I heard Glen Beck, who, generally, I never agree with, say it.
I agreed with him. Huh?
The congress is screwing both the left and the right.
These politicians are playing games making decisions that are not based upon constituent interestes, not based in the nation's interests. They're making decisions based on their personal interests, based on the goal of keeping their jobs forever. They all want to be Strom Thurmonds, becoming octogenarian legislators-- either that or Jim Greenwoods, grabbing high ticket CEO salaries working for the companies that used to successfully lobby them.
It's time for the grassroots on the left and the right get together and clean up all the lousy politicians on both sides. There are some areas where agreement CAN be found. For all I know, some of these may push the wrong buttons for some. They're just a first draft. Pass these around to people on the other side of your aisle. Let's band together and force congress to clean up, for good.
1- Institute term limits-- non-negotiable term limits. Three two year terms for members of congress. Two three year terms for senators. Rotate the congressional terms just like senate seats are rotated. Change the term of office for president to three years, with one second run allowed.
2-Clean up the voting system so it can't be gamed. No touch screens. Only paper ballots to be counted. No counts by computer.
3-Voter ID for all voters-- for free, issuable on voting day.
4-Instant run-off voting, or something like it, where voters can pick their first choice, and then, if that choice isn't among the top candidates in the running, he is dropped and the second choice candidate is credited with your vote.
5-Equal treatment to third party candidates. This allows shifting coalitions, more like a parlaimentary system, for closer representation.
The goal is to throw out all the ancient incumbents, get legislators to start looking at the short term. This will get power back to the people.
The left and right can compete on political issues. But both sides want real representation, democracy, not patrimony or feudalism. Who knows, if the left and right join forces to clean up an incredibly unpopular congress, they may even find other ways to work together and pull America up by the bootstraps.
Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com and is a columnist with Northstarwriters.com. He is a frequent Speaker on Politics, Impeachment, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero's journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. He is a campaign consultant specializing in tapping the power of stories for issue positioning, stump speeches and debates. He recently retired as organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.
To learn more about me and OpEdNews.com, check out this article.
and there are Rob's quotes, here.
To Watch me on youtube, having a lively conversation with John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here Now, wouldn't you like to see me on the political news shows, representing progressives. If so, tell your favorite shows to bring me on and refer them to this youtube video
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A few declarations.
-While I'm registered as a Democrat, I consider myself to be a dynamic critic of the Democratic party, just as, well, not quite as much, but almost as much as I am a critic of republicans.
-My articles express my personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.
1. I'm not big on term limits because it is a complicated job, but I think recalls should be implemented as well as more transparency. Recall can be a problem, but there will always be problems in a democracy -- there is no getting around that and there is no substitute for educated voters. And that brings up things like getting pre-election information to the voters, such as the League of Women Voters used to do, and also sample ballots mailed out to everyone. It's been amazingly difficult for me to find out even who will be on the ballot in upcoming elections.
The idea is to get experienced people, but not imbedded fictures. Finance reform -- public financing -- would help
2. Paper ballots -- possibly with computer assisted available for the handicapped (although I don't understand how that would help, I've seen people call for it), but also plain paper as standard -- and always resulting in actual paper for the actual ballot.
3. I'm not sure what the need is. Everythng I've read is that voter fraud by voters is not a big problem. Ballot stuffing and such is not done by voteres, but by the political hacks. Would YOU risk going to prison for impersonating some other person or falsifying ID just to vote -- heck -- it's hard enough to get legitimate voters to the polls.
4. YES! runoff, and proportional. Like that.
5. Third party / independents get cheated now as they are effectively kept out of the sytem by the two monopolizing parties. This is disgraceful -- and terrible for democracy.
by
Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 997 comments)
on Monday, July 2, 2007 at 1:26:13 AM
It has always seemed strange that America, which prides itself on being a paragon of democracy, uses such a crude voting system. In Australia all lower house elections use a preferential system and no-one protests.
The basis of the preferential system is simple: After the votes are counted it is determined whether there is an absolute majority. If so, there is a winner. If not, the person who got the fewest votes is removed and the second preferences are counted. If this results in a majority there is a winner. If not the person then with the fewest votes is removed and the third preferences counted. This is repeated until a clear winner is found.
This may seem complicated and off-puting but when you look at it you see the perfect justice of the method. After the second preferences are counted the vote tally will be exactly the same as if the person who received the fewest votes had not stood, and so on.
This method makes it much more likely that independents can get in. Historically it can be seen that having a few independents in place can prevent major parties from being carried away with excessive and damaging ideas.
by
gravity32 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 175 comments)
on Monday, July 2, 2007 at 2:25:57 AM
Really, the "People" never know what they want. And they never know how to get it.
A Meristocracy is what I believe the founding Fathers were after. A Meristocracy would bring people to power who had gained prominance in their communities by their good works and success. Proven leaders and people of Wisdom and Virtue. Leaders who had earned the trust of their neighbors and then received their votes.
So what happened?
Entrenched power concentrated in certain families who have since betrayed that trust is at least what has happened. Meristocracy turned evil becomes Elitism. A certain sense of Power, Entitlement, Priviledge and Ego rules as opposed to Good works and Virtue.
Vigilance is the price that must be payed and hasn't been.
So what to do?
How does a community again begin to identify People of Genuine Merit and Promote them to the roles of Humble Leadership that our Founding Fathers hoped for for our Nation?
I don't know, But we could start by at least searching out and identifying these People of Merit and asking them for their help.
As for me, I probably won't be looking at the Famous Ideologs of the Left or Right or the New Center(whatever that is). I would be looking for that singular voice of Reason, Intelligence, compassion, Humility and Vision. The Self made Man who's success is a Beacon of Virtue and Utility to his fellow man. A man I would actually know by his conspicuous works.
Not the Media manufactured Icon. Like the Media Manufactured Icons we'll be choosing between in our next already decided, rigged election. Paper Ballots, Touch Screen or what have you!
by
"Hoss" David P. (51 articles, 5 quicklinks, 14 diaries, 338 comments)
on Monday, July 2, 2007 at 5:16:16 AM
I can no more imagine doing business with or trusting in conservative America than with the mafia, you American-hating, treasonous, liberal poltroons, you.
Before thinking too hard about going into cahoots with people of such character, listen to Rush Limbaugh and his audience for about an hour, then imagine shaking hands with and turning your back on that. Imagine a successful venture with the right eradicating the neocon dry rot. What do you suppose would happen then? Something honorable, or something duplicitous?
by
Yaybob (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 174 comments)
on Monday, July 2, 2007 at 5:26:30 AM
The operative assumption of the "term limits" movement is that there's a shortage of hacks and thugs willing to run for office to take the place of incumbent hacks and thugs. Aside from simple naivete, there are problems with the implications. The most obvious problem is it just creates a larger pool of hacks and thugs to be rewarded for their treachery, while genuine service to the voters has no reward at all, not even reelection. Another is it empowers some voters to prevent others from voting for an incumbent they want to retain. The most serious problem is it diverts attention from the real fix: taking big money out of politics.
by
Jim Arnold (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 81 comments)
on Monday, July 2, 2007 at 5:34:57 AM
A Constitutional amendment limiting congressional terms is vital to our nation’s future.
Obtaining passage of that constitutional amendment is the waging of political war. Like a shooting war, it will change history—in this instance a vast change for the better—for the nation and our children and their unborn descendants.
We face the third millennium with a bankrupt country and an evaporating fiat dollar—the result of years of profligate congressional spending—the buying of our votes with our children’s money. We cannot survive with the gang of self-seeking big spenders we have in office now. The Congress we have is dysfunctional.
Present occupants of the luxurious seats in Congress become more insulated and isolated from reality with each passing year of their perceived life tenancy.
It is time to remind Members of Congress that we citizens put them there to serve the country, and not themselves. It is time to remind them that the government exists to serve the people, and not the politicians. We can ill afford a Model T Congress in a jet age.
It has been decades since members actually read what we pay them to vote on, leaving us at the whim of staffers who interpret for them. Staffers are now often the targets of big-time lobbyists.
What is desperately needed is the brand of public servants our founders, authors of the Constitution envisioned—the kind of statesmen who go to Congress to serve. These were to be citizen public servants who would go to Washington to serve their neighbors and their country for a limited time only. They would temporarily leave their citizen pursuits to serve briefly, bringing their everyday heartland common sense with them, then to return home to live among those neighbors after having completed their citizen responsibilities—to live under the laws they have just passed. Why should that sound so bizarre today?
In a country where Presidents can stay only eight years, these hangers on want lifetime tenure. We believe that six year limits in each chamber are adequate for the kind of citizen servants we seek, who see service in Washington as a duty, not a privilege.
Polls show that Americans want congressional term limitation by margins of three-to-one, even four-to-one. This is the issue that separates American citizens, who want to recapture their government, from a careerist-dominated Congress and its illegitimate bureaucratic offspring, the Beltway Elitists, who want to run our lives.
by
Kathlyn Stone (42 articles, 227 quicklinks, 27 diaries, 665 comments)
on Monday, July 2, 2007 at 11:26:10 AM
i haven't really thought about exactly how and how much for term limits but i'd definitely consider your guidelines. i like your other ideas too. i suppose that's not surprising since my twin goals have been to get all eligible voters to be able to easily exercise their right to vote and to assure that their votes are counted as cast.
i like anything that brings power back to where it should reside - with We the People. anything that removes it even to hand it over to our elected officials (or Big Business or private electronic voting machine vendors) is not what our founding fathers had in mind, as i understand it. checks and balances, that's the ticket!
you've given everyone food for thought. thanks, rob!
Joan Brunwasser, voting integrity ed., OpEdNews
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Joan Brunwasser (164 articles, 3540 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 638 comments)
on Monday, July 2, 2007 at 6:48:12 AM
Build a nice middle-class apartment buiding and give each member of Congress a 3 bedroom suite as part of their pay package with free meals in the cafeteria. Then pay them minimum wage. Who'll want the job? People who really care. Automatic expulsion for accepting money or gifts of any kind. Yeah I'm really dreamin' now, but getting the money out of politics is the next step, and that really gets it out of politics.
by
Mark Petersen (9 articles, 73 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 50 comments)
on Monday, July 2, 2007 at 7:04:08 AM
YES! I've been thinking along these lines, Rob. My idea is that Congress be paid the average annual wage of US workers. That way we lose the greed factor (a bit, anyway).
In the early 1990s, Brazil's Congress awarded itself the highest Congressional wage in the world, under the guise of discouraging its members from taking bribes.
George Monbiot writes, "No one could now point to their new cars and new houses as proof that they were taking money to which they were not entitled. High wages, as anyone who has studied remuneration in the corporate sector knows, appear not to satisfy the greed, but to encourage it." (Age of Consent: Manifesto for a New World Order, New Press 2003)
I'm researching this area right now for an oped piece to this effect - based on US Congress giving itself a $2 an hour raise, again, even tho it could only see fit to raise the minimum wage $1.60. They must believe they need the raise more than the poor does.
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Rady Ananda (128 articles, 290 quicklinks, 37 diaries, 1130 comments)
on Monday, July 2, 2007 at 4:26:17 PM
Peace Man,
Have you ever heard of the Worker Ownership of the Mondragon Cooperative of the Basque of Northern Spain? My having worked in a good part of this land, as a Union Electrician, see clearlt how the Unions could make it work in Our Cities. All Our benefits were sent back to Our Home Locals. The Union was the IBEW which stands for, I've Been Every Where, and I'm Broke Every Week. But their principals are a sound foundation to rebuild this Land. The reason D.C. doesn't work, is because the foundation of capitalism favors the rich. Unions could make it work in a heartbeat, if D.C. would only give them the power to work out the details. All the small shops could pool thier own benefit package on city levels.
I hope you get the picture.
Michael Cheverie Dewey-The Cheverie is French Basque, so my heart is in this. No real relation to the Admiral./My ancesters came on the same boat, but mine went to Conn. while his went to Vermont. My Aunt though, did marry Admiral Rodgers son, whp went to Annapilas with H. Ross Perot. My Political hero is Jerry Brown, and I've worked hard to spread this message, but have gotten no where.
by
Carolinanickel (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 17 comments)
on Monday, July 2, 2007 at 7:13:11 AM
basically the repuke party panders to the extreme right MINORITY and the dummicrap party panders to the extreme left MINORITY therefore BOTH parties(The Duopoly) are screwing the MAJORITY of American citizens who are neither 'right' nor 'left'. So though I agree with the majority of what Rob says to me the conclusion is a lil different.
by
BenMarbleMD (22 articles, 0 quicklinks, 217 diaries, 322 comments)
on Monday, July 2, 2007 at 8:13:33 AM
who this extreme left minority is and where they are. I haven't been able to find them -- I don't htink there IS a real left in the US -- and I sure don't know of any left, extreme or not, which the Democrats pander to. The Democrats pander to the money and to themselves.
by
Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 997 comments)
on Monday, July 2, 2007 at 2:49:20 PM
We need to start with 100 %public financed elections
These are great ideas, but they ignore the essential issue: big money. The moneyed power barons have bought the system and are not about to hand it back for us to tinker with. I agree we need to join together at the grassroots, but to win, I beleive we need to marshall our forces on one issue: demanding 100% publicly-funded elections with no loopholes for special interest advertising. If we achieve this, democracy returns overnight. The power brokers will fight like hell to stop us--and very well may succeed. But we increase THEIR odds of success by complexity. I say, let's join together to fight the one issue that undergirds the corruption in our system. Once we eliminate the power of money, we can begin to have an honest argument on how to best do the people's business
by
Bill (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Monday, July 2, 2007 at 11:04:46 AM
the zogby poll we commissioned in PA last year showed that it is more of an issue Democrats and independents support more than conservatives. The idea is to find issues that we can agree on.
by
Rob Kall (869 articles, 4016 quicklinks, 345 diaries, 1847 comments)
on Monday, July 2, 2007 at 11:55:04 AM
The only way I can come up with that would reduce the influence of monied and corporate interests is real campaign finance reform- which I will outline below. However, this would still not lead to a solution to political corruption and bribery -- an example of which is the Duke Cunningham case. Jack Abramoff and lobbyists are another problem - namely "Legal Bribery"
It appears that money is needed by a politician to get his/her "message" out to the masses, and hence has to raise the money to do the needed "education of the masses." It also appears that a vast majority of the population have little money to spare. So the solution appears to lie in a version of public financing of campaigns. The Supreme Court of the US has in its wisdom decided that money equals free speech. The logical extension of this thinking is that the rich are more entitled to free speech than the less well endowed. So how can the playing field be leveled?
One answer is to give every legal resident of the US an equal number of "Free Speech Dollars" (FSD's) which are theirs to spend as they see fit in any political campaign of their choice. But the question remains as to how would such funds be disbursed. The answer to this question is that political candidates and political organization would have to go to the church and union halls to garner those FSD's No longer would such fund raising be limited to the living rooms of the wealthy elite.
The core fund would be financed by tax contributions and volunteer contributions to a central fund by "Good Corporate Citizens" who would therefore have no say in where those monies were ultimately disbursed.
Like health care, elections have become market-focused rather than public centered. Broadcasters make billions in advertising each election cycle. They would not want to change the status quo.
I'm in favor of rolling back FCC rules regarding airtime for issues and candidates, and implementing new ones for cable. Deep pockets shouldn't determine who gets coverage but as well all know, elections are all about money.
by
Kathlyn Stone (42 articles, 227 quicklinks, 27 diaries, 665 comments)
on Monday, July 2, 2007 at 11:17:26 AM
how about we band together in demanding the congress carry out its constitutional obligation and issue the call for an article v convention?
all the ideas rob has up there are debateable, but in spirit they all point in a non-partisan direction.
with corruption as intitutionalized as it is today, only an amendment to the u.s. constitution will have the political weight to level the field, i.e. to institute the reforms the vast majority would like to see.
nothing but an article v convention will accomplish the task at hand, and in addition to that, nothing other will revive the constitution and return the country to the rule of law.
a convention is not about rewriting the constitution, it is about dusting off the one we have and putting it to work in gutting corporate and special interest monies from the legislative branch.
p.s. love the idea above of building a complex, housing members of congress, etc. it is a shrewd way to clear all offices so the people who want to be there for the right reasons can be.
by
john de herrera (36 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 161 comments)
on Monday, July 2, 2007 at 11:19:43 AM
due to the fact the country has been flooded with a hodge-podge of electronic voting equipment.
get educated yourself, the electoral process has been compromised to the point that even if the majority did want change, we can't even vote it into existence--not to mention we only have two squads to the same team to vote for.
by
john de herrera (36 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 161 comments)
on Monday, July 2, 2007 at 3:42:36 PM
I can only agree with you on point 5, third party candidates need to get equal footing. Ballot access needs to be totally reformed so that more candidates can run for office. Your first four points are off, though. Term limits are undemocratic and a capitulation to voter apathy. The answer is really difficult, a fully educated and energized electorate. That takes effort. Are we willing?
Paper ballots are no answer either. Ballot boxes are very stuffable and vote counts would take forever. In the 2006 election, the district I am chairman of had over 300 votes for 10 different contested races. Some of them had two vacancies. If we had to count paper ballots we would have been there well into the early hours of the morning. I favor the opti-scan ballot because the official record is paper that can be canvassed so that the electronic count can be verified. In New York, all elections must be canvassed one week after election day with results being declared official only after said canvas. Let's remember that the count on the night is both unofficial and incomplete. Fall off ballotting doesn't work at all. It was tried for school board elections in New York City and was a disaster. The system was so badly flawed that less than 5% of eligible voters bothered to vote for who would run their children's schools. No wonder the mayor finally took over, no one was running them before.
In the final analysis, government of, by and for the people will only work if people are involved in government. That means expending a little elbow grease and getting off dead center, missing a few TV shows and getting out of the house. From Shakespeare's "Julius Caeser": "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, it is in ourselves."
by
Kenneth Barr (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 83 comments)
on Monday, July 2, 2007 at 3:49:52 PM
that's not the issue. The issue is if there is a permanent record and the votes are real. You can have a paper ballot with check boxes, opticaly scan them for a quick count, and then verify -- but it's still paper and can be recounted. Stuffing is a sepearte problem, as is caging and other frauds, and that won't be cured with technology: it takes careful monitoring and an unbroken chain of security.
The other thing we need is exit polling, which is quite accurate.
by
Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 997 comments)
on Monday, July 2, 2007 at 6:00:07 PM
Exit polling is accurate? I'm not so sure. In fact, I'd like to limit polling as it compromises the secrecy of the individual's ballot, a constitutional "guarantee," and most pollsters use highly questionable methodology. Fo
