The dysfunction of representative government is due in no small part to the fact that the Congress has a monopoly on making the laws that govern the nation. The central power of government is lawmaking outlined in the first section of the Constitution. Lawmaking is superior to presidential and judicial power. Fortunately, lawmaking is the only avenue through which the People can most easily participate in their own governance as citizen legislators.
This same solution was successfully addressed by an earlier generation of American Progressives at the turn of the 20th century. They copied the direct democracy system of Switzerland, where the people participate in the power of government as lawmakers, using initiatives drafted by ordinary citizens and presented to the entire electorate for decision. (Freedom is participating in power as Marcus Cicero defined 2000 years ago.)
Unfortunately, the Swiss model has a major flaw that was copied by Americans: the initiative legislative process is integrated into the structure of representative government. This permits representatives to continually sabotage the People's initiative lawmaking process since they rightly view it as diluting their power.
Even in the face of an inadequate initiative process, Americans have over 100 years of legislative experience at the state and local levels of government, where citizens in 23 states have been enacting laws by initiative. Obviously, the solution to the flaw imported from Switzerland would be to make the citizen lawmaking process independent of representative government.
Clearly, if American citizens are qualified and able to make laws at the state and local levels of government, they are equally qualified to make laws at the national level, where federal laws are superior and take precedence over state and local laws.
A recent survey, conducted by the Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, reported that a full 90 percent of voters lack confidence in the country's political system. There has never been a better time to enact legislation empowering Americans citizens to initiate and enact laws at the federal level of government. The government will never do this. Therefore the people must do it by going around the government.
The authority for voters to go around the government to directly enact legislation nationally that empowers American citizens to henceforth enact laws by initiative rests on the immutable premise that there is no authority superior to the People ---- neither the Constitution nor the government it created. Our Constitution begins with "We the People " do ordain -- According to our Founding Fathers, the People can make changes to the Constitution they deem necessary to their happiness. In their own words:
"The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government." -- George Washington, 1787
"The people were, in fact, the fountain of all power. " They could alter constitutions as they pleased."-- James Madison, 1787
"Each generation has a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes is promotive of its happiness."---- Thomas Jefferson, 1812
"All power is originally in the People and should be exercised by them in person, if that could be done with convenience, or even little difficulty. -- James Wilson 1789
Unfortunately, the Constitutional Framers failed to provide procedures in the Constitution for the People to amend the Constitution as they did for elected representatives in Article V. The Framers established slavery in perpetuity in the Constitution, and they rightly feared the people would remove slavery if the People were provided procedures to amend the Constitution.
Lacking procedures to amend the Constitution and realizing the Congress would never act on such a matter, the only recourse People have is to take direct amending action in a national election conducted by a nonprofit entity with transparent electoral procedures better than any government election in our history. Taking this direct electoral action is the only hope the People have to ever overcome and end the controlling power of the elite 1% short of a violent revolution. This electoral process is legal in that it follows the same electoral process established in Article 7 of the Constitution, which created our government. Bernie has the organization and financial wherewith all to undertake this national election.
Over the last couple decades, colleagues and I have drafted a legislative package, the Citizens Amendment to the Constitution and a Citizens Legislative Procedures Act, incorporating the same legislative procedures that govern the U.S. Senate and most legislative bodies. We have also thought through the tactics to circumvent the government to bring about its enactment as the law of the land.
The heart of our efforts is the six sections of the Citizens Amendment to the Constitution of the United States herein summarized:
Section 1. Asserts the authority of the people to establish an independent Legislature of the People with the power to enact, repeal and amend public policies, laws, charters and constitutions; Section 2. Sanctions the national election and the enactment standard for the ratification of the Citizens Amendment and the enactment of the Citizens Legislative Procedures Act; Section 3. Establishes a Citizens Trust with a board of Trustees and a director to conduct initiatives elections and administer legislative procedures on behalf of the People; Section 4. Defines the standards to henceforth amend constitutions and charters, and the standards for enacting laws; Section 5. Only natural persons can introduce initiatives and contribute funds for their enactment or defeat; and Section 6. Establishes the power to enforce the Citizens Amendment in the Citizens Legislative Procedures Act and additional appropriate legislation.
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