Radical suggestion I know is unlikely to happen: the presidency is arguably too big for one person, and a lot of the issues we’re mentioning arise from entrusting the office to one person. So amend the Constitution (I know, I know) to create a three-person Presidency, each President with a six-year term and one elected every two years. Since we’d be amending the Constitution anyhow I’d abolish the Electoral College system and have the Presidents directly elected.
Every decision the President makes now – sign or veto a bill, appoint judges and officials, issue pardons, etc. – would require the concurrence of two Presidents. Arguably, there should be some very grave decisions (declarations of war?) that require all three, but I’m reluctant to give one Trump-like President the power to withhold their vote in dire circumstances not because they’re actually against the decision but to extort some concession. Maybe three required for war except in cases of invasion or rebellion?
I suggest a Presidential election every two years because then every Congressional election is also a Presidential election, with no midterms for less-interested voters to “blow off”. Would it mean essentially constant campaigning, like the House of Representatives? Possibly, but the stakes wouldn’t be so high with only one-third of the Presidency up for grabs at each election.
More generally, there wouldn’t be so. damned. much. invested (literally, figuratively, emotionally, consequentially) in each Presidential election.
I’d be in favor of Constitutional Amendments as follows:
“Vacancies in the Supreme Court that occur within 6 months of a Presidential general election data shall not be filled until after the following presidential term begins. Supreme Court nominations must be voted on by a quorum of the Senate within 30 days of nomination. If no such vote is taken, the nomination shall be confirmed.”
“Presidential pardons shall not be issued between a Presidential General Election and Inauguration Day. Presidents may not pardon themselves or any member of their family or administration.”
Very good question by the OP - but I’m not sure of any workable way to address it.
This is the biggest problem. And it isn’t just on-line media. Mainstream media LOVED the carcrash of his campaign, and gave him incredible unpaid publicity. The media was IMO too hesitant to call BS, and to marginalize/ignore him. Instead, they gleefully profited by spreading his venom. So the press could be more self regulating, but I don’t see any way to legislate that. There MIGHT be something regulatory along the lines of requiring equal access to opposing political viewpoints, but I have no idea how that would work.
I think the electoral college - and the Senate makeup - is problematic, but others feel it best suits our federation of states. And I doubt any significant changes are doable. Gerrymandering and redistricting should be addressed. And I could imagine some encouragement of consistency in terms of states’ electoral practices. Increasing registration is desirable, and attempts to disenfranchise should be aggressively targeted.
Senate rules are so damned complex, I have no idea what could be done to constrain someone like McConnell. I hope I would be as offended by someone who as as effective but representing MY positions.
I think some manner of term limits would be a good idea. It does not thrill me to see the power in both houses being held primarily by old white people in their 70s and 80s. And probably term limits for the Supremes. Give them a good 15-20 years, and then, thank you sir/maam.
Some amusing - but entirely unworkable solutions would be a test or qualifications for voters. But I have no idea what criteria would be used and who would come up with them.
A friend of mine proposes that anyone who WANTS to be elected should be disqualified, and that positions should be randomly assigned.
The problem with this approach is that with the US electorate divided fairly evenly between two parties, it is highly likely that after each election you’d end up with a 1 Democrat, 2 Republicans or 1 Republican 2 Democrats scenario (given that you also advocate for popular vote being the sole decider), where the odd person out is prone to petty obstructionism against the other two, resulting in deadlock and ineffectualness.
This is reminiscent of the 1796 presidential election, where back then the vote total runner-up became the vice president, and we had the absurdity of the president and the vice president being from competing parties, and this quagmire had to be resolved by the 12th Amendment.
I think it’s still better to have a one-person presidency, as in time of crises it’s not good to have squabbling between a triumvirate slow down what should be (or at least project a public image of) a clear and decisive response. However, I do believe that more codified regulations are needed to prevent demagogues from attaining the presidential nomination in the future.
(bolding mine) As mentioned above, I’d amend (haha) this to “between the September 30 immediately preceding the Presidential General Election and Inauguration Day.”
If some future Individual Two wants to pardon a few hundred white collar criminals, I want to give the future version of this guy time to change his mind about his vote.
I was thinking about that, and I was tempted to have one President of the three be decisive on military and diplomatic issues but two on domestic matters like signing or vetoing laws, judicial appointments, and pardons. United front to the world, messy but necessary checks and balances at home.
Yes, in my haste I didn’t really catch the part where you said only two of the three are required for most normal-level decisions, apologies for that. This improves things, but the 1v2 scenario that I brought up earlier would render it much like how things currently operate anyway, except that it would be in 2-year periods instead of 4-year ones.
Which I am not sure is a good or bad thing. Perhaps good if two of the triumvirate are nefarious actors, but also bad if our goal is to make progress in complex and tortuous issues like health care or climate change.
Overturn Citizen’s United. There’s basically nothing you can do until you remove the ability for overfunded private citizens and corporate entities to purchase candidates and elections. Federally funded elections with ZERO additional money allowed–everyone has the same budget, end of story. Without the need to campaign endlessly our congress members will no longer need to spend the majority of their working hours fundraising. Set a federal standard for elections that requires a paper trail for every ballot and doesn’t allow for removal of polling places to massage results. My own preference would be for Oregon style vote by mail–paper ballots, no need for long lines at polling places.
As for what the current administration could do to prevent a midterm bloodbath and a changeover to an even worse GOP president, the following picture makes it pretty clear. I’ll bet five bucks right now, though, that nothing helpful will be done that isn’t directly mandated by Wall Street and/or the insurance and oil and gas industries.
On the non-legislative side, we need to get rid of the underlying reasons and factors that caused a sense of grievance in the first place. Trump came to power by riding a huge wave of anger and grievance.
Without getting rid of that, you’re only trying to make it harder for Trumpism 2.0 to succeed, not actually preventing it.
We need some basic election reform (the real kind not the Republican kind).
Abolish the Electoral College. Everyone’s vote should have equal weight.
Everyone should have a Constitutional right to vote. Nobody can be disenfranchised without due process as an individual. And they maintain their right to vote throughout the process. No purges right before an election and telling people they can appeal to get their vote back.
We need a Constitutional amendment to override the Buckley decision and all of the bad decisions - including Citizens United - that followed from it. Money should not be treated as a form of speech.
Gerrymandering is also a problem. But it’s a tough one to solve. I don’t see an obvious solution that would prevent partisan abuse. We can say things like we should have district lines drawn up by a non-partisan body but what’s the mechanism for creating such a body and keeping it non-partisan?
Declaring bankruptcy, in and of itself, is not a sleazy course of action or a moral failing. Sometimes bankruptcy is the right course of action for an company and its creditors, providing an organized process to get a company back to profitability and leaving creditors in a better position to get some return on what they’re owed.
So, no, I don’t think this should be a criteria for disqualifying a candidate. Voters are free to take the facts of the bankruptcy into account in making their determinations.
First off, I don’t see any solutions that require a constitutional amendment. There are simply too many Republican state legislators that like it just the way it is. Here is the only reform that I see as feasible and then only if the Ds get rid of the filibuster.
Under Article I.4 of the US constitution, Congress has considerable power to regulate elections (at least for the House, but I assume that subsequent amendments would carry them over to the senate):
1: The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.
Given that, Congress could make a law requiring states to allow every citizen to vote and, very importantly, require that there be enough voting stations that no citizen be forced to wait more than 15 minutes. I think this is an important point often ignored by people suggesting changes. I think they could require independent commissions to draw up congressional districts and all this, relying on the explicit and rather expansive words cited above, should survive SCOTUS. Even Trump admitted that if everyone votes, Rs cannot win.
This leaves state legislatures badly gerrymandered but I see no way of ending that. It is still unlikely that states would have different voting registration requirements for state and federal elections. “Oh sorry, you qualify for a federal ballot but you need your gun permit to qualify to vote for state elections.”
I think this is the single most important thing we can do, but I’m convinced that it’s not going to happen until a Democrat wins the Presidency with a popular vote minority. If that happened, the GOP would go absolutely berserk and Congress would be voting on an amendment the next day.
We need a new Voting Rights Act that makes vote-by-mail the standard everywhere and stops voter suppression in its tracks. No more of this nonsense of one drop box for a whole city—politicians who pull that stuff should go to prison. Let’s snuff out voter ID talk once and for all.
I’d suggest using computers and AI to draw district lines as fairly as possible, with a nonpartisan commission overseeing the process and tweaking where necessary (like if a district line goes through someone’s house, or other weird stuff).
I’d abolish the Electoral College system and have the Presidents directly elected.
