Posted on 07/13/2017 5:10:12 PM PDT by impetrio1
Unlike state elected officials, members of the House of Representatives and United States Senate cannot be recalled. Not because it would take too much organization and/or money on the ground, but because there is no mechanism within the United States Constitution to even make that a possibility.
And who do we have to thank for this?
(Excerpt) Read more at blackandblondemedia.com ...
They dropped the ball on term limits for Exec and Congress. Why would these people vote to change the rules that would effect them.
Constitutional congress called by the State’s is the only way to fix this
Impeachment was their version of recall.
The agenda for the Article 5 Convention of the States should add this.
The Founding Fathers probably thought it wasn’t necessary to consider having recalls for representatives who only serve for two year terms. By the time a recall could be organized the people could simply vote the rascals out. The problem is the people today can’t remember what the heck these scumbags did yesterday, let alone a year ago.
There is no impeachment process for members of Congress. However, the members themselves can vote to expel a member. The only 5 members ever expelled are all DemocRats. Three of them were Confederates, so that doesn’t really count.
Term Limits.
President and Congress.
ONE and DONE.
A Senator was impeached by the House in 1797, but the Senate didn't want to have the House impeaching Senators, so the Senate expelled him instead, setting a precedent for future Congresses.
The Founders wanted representatives to have some freedom from changing public opinion, so they didn't support any recall procedure.
Nonsense.
Recall wasn't necessary. The House was up for reelection every two years, so recalling Congressmen was a matter of just voting for someone else next time.
The Senate was not popularly elected in the Founding Father's Congress, so again, recall was not required. The state legislations would simply choose someone else in the next term to replace a rogue Senator who ignored states' interests.
-PJ
Term Limits
Look how it has worked in California
Impeachment was only one of their methods of recall.
The second amendment is another.
Term limits are not constitutional. The violate one’s right to choose their representatives.
I’m sure our opposition would love to be able to recall those we elected and whom we want to remain in office.
Also, they seem to have more funding and organization to enable them to do so.
I don’t believe our founding fathers thought that there would be a day where being a politician was a life long occupation...
I can see them figuring 2 year terms would take care of the House, but the Senate, yeah. As for term limits, I guess they thought gentlemen would behave in the best interest of the country and not make a career out of serving in Congress.
Repeal the 17th amendment.
Problem solved.
They also didn’t address the possibility of separating the states out again (secession), nor did they address socialism and redistribution, but in fairness, there was no socialism at the time they wrote the Constitution, so it would have been a stretch for them to have protected us against that without knowing what it was.
The root of the problem lies in Article I Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, which states, in part: "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand...". So there is a lower limit on how many constituents each Representative may represent. The flaw is that the Framers did not set an upper limit, which would have controlled the dilution of the vote.
During the course of American history, the number of Representatives was periodically increased, with new congressional districts being added, to account for population growth. But even as the number of Representatives increased dilution still crept in. By the early 20th century representation was down to 1:210,000. Any checks on dilution ended in 1911, when Congress capped its number at 435, ostensibly because they ran out of room for seats in the House Chamber. Had the original 1:30000 ratio been kept to avoid diluting representation, the number of Representatives in Congress (based on the 2010 Census of 309.3 million) would now be 10,310. With the number of seats capped at 435, this means that each Representative now "represents" over 711,000 citizens, a dilution of almost a factor of 24.
At a ratio of 1:30000, running for Congress would be no different than running for Mayor of a small town. The result would be real representation, the election cost would be small (no multi-million-dollar campaign budgets) and hence Representatives would not need to "sell out" to raise money. There would also be much higher turnover, meaning that it would be virtually impossible to "buy" Congress, as lobbyists have done.
The logistics of getting thousands of Representatives to agree on anything would also ensure that only issues of truly national importance would be addressed at the Federal level, with the majority of day-to-day lawmaking being done at the State and local level--exactly as the Framers intended. Ironically, increasing the number of Representatives would be one of the most effective "checks" on the growth in the size of Federal Government because it would make the government truly accountable to We the People it supposedly represents.
Utter nonsense.
The founders didn't drop the ball, the people did.
There is no merit in suggesting improvements to the founders vision when the suggestions are based on the notion we are abiding by the Constitution, which we are not.
Let's use it as the founders intended before setting about to improve or correct their wisdom.
Americas founders established a unique form of governance. The Constitution is unique in its structure and purpose. One reason some people find fault with it is their mistaken belief that the Constitution is about them. The Constitution is solely about how the government is to function within the enumerated legislative powers and only those powers.
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