If you could make one change to the US political system...

[LostInAnomie]

... what would it be?

I would make the maximum political donation a person can give to a candidate and political party $1.

I would do this because I feel the political system is currently hopelessly corrupted by money. Removing the money from politics would level the playing field for all and remove the incentive for politicians to become corporate whores.

[BattyDem]

1. Limiting a person to $1 won't do any good ...

we must limit CORPORATE donations.

[wurzel]

6. A Corporation is a legal "person". Each could give only a dollar

[DURHAM D]

10. The law I would change is to stop calling a corp. a legal person. eom

[long_green]

37. that's mine too...

take away the Constitutional protection given corps. by interpretations of the 14th Amendment.

[BattyDem]

16. Oh ok ...

I didn't realize a corporation was defined as a person. :-) I was thinking in the literal sense of the word, not the legal sense.

[wurzel]

2. Give right for every worker to get paid leave to vote.

[Egalitariat]

3. I would allow everyone to vote in both primaries****

nm

[ck4829]

4. My change - The 'christian' Right can no longer have influence...

over America.

Change that and then you can change everything, IMO.

[DURHAM D]

14. Yeah - tax the churches. eom

[More Than A Feeling]

29. Churches aren't taxed because they are charities

are you willing to remove tax-free status from all charities? It's already illegal for ministers to endorse candidates from the pulpit, would you strip them of their rights to talk about political issues, and who defines "political"? What would happen to freedom of religion and speech in this country if you did?

Before churches are taxed these questions must be answered. The system is set up the way it is for reasons that have nothing to do with the religious right.

[Hubert Flottz]

30. Tax them !

TAX THEM!

[DURHAM D]

32. Right now they have it both ways - they don't pay property taxes,

even on their for profit enterprises and they do endorse candidates from the pulpit and give in-kind contributions.

Ex.: I live in the shadow of Duke University - the univeristy campus, the medical center, their top flight golf course, their off campus upscale housing, their soon to be built commerical strip center and their 4 star hotel are not on the property tax rolls and that is just the beginning of what the univeristy owns. Duke (like other major private universities) has continued their very slight affiliation with the Methodist church in order to avoid paying property taxes. As a result of the single biggest land/property owner in the county not having to pay a dime the remaining property owners have very high taxes and the county has a constant struggle to fund the schools, etc.

To rub it in our face the basketball coach (the famous Coach K) hosted a big (very successful) and well publicized fund raiser for Elizabeth Dole on campus went he endrosed her candidacy.

[More Than A Feeling]

42. That's interesting, I didn't know that about universities

Do you have a link, so I may read more about universities, churches, and being tax free?

[DURHAM D]

44. The only link is in my brain but the Catholic Church is one of the

biggest property owners in the country, if not the world. The Mormon Church also big land owner, department owners, and grocery stores. It is not just property taxes they avoid. They have something called the divinity tax - when Duke, and I assume institutions like Yale, Harvard, Notre Dame buy goods (computers, office supplies, athletic equipment, food, automobiles, etc.) they don't pay sales tax. Meanwhile, the state universities pay the sales tax.

[Arkana]

5. Make Election Day a national holiday.

[Todd B]

24. I've always thought that Election Day

should span across a five day period. Let everyone get a chance to get out and vote.

It would also allow for a fair and accurate count of the paper ballots that would be mandated.

Of course, we could also have the official Democratic/Republican draft each year to shake things up. *g*

[Imagevision]

39. No work on election day - no voting machines without paper receipt!

[deadparrot]

7. Eradicate electronic voting.

Require a paper trail.

[firefox]

8. Direct vote with a majority required for all public offices n/t

This would end the two-party system that is used to control everything by the powerful for the powerful. It sounds simple, but it would change everything. That is why the issue is never raised in the controlled media or spoken from our "leaders" in Warshington.

In NC 40 percent is enough for victory. This means The Largest Minority Rules.

This is my biggest statement in all of politics. Here are the Google results for "The Largest Minority Rule"- http://tinyurl.com/dd3vm There are only 17 results and almost all of them are me. It deserves its own monthly thread here at DU. It is that big of a deal.

Thanks for asking the big question.

[wli]

12. proportional representation in the legislature's also needed

[hwmnbn]

9. get rid of machines with secret "proprietary" code.

Paper trail with open and transparent tabulating.

Is that too much to ask?!?

[Darranar]

11. Proportional representation in the Senate. n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. Go to a parliamentary system with a Prime Minister.

One that can be deposed by a majority in the House of Representatives.

It would break the stranglehold of the One Party called Two Parties that we have now.

[BattyDem]

17. I'd pay money to see Bush on the hot seat in the House of Commons!

:evilgrin:

[splat@14]

23. I like it.

[long_green]

36. "Would the right honorable gentleman PLEASE...

repeat the question again?"

[niallmac]

21. I think your on to something.

It would be the closest thing to re introducing democracy to the United States. This 'Two Party' system is so bloated to my mind that it seems to exist simply to digest new ideas and turns them into Kraft bland cheeze. Lets get some real diverse dialogue back into our governing process.
Just as a garnish i would like to see some creative sentencing of the WH criminals when all that finally comes down. Hanging or life in prison is so pre 911. I would like to see them all forced to tour the country presenting the stage version of Animal Farm...for....ever.

[devilgrrl]

15. Only people who make less $500,000 a year are eligible to run.

I'm sick of this country being run by trust fund kids and CEO's, time for normal boring people to take over.

[mcscajun]

18. Eradicate "corporate personhood"

It's all been downhill since that...

[baldguy]

35. Bing

Go

[Liberaler]

19. Split both the

Democratic and Republican party into smaller parties. As it is now, the system is static and no real progress is beeing made by any party. It's like looking at a stalemate in chess.

Any country with only 2 main political parties gets very polarized and everything is black and white due to the nature of only 2 political ideas. In the long run, this will hurt any nation.

[mixedview]

20. Supreme Court - term limits for justices. /eom

[etherealtruth]

22. Allow confidence /no confidence votes ...

[applegrove]

25. Make the President show up in congress to ask "prepared" questions

3 days a week like they do in the parliamentary system. With prepared questions (one day advance) there is not "I don't know". And then there is a debate back & forth where the President has to defend his position.

Why the hell should the president get to hide behind speeches & Scotties?

Should the public not get to see him 'thinking on his feet'?

[Hubert Flottz]

26. Send every lobbyist in Washington to Iraq!

Fire Bush and Cheney and hire a couple of veterans!

[demosincebirth]

27. Parliamentary System

[walldude]

28. I'd go one better than a dollar

no public finance of campaigns at all. No public or private donations, each candidate is given money from a fund created by taxes. Each candidate gets the same amount of money and TV time. Level the playing field. If the freepers are true to their word :eyes: they should love this, after all, George Soros and all those horrible Hollywood liberals really run this country :eyes:

[Junkdrawer]

31. Paper ballots, hand counted in public....

everything else is soluble...

[lumpy]

33. How about being able to vote for

all members of Congress not just the ones from a voters state?

[DanCa]

34. Personhood begins after the womb

And than I'd make it unreversable.

[OrlandoGator]

38. Outlaw all political parties under the Federal RICO Act.

n/t

[Alcibiades]

40. Enforce the separation of Church and state

so that churches that took part in politics would have to register as political organizations and lose their tax-free status.

[PurityOfEssence]

41. Get rid of the electoral college

Of course, the greatest danger to our Republic is this unverified electronic voting criminality, but you were asking for a substantive change to our political system.

If every vote REALLY counted, everywhere, then the very narrowness of the reactionaries platform wouldn't play as well.

Hell, small states an underpopulated ones already have a compensating mechanism with the Senate; that should be enough.

So much of the country is completely ignored because of the winner-take-all nonsense of this archaic institution. Kill it.

[Caleb]

43. Give D.C. statehood

We would get extra electoral college points and two more Senators.

[Lannes]

45. I would model congress more like the house of commons

As far as question and answer.Faster paced debates,the abilty to call the opposition out on their BS instantly.The ability to question the president more vigourously,less crapola from press secretaries.


On the money side I would set a maximum limit for all parties to receive in contributions so it isnt a question of who could outspend the other.