to draft a whole new Constitution or just propose amendments. All proposals of the Convention would be submitted to a national referendum.
Suppose we did all this – what would be the result? What kind of American polity would emerge?
I don’t see how this plan wouldn’t be corrupted by a single party seizing control, unless something is done about Gerrymandering congressional districts.
It is a pipe dream. The states will never give up their existence to the Federal government. Further the rural region will not give up the power the Senate give them.
There’s no need for the fourth branch to police the current three. The constitutional system we have now has checks and balances already. Essentially, each branch is overseen (checked/balanced) by the other two.
I don’t see how the Senate is undemocratic. It is the representation of the separate state governments to the national legislature. Although the method of selecting the state representation has changed, the senatorial function has not.
Abolishing the Electoral College is a tough call. Many people, such as I, support its continued existance. Many people decry it.
There is no need to hold a convention every 20 years to consider amending the Constitution. You are free right now to draft an amendment and have it considered.
There is certainly no need to stipulate a national referendum for amending it as there is currently an option to have state conventions consider amendments.
The current state boundaries are as they are due to historical events, most notable event, of course, is that is the size of the state up;on its request for and then admission to the Union. Redrawing them willy nilly ignores the simple fact that the state was admitted as a unit, as a people if you will, to the Union.
All in all, I’d say the Constitution is a pretty nice document and a flexible one at that.
For all the things that are “wrong” with this country, I just don’t see our form of government being one of them. I’d be strongly opposed to all of them, except maybe number 3, which I’d lean against.
A Constitutional convention every 20 years sounds like a disaster. This country has been well served by having a stable form of government, in which pretty much everyone knows and plays by the rules. I can’t imagine the chaos if, in addition to changing governments every four to eight years, we changed constitutions every 20.
Besides that, have you seen the polls about how few Americans would support the Bill of Rights if they were to vote on it today? Shocking! I say the Founding Fathers were right: a little buffer between the Unwashed Masses and the Enlightened Few isn’t such a bad thing.
Hm. Of course, good portions of the US are net-money losers. Okay. Starting from zero, assuming typical venality, how can this new system be abused?
I do like the nod to the Ten Doges of Venice, but… well, brain not working this early in the morning.
Abolishing the Senate means that the cheap pandering laws that make congresscritters look good will not die after being passed in one house but not the second. So the net effect will be many more laws passed… on hot-button issues that ‘sound good.’
This will mean the Tribunate will be shortly overloaded.
Now, redistricting and eliminating states by whim of Congress, who are elected by the states, means that entire seats can be eliminated at whim by political gerrymandering. Possibly even midsession.
I’m not going to get into 6 and 7 yet. Let’s see how bad this becomes on a day by day basis without throwing in random applecart upsettings. (Like this suddenly becoming a Christian Nation)
Why do you hate America, BG? I actually mean that literally this time. Your proposal would literally rip the country apart. Eliminate the Senate, and we’d have another civil war on our hands. Or, at best, the country would just split along regional lines in a quasi-peaceful manner.
Fankly, BG, all you’ve done is recycled old threads of yours and thrown them up here again. They’ve all been discussed and critiqued. The people who liked them before will like them now. The people who didn’t like them before will not like them now.
I don’t think we should destroy the Senate. Better to keep Congress divided against itself, checking and balancing the House with the Senate and vice versa.
What you want, I think, is to address the unfairness of underpopulated states getting over-represented in the Senate. But I don’t think that’s the place to start if your goal is more say-so for the individual person, less of an oligarchy, etc. The place to make those changes is at the other end of the pyramid: to make local governments more responsive to citizens, and county/town governments responsive to local governments, and state governments more responsive to county/town governments. I don’t know about you, but my city councilschmuck hasn’t asked my opinion on matters any more often than my US Senators. (And at least they make public noise about the issues in front of them and how they intend to vote and what bills they intend on introducing, so I have some idea as to what they’re up to).
Start local and take away their power to actually cast votes — make them propose and debate issues and put them up for citizen referendum, if necessary on a per-neighborhood basis. That’s power to the people.
Sounds like you’re trying to copy us Canadians. We have a senate (largely powerless); a head of state (largely powerless); an Auditor General who periodically reports on government waste and abuses; a lower house of Parliament (i.e. Congress) with virtually total legislative and executive control; our larger provinces could end up being the model when some of your individual states get smushed together along regional lines; and periodic major constitutional changes and attempted changes (Charlottetown Accord, Meech Lake).
And yet we’re not significantly better off. The wholesale shift the OP describes strikes me as unecessary. At best, you’ll end up like us (and we’re by no means perfect). At worst, you’ll fuck yourselves up beyond recognition, swinging from extreme to extreme.
We have “What if?” threads in GD all the time, Steve. What if Alaska were still Russian territory? What if the South had won the Civil War? We’ll never know the real answers to those questions. That doesn’t mean discussion is pointless.
Ah, well, you can’t provide for everything . . . see Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem. The principal checks on the Tribunate would be (1) the tribunes being elected by the people and (2) the Tribunate’s limited powers – which could be used against the other branches of government only.
See proposal #2. A multimember district system makes gerrymandering impossible. Furthermore, it would encourage the rise of a multiparty system – with the result that there almost certainly would be no majority party in Congress ever again. Meaning, Congress would approve nothing unless it were supported by a working majority of members drawn from two or more parties. This would not paralyze government, because we still would have a separation-of-powers system instead of a parliamentary system – Congress would not need to put together a stable majority coalition to choose the executive. I envision a system where multiparty “coalitions” would form in Congress, but they would be issue-specific coalitions – the alignment of parties WRT tax policy would be different than the alignment WRT abortion, etc.
It is possible to eliminate gerrymanding within the existing, single-member-district system. Just take the redistricting power away from the state legislatures and give it to a special commission of non-officeholders with no personal vested interest in the result. We’re working on that in Florida right now. See this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=314742
). See these threads: “What do you think about proportional representation in the U.S. House of Reps?” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=261571 “A multiparty system is better than a two-party system!” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=269169&highlight=multiparty And “Should the U.S. adopt alternative, pro-multipartisan voting systems?” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=170368