5 things to change the political system in America

[Cascadian]

What 5 things would you change to improve the political system in America? Here are my 5!

1. Abolish the Electoral College: It should (MUST!) be 1 man/woman for 1 vote. The 2000 and perhaps the 2004 election should have given the Democrats the White House. The popular vote had been won. Still, the electoral college cast their lot to the Bushites. This is a very flawed, disengnuous, and outdated system.

2. East Coast calling the election before the West can even vote: Get the TV networks NOT to call the Presidential election before the West Coast is done voting. I am sick of the East Coast bias of the networks. Could somebody PLEASE get them to knock it off until we in Washington, Oregon, California, Hawaii, and Alaska are done voting.

3. Allow for more diversity in political choices: Namely make the playing field fairer for all third parties. Create laws that allow them to have more exposure and make it easier for them to actually partcipate in the political system. How should we be allowed only 2 parties to choose from? Voters in countries like Canada, Britain, The Netherlands, and Spain have more choices because they all have more than 2 political parties. A multiparty system as opposed to a duopoly makes for more democracy.

4. Question Period: Every week, the Executive Branch should be held accountable for their actions by coming before the House of Representatives for a Question Period. Put their feet to the fire. It would do good for this Administration to be more accountable.

5. Ban Corporations from donating money to the politicians, parties, and organizations: Who the hell says that Corporations are individual citizens? They are the huge reason the system is messed up! If CEO's want to contribute money, let them but make small enough that they won't taint our system. They also must contribute as private citizens and not representing corporate entities.

So there you have it. Now, what 5 things would you change in the political system?


John

[illinoisprogressive]

1. I like 4 out of the 5. The ? thing is not really needed if

congress had been doing it's job in the first place. The committees do that oversight and look pretty close and often into things. But, 109 congress did squat. And if your suggestion was in place they would have either not done it at all or abolished it or not ask anything.
4 would not be an issue if what should have been done was in the first place.

[cyclezealot]

2. Good priorities; Mine are.

In order.
1. Ban corporate money from buying TV ads. Ban corporate money from controlling campaigns. Public financing. Public financing would end up saving US taxpayers. I'd reduce government support of corporate interests.
2. Make electoins representative and democratic. Accountability of the vote: also, end winner take all. Have elections reflect vote percentages for all parties. The Congress' political makeup would reflect the popular vote. We might even have a Green congress member in my system.
3. Break up the media. More public control over electronic media. Allow for more community TV.
4. I like the idea of public questioning of the president. Make the president appear before the Congress in questioning period. He pulls his pants on like everyone else.
5. End TV campaign spot ads. Presidential debates both after and before the primaries are given free prime time and questions must be spontoneous by a panel of journalists and audience members.
6. Members of COngress given free tv air time. Limit their campaign cash , should we not get public financing. Limit it to say, 85,000 dollars for COngress; Senate, $250,000 to $500,000 depending upon the size of the state.

[Cascadian]

5. All are good ideas.

For the media, I would also bring back the fairness doctrine in the media as well.


John

[cyclezealot]

9. heah. cascadian

we both approve of your rose. Fairness doctrine a big +1000.

[MrRobotsHolyOrders]

3. All helpful for my 2012 run for governor, actualy.

1) Instant Run-Off Voting would completely change the way we think of voting, mostly by making life tougher on fence sitters, and brining viability to reasonable third party voices.

2) Public funding of elections.

3) Crazy hat day. So, people in Washington had to choose between 'Magic' Mike McGavick and Maria Cantwell (or a suprisingly awesome Green candidate, or a batshit crazy millionaire Libertarian). Awful right? Not if they had to wear gigantic fucking crazy hats.

4) Campaign finance with bite. All money out, except for the publicly financed campaign material. If a special interest group wants to push a candidate, they can dump their money into GOTV, or nothing at all.

5) Non-partisan Secretary of States, unified national balloting. One ballot, overseen by a neutral observer. Constitutional issues like a motherfucker, but well, whatever.

[cyclezealot]

4. some states have a non partisan commission

that runs elections. Sounds like a good idea. Maybe there ought to be national law.

[Peace Patriot]

6. These things are not very feasible without TRANSPARENT vote counting!

TRANSPARENT vote counting is the fundamental condition for all other reform. And we have lost all transparency in our vote counting system--which is wide open to insider electronic hacking.

In 2002, the Anthrax Congress passed the "Help America Vote for Bush Act," which appropriated $3.9 billion to fast-track electronic voting machines all over the country--voting machines run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations. This coup was engineered by the biggest crooks in the Anthrax Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney, abetted by corporatist 'Democrats' like Christopher Dodd and Terry McAuliffe. The result has been a 5% to 10% "thumb on the scales" for Bushites, warmongers and corporatists, in almost all Congressional elections since 2004, and certainly in the Presidential election of that year. This is WHY we have SEVENTY PERCENT of the American people wanting the Iraq War ended, and Bush announcing that he is going to ESCALATE the war ANYWAY. He is not beholden to the American people for his power. He is beholden to Diebold and ES&S. And so are too many members of Congress. The people were able to outvote the machines, to a certain extent, in the '06 elections, but Congress is still not sufficiently representative of the majority of Americans, and it is an open question whether this Democratic Congress--with a 30 or so edge in the House, and a slim edge in the Senate (partly due to the fact that only one third of the Senate was up for reelection this time)--can restore Constitutional government and the "balance of powers."

The evidence is now in, and the evidence is overwhelming, that this highly non-transparent and corrupt conversion of our election system has had dire consequences for our nation. It is the coup de grace of Corporate Rule. It combines with corrupt campaign contributions, lavish lobbying, a war profiteering corporate news monopoly press, and many other factors, to make change almost impossible. It is the final plank of a fascist program to steal our country. And we must START with this--with overturning these election theft machines and rightwing corporate ownership of our election system, and restore TRANSPARENT elections--as the fundamental condition of all other progressive reform.

Just as a for instance, you say that we need to "Create laws that allow (third parties) to have more exposure...". How do you "create laws" when the lawmakers are beholden to rightwing corporations for their "election"? Maybe you can do it locally, in some cases--say, at the city level, where Diebold and ES&S don't have such an interest in controlling who gets legislative power. But you are blockaded from any such democracy measures at the state level, and certainly at the federal level, where the two big parties have a lock on power, and where a third party is merely used as a dumping place for getting rid of votes for leftist Democrats and promoting fascist candidates, in rigged electronic programming which can switch, 'disappear,' and redistribute votes without leaving a trace.

Reform is not possible without TRANSPARENT elections as its first premise, and fundamental condition. We don't even know if we can stop an out-of-control tyrant from escalating an illegal war that the vast majority of Americans oppose, from torturing prisoners, from ripping up the Constitution, from spying on us, from opening our mail, from attaching hundreds of "signing statements" to laws saying that the laws don't apply to him, and from hiding trillions of dollars in unaccountable expenditures. We DON'T KNOW if we stop him! We've eked out enough of a representative Congress that they are at least trying--some for appearances, some genuinely. It seems obvious to me that non-transparent elections are WHY we can't even expect a minimum level of lawfulness and decency in the White House, and why it is an uphill battle of epic proportions just to achieve that--just to achieve MINIMAL lawfulness and common decency, let alone serious reform.

What's wrong with this picture?

NON-TRANSPARENT elections!

[Larry Allen]

7. If we could do just one thing

If we could do just one thing it would be #5, Ban Corporate Money.

[baldguy]

8. Public funding of political campaigns

Individual donations candidates should be limited to $100 total. If you own 50% of a corporation, and that corporation donates $100 to a candidate then half of that came from you and you can only give a balance of $50. If an individual, corporation or other organization wants to donate more money - great! That money would go into a fund which ALL the candidates would draw on equally.

Cumulative voting for Congressional elections. If your state has 10 Reps in Congress you get to cast 10 ballots, allocating the in any manner you choose: all for one candidate, or split among several. The top 10 candidates with the most votes would win seats.

Election Day should be a holiday. All the polls should open & close at the same time: 9am-12 midnight on the east coast, 6am-9pm on the west coast. And anything we can do to increase voter participation in the election.

Bring back the Fairness Doctrine. Include broadcast, cable and satellite stations. The Bush Regime is the end product of 30 yrs of systematic suppression of liberal and center-left views in the corporate media.

[SaveElmer]

10. 1 Yes...5 not enough...public funding...

2 not really urgent

3 no

4 always a good idea

[hansberrym]

11. Can't agree with #1

First it is an unfortunate fact that Bush won the popular vote in 2004, but Kerry nearly won the electoral college count.

Second, if the votes had been closer there would have been a recount, but at least with the electoral college in place the recount is limited to a few states. Without it all 50 states would have to be recounted which would give even more chances for mischief.

Finally, and most importantly, the reason for the electoral college is that the states are political entities that have a place in our system of government. Ours is not a purely national system, it is a Federal system in which the individual subivisions also have political power. Keeping power dispersed among the many states is part of the checks and balances and it would be unwise to do away with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_2004
Bush received about 51 percent of the votes cast, making him the first presidential candidate to win a majority of the popular vote since his father George H. W. Bush in the presidential election of 1988. At the same time, Bush's 2.5-percent popular vote margin over Kerry is the smallest margin of victory (in percentage terms) for an incumbent president in American history.




I do agree wholeheartedly with #5!