You have obviously been thinking hard about all of this. It is a new thought to me that senators and congressmen might be required to debate.But it is not a new thought to me that when you are considering a convention, you can think outside the box. For example, you could dismiss any or all SCOTUS justices, and nobody could say it was unconstitutional!
That goes for the POTUS as well - if the states find a POTUS unacceptable, they can amend the Constitution to assign the job to some other individual. Probably but not necessarily VPOTUS.
Always provided that you can get the supermajority of state legislatures you need to pull it off. And that, say what you will about the high point the Republicans now enjoy, is not a barrier to be taken lightly.
IMHO it is fundamental to the legitimacy of the Constitution that it be, to parody Hobbes, “unnasty, unbrutish, and short. It has to be a compact statement of enduring principle and due process. And I just don’t see adding neither-fish-nor-fowl officers to the Constitution, if that’s what you’re doing.
We need a way of impeaching a rogue POTUS who has over 1/3 hard-core support in the Senate. It seems to me that that should be possible, but that it should be painful for those who do it.
FL 2000 should never have happened for a number of reasons, but the state legislature of FL should have “manned up” to their job and decided the election. If you are amending the Constitution, make that explicitly the responsibility of the legislature, so that there be no mistaking what should happen when the count is “too close to call.”
IMHO it should not require an amendment to fix it - it is implied already, but few see it - but, since memory of living man runneth not to the contrary, the US has had an Established Press. It is unified by the AP and the other wire services, it claims preternatural objectivity, and it controls the debate in this country. We can assemble a million protesters in Washington - that happened on September 12, 2009 - without any political effect on anyone but ourselves. The Established Press had no obligation to cover it - and they didn’t. The Established Press acts as a single entity with many faces but no actual diversity.
The legitimacy of the FEC depends on the conceit of journalistic objectivity, without which there is no sense to drawing a distinction between a free press and “campaign contributions.” But of course what we have is a Jonathan Gruber press - the furthest thing from objectivity, divorced from the very thought of disinterested analysis. So the FEC is illegitimate, and should be disbanded. Simiilarly, any thought of a “Fairness Doctrine” runs into the same objection, and the FCC should be defanged and made politically agnostic.
As I say, this is logically implied in the Constitution as it is, but I certainly would have no objection to making it more explicit. Tho I wouldn’t appreciate a failed effort at such . . .
“FL 2000 should never have happened for a number of reasons, but the state legislature of FL should have “manned up” to their job and decided the election. If you are amending the Constitution, make that explicitly the responsibility of the legislature, so that there be no mistaking what should happen when the count is “too close to call.”
Excellent point!
This might be the biggest surprise response yet since I first posted ideas post-election.
While not as urgent as ‘voter fraud’, supreme Court meddling could one day overturn obvious popular votes due to claims of ‘racism’ or ‘affirmative action’ or due to claims of ‘controversial campaign finance’, or ‘fill in the blank’.
That's what I classify as a very important ‘Law Reform’ idea although it is ‘hard sell’. Some voters ‘dug in their heels’ insisting that the supreme Court should have supported Gore over ‘pregnant chads’.
[Sadly, internal polling is part of the constitutional amendment process. But voters are furious with the democrats at the moment. So it would be good timing.]
If the state legislators aren't willing to ‘go there’, they could at least make debates [on that constitutional matter] something for students to watch. Then national debate will help clarify the constitutionality question.
Sure, scholars complain about ‘too many words’. But we have too many problems to solve and no magic ‘one subject’ wand that somehow makes every phrase compact and elegant.
Step One - Brainstorm. Be creative and supportive.
Step Two - Agree on basic concepts.
Step THREE — That's when you trim out obsolete plans, and trim the wording.
No magic to it.
Now back to your point
The Florida state legislators cowered before the supreme Court.
And guess who prepared those legislators for this conflict? Professors. They educate state legislators and almost every key person who ever has a shred of government power. Mandatory debates for professors — something to think about.
With this plan, future Chiefs far in the future [or possibly sooner] could suggest tainting that unconstitutional ruling [via opinion] you mentioned. And the state legislators would mull it over in deliberation before any tainting is official.
... But ...
The Chief could not replace that ruling with anything either.
With no court ruling, the state legislators would have filled the power vacuum and resolved that dispute.
The tainting ‘power’ is a mop that cleans, not a legislative ‘paint brush’ while federal judges paint legislation all the time. That's why I call tainting an ‘anti-power’ authority.
Federal judges are already tyrants. But a Chief of the states, limited to a three year term, would never get to legislate anything. He might threaten people with censures to fulfill some agenda, and then a simple majority of states could replace him as quickly as it takes to network online.
States could even make dismissal of the Chief even easier in the amendment’s wording.
For example, perhaps the House could dismiss him with a 2/3 super-majority, a power that might be postponed for the first four years after ratification [two-term cleanup period]. So we can make the Chief easily ‘booted out’ through a variety of means.
Even the majority of county governments could remove the Chief for that matter. [But that's probably not necessary.] Or the President could challenge the Chief to a game of chess, and the loser must resign.
Or even a duel could settle it.
[How I wish!]
More fundamentally, the ‘tainting process’ would inhibit judicial activism. The safest choice a judge could make is to use untainted precedent as his or her fortress. That would make precedent even STRONGER than it is now.
“The legitimacy of the FEC depends on the conceit of journalistic objectivity ... But of course what we have is a Jonathan Gruber press...”
WELL SAID!
Yes, media bias is a problem.
Currently media’s power keeps fading. This communication revolution warms my heart!
So naturally, the Ruling Class wants to crush ‘anti-central-power’ communications and ‘water them down’.
And a powerful tool to defend free speech would be the mandatory debate process — more speech instead of less. It is actually an ‘anti-power’ authority, an equalizer the same as a gun equalizes violent conflict.
[It’s in the spirit of the 2nd Amendment.]
Not clogging your ping with all of my responses. Actually I’m happy to face a strong counter-point. Pleasantly surprised to anticipate every point people here made so far [with your one shining exception], so please don’t take offense.
Despite my spirited responses, your combination of virtues and talents — I appreciate them.
God bless you. FRegards ....
To conservatism_IS_compassion [without clogging ping]
[Back to the FEC ...]
“So the FEC is illegitimate, and should be disbanded. Similarly, any thought of a “Fairness Doctrine” runs into the same objection, and the FCC should be defanged and made politically agnostic.”
Your concern is on-target.
In the long run, infringement of free speech could turn us into a Stalinist regime. That was one of Stalin’s most powerful weapons. Unapproved speech was his favorite justification for punishing people. He was fanatical about it. So it is a good thing that people remain vigilant guardians of free speech.
[Let’s pray we are vigilant enough.]
And our problem is more fundamentally rooted — education.
It is reverence of professors that perverts the ‘journalism commune’ as well as legislators, judges, school teachers, clergy, and even scientists.
Imagine that. All of those fields are indoctrinated and retooled into cogs of the ‘indoctrination-machine’.
The indirect impact professors have on voters is nearly impossible to over-estimate. I’m not even certain if the demons of hell do more harm to our nation.
[Although Lucifer’s minions were undoubtedly the perpetrators early-on.]
We are up against a ticking clock. This counterrevolution is doomed without some mechanism to confront higher educational icons.
[I go on about how we can revolutionize our education study with ‘history studies’ as an example.]
“We need a way of impeaching a rogue POTUS who has over 1/3 hard-core support in the Senate. It seems to me that that should be possible, but that it should be painful for those who do it.”
So there’s no ‘happy ending’. If I correctly guessed what you are ‘aiming’ for, it’s not all that great an idea.
I worked out a plan that is much more optimistic than hoping for that the ‘final, desperate, last-stand branch’ of power to somehow save the day.
Or maybe you mean the ‘Utah Option’? Either way, I prefer constitutional smart-bomb technology to some daisy-cutter solution, no matter how few words it takes to detonate a MOAB.