Well, I’m sorta operating under the (probably naive) assumption that there are people for whom this being a servant of the state would be a labour of love, and that among those are at least some also competent enough to do so; as an example, think of civil rights activists or other such people who took up a cause regardless of personal gains (and often at the risk of great personal peril, even).
They are if their competency is directed ultimately towards personal betterment – for instance, adopting popular yet unsustainable short-term measures as opposed to long-term plans to resolve fundamental problems in order to become more electable, or other instances of choosing the popular over the reasonable option.
Why not encourage performance bonuses then? Politicians who adhere to their campaign promises, encourage thorough and frequent polling of their constituents on important issues, vote the results of said polls, have a track record of good and thorough response to questions from the public, and transparency in the funding will get paid more than those who play the game dirty.
as to the OP: Financial transparency in all issues but those of national security, and THAT budget is limited by a % increase to be determined in peacetime and another when war is declared.
Legislators names will be attached to every penny spent per bill if they approve it. That means if the Wasteful Spending ON Ten Thousand dollar Golden Buttplug act is passed, every single person who voted for it will have their name on it, as well as an itemized breakdown of the monies spent. This will be easy to find, and will be available to any member of the public at any time. Both online and in hard copy in DC.
Whet he said. Also make votes in the Senate secret.
Also, how about at-large election of the House? That would increase minority members all to heck. (All the Gay voters in the state vote for the Gay candidate, so he gets in.)
Not really. Do you think that elections in, say, North Korea are adversarial? (Of course, there are many reasons not to prefer the North Korean system apart from the fact that elections are non-adversarial there).
I’m another that supports the use of proportional representation in congressional/parliamentary elections. Yes, some people will get elected because they are on a party ticket, but that already happens now. What will happen, however, is that:
(1) gerrymandering will end because it will no longer be relevant;
(2) minority parties will have a chance of getting elected;
(3) the party balance will more accurately reflect the real wishes of the voters;
(4) it will be much more unlikely that a minority of voters can elect a majority of representatives.
I always shudder at the suggestions of term limits and line item vetos and things like that.
My suggestion, seeing as Guy Fawkes isn’t a “change” per se, would be, for the US at least, the non-delegation doctrine being given some teeth, the administrative state rolled back, transfering power back from the executive to the legislature.
Question time works in a parliamentary system based on Westminster because the parliament (specifically, the lower house) can sack the executive at any time, so the executive has a real responsibility to the parliament. It would not be so meaningful in a presidential system like that in the US.
(And the possibility of a vote of no confidence works both ways in a parliamentary system, because it imposes stronger party discipline. No confidence not only means a change of government, but by convention also means a general election, where the MPs who voted against their government will face the voters without the support of the rest of the party that supported the former government. So the government will only fall if a majority of MPs believe that the voters will support a change in an election.)
Wow, just one? Well, it seems my major changes have already been mentioned.
Bills can only be about one subject - Check
Term limits - Check
Rollback of federal government authority - Check
So, I’ll something that’ll probably be criticized as being unworkable, and that is, members of congress can only vote on a bill if they read the whole thing first.
While true, Giles, the ability of Congress to question the President on anything and have him forced to explain it? That might have stopped the first war… or impeached Bush when it was proved he was lying.
I really like the single subject bills. Can we expand that to require that every new law passed under the new stipulations must first remove two multi-subject laws of related nature?
Well, both the UK and Australia have a parliamentary system with question time, but their PMs (Tony Blair and John Howard) got their countries into the Iraq War in spite of that. In the US Congress, before they authorised the war, they could have questioned the administration’s assertions about the reasons for the Iraq War, but practically all decided not to (probably because questioning the war would have been politically unpopular).
Even after the Dems got a majority in 2006, and had the political power to stop spending money on the Iraq War, they lacked the political will to do so. Why? Because stopping the money would have been seen as “not supporting the troops”, rather than forcing the administration to bring them home. So I don’t see how question time would change anything there.
I’d be a fan of this idea if I felt it was possible to make it work properly, but regrettably I believe this is impossible.
This Joel on Software article does a better job than I of expressing concerns with this practice:
I think this causes real problems with publicly traded companies, where the short term stock market price of the company is inflated even if that is harmful to the company in the long run.
In the context of federal or state government and campaign promises there would be even more opportunity for mistakes to be made in setting up the measurement process, leading to incentives for things that may not be appropriate to the long term sustainability of the government. There is already a future-electability incentive to meet campaign promises, I’d hate to see that if conditions change and implementation of the campaign promises no longer makes sense that the politician is still pushing for them while thinking about their bonuses!
Pretty much sums it up for me. Also would add that pay, retirement eligibility and packages plus business expense amounts be voted on by the people whom they represent (county, state, national etc.) and be monitored by independent accounting firms.
Here’s what I think needs to be done.1. Redistricting must be based solely on number of people, and not political party, race, religion, etc. Districts gerrymandered for particular interests, especially political parties, encourage candidates to appeal to their “base” rather than the interests of their constituency as a whole. That encourages extremism and not moderate consideration.
2. Increase the size of the House to 1000 members. The small House means that districts are large and do not represent single communities. This change combined with the first will increase the connection between representatives and their constituencies. It has the side effect of watering down the disproportion of the Electoral College.
3. Approval voting for all office elections. This voting method lets voters vote for as many or as few candidates as they wish for each office. The candidate with the most votes wins. This is a simple system, requiring little change in ballots or counting, and little voter education. It avoids the ordering problems of ranked voting systems like Instant Runoff. This system gives centrist candidates the best chances to win. And it also improves the power/perception of third parties, since you can vote for your favorite third party and your favorite major party.
4. By district allotment of the Electoral College. No more statewide winner-takes-all. Each Congressional district votes directly for its Elector. The two “Senatorial” Electors are still voted for statewide. This will work well, once the previous three changes are made.
5. Defined and limited terms on the Supreme Court. I recommend a single eighteen year term, staggered with appointments in off years (2009, 2011, 2013, …). No one may be appointed more than once, period. This will make the court appointments less political because of the constant turn-over.
This is exactly why approval voting is what we don’t need. It is a recipe for the least unpopular candidate rather than the most popular, and it pushes everyone towards the center. God knows that happens enough at the moment.
Elections under any system are “adversarial.”