Fixing a broken system

[unixronin]

For those who haven't seen it yet, this essay on reforming the US political system makes a hell of a lot of sense.

Some of the author's key points:

• Absolute term limits for ALL high elected offices -- eight years in the House, the Senate, and/or the Oval Office, combined, and term limits for political appointees as well.  It's public service; it shouldn't be a lifetime career.
• No more lesser of two evils -- put a binding "None of the above" on ALL ballot choices, including for the Presidency.  If "None of the above" gets more votes than any candidate, nobody is elected for that office, and there has to be a new election for it with all new candidates.
• Shorter election seasons -- You get 60 days to get your message across, instead of spending two years of your first term working on getting elected for the second.
• Shorter congressional sessions -- Congress should sit for only 60 days at a time, then go home, "because nobody's life, liberty or property is safe when Congress is in session."
• Representative Congressional pay -- the pay you get as Congressman, Senator or President is the median income for the constituency you represent.  You say you represent average Americans?  Learn to live like one.

Comments

[jmkelly.livejournal.com]

I like some of these ideas -- especially representative Congressional pay, "none of the above" and preferential voting -- but term limits suck (and as a California resident I speak from experience). When you get a jerk in office, term limits means two years later he's not gone, he's just in another office. When you get a good one -- it happens sometimes -- two years later term limits takes him away.

We have always had term limits, of a more discriminating sort that allowed us to throw out the bad and keep the good -- they were called "elections".

All term limits do now in California is force politicians to shuffle from one office to another. Thompson anticipates this objection by broadening the definition of office and by applying term limits to staff positions as well -- but he leaves out lobbyists, and lobbyists' assistants, and lobbyists' consultants, and so on -- perhaps because he realized that the shuffle is limited only by human ingenuity, and such attempts to limit it are futile.

Want real term limits? Have each politican shot at the end of his or her term. Anything short of that is just wanking. But all in all, regular elections -- with some real curbs on campaign spending, and none of this "free speech for corporations since they're legally persons" bullshit -- are far better.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Want real term limits? Have each politican shot at the end of his or her term.

I like it. You think we can get Congress to pass it?

-Ogre

[jmkelly.livejournal.com]

I don't know -- seems impossible, but they just might be just stupid enough. "Have you seen these polls, Senator? Oh, and Bechtel called -- they strongly support."

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I follow your point, but I think that along with the other reforms mentioned, much of the issue you raise would be addressed. As has been previously pointed out in this thread, politics can support corruption only as long as it's profitable. If it stops being a money tree, the corrupt will move elsewhere to more profitable niches.