A Summary of Mark Levin’s Proposed Amendments

[Jacquerie]

Amendment to establish congressional term limits. No more than twelve total years combined in house and senate.

Amendment to repeal the 17th Amendment. Governors may fill vacancies to fill out remainder of terms. Upon two thirds vote, state legislatures may remove their senators.

Amendment to establish twelve year term limits on scotus. On three-fifths vote, and within twenty four months of a ruling, congress or the states may override scotus decisions. These overrides are not subject to judicial review.

Congress shall submit preliminary budget to president by first Monday in May for the next fiscal year. Should congress/president not adopt a budget by October 1st, the budget shall be set at 5% less than the last year’s budget. Outlays no greater than receipts and no greater than 17.5% of previous year’s GDP. Congress may suspend the 17.5% limit for one year on a roll call vote of 3/5 of members. National debt to require 3/5 roll call vote. Maximum limit of 15% income tax. Deadline for filing tax returns shall be the day before elections to federal office. Ban on tax of decedent’s estate.

All federal departments expire unless individually reauthorized in stand-alone legislation every three years. A joint committee of congress shall review and approve all executive branch regulations that exceed $100 million in economic burden. There is a six month window. If the committee does not approve within that time, the regulation dies.

Congressional power to regulate commerce does not extend to activity within a state, regardless of effect on interstate commerce. No entity may be compelled to participate in trade or commerce.

Property owners shall be compensated for actual seizure or when a market value reduction of $10,000 or more occurs through regulation, interference, financial loss caused by any governmental entity.

State legislatures, on two-thirds vote, may amend the constitution. Six year limit from first state to ratify. No state may rescind or ratify during the six year limit.

All congressional bills shall be placed on the public record for a minimum of thirty days before final votes. Two-thirds of congress may override. Three-fifths vote of state legislatures may nullify/repeal a federal statute or executive branch regulation that exceeds $100 million in economic burden. Nullification is not subject to any court review. States have two years to exercise this authority.

Photo ID required to register and vote. States will provide them at no cost if necessary. Excepting military personnel, there shall be no early voting more than thirty days prior to the date of the election. More restrictions to reduce third party registration and voting fraud.

[supercat]

Bad court opinions, and bad laws, are already null and void, according to the fundamental natural law principles laid down by men like Cicero, and Aquinas, and Blackstone, and Hamilton.

I think an amendment is needed to clarify the relationship between judicial precedent and law, as well as what constitutes "good faith". One of the major causes of the erosion of liberties is the fact that a finding that a dubious action from government does not merit a remedy is regarded as a finding that the action in question was legitimate, and a belief that any finding that an action was illegitimate would necessitate a remedy, even if any conceivable remedy would almost certainly be unworkable. Along with this, the fact that someone makes an effort to avoid acting in such patently illegitimate action as to merit censure is deemed sufficient to regard the person's actions as having been done in "good faith".

To stop this erosion of liberties, I would make clear that for a person to be acting in good faith, the person must be attempting to behave in such fashion as to be beyond reproach. It may be that a person's actions don't end up being perfect shouldn't imply that they're illegitimate, if the person was genuinely trying to abide by the Constitution perfectly, but if the person can be shown to have deliberately acted contrary to the Constitution, such intent would render the actions illegitimate even if the Constitutional breaches involved would otherwise be too small to be actionable.

As a simple example, I would hold that the Fourth and Fifth Amendments would require that any police officer who is conducting a search must make a reasonable effort to avoid any unnecessary damage to the property being searched. That does not mean that property won't sometimes get damaged either by accident or necessity, but it would forbids any deliberate property damage, no matter how slight. If a cop is somewhat negligent while handling a person's property and causes $15 worth of damage, such negligence may be too small to be actionable, but if a cop deliberately causes $1 worth of damage, the fact that such action was deliberate should merit action, including possibly regarding that the search was illegitimate.

Another thing I would include in an amendment would be a rule stating that defendants have the right to have the jury consider essentially all matters of fact which they deem relevant to their case. Among the matters the defendant would be allowed to put before the jury would be whether all those involved bringing the case have acted in good faith, and whether any particular statements made by the defendant should be deemed credible (at present, if a suspect makes a statement to the police, the police may testify for the prosecution as to what the defendant said, but the defendant has limited ability to question the police about anything the defendant said which would bolster the defense [e.g. showing that a defendant offered a justification for his actions before he would have had time to determine what evidence might contradict it]. If prosecution evidence is grossly illegitimate, it's right and proper for a judge to exclude it, but a defendant should also be allowed to ask the jury to discount any evidence which in its judgment was not gathered in good faith, even if a judge wouldn't find evidence of bad faith sufficiently compelling as to justify excluding the evidence. In effect, a judge should base admissibility of evidence upon whether it might have been gathered in good faith, but a jury should decide whether it believes it actually was.

[meadsjn]

More restrictions to reduce third party registration
What's this?

This is to put out of business the fraudulent voter registration groups like ACORN, SEIU, etc., etc., and to limit the dead people, incarcerated people, and illegals that magically show up as registered Democrats, and magically get their Democrat votes counted.

People used to have to expend some effort and brainpower to register to vote, and then to vote.

[Pajamajan]

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[Repeal The 17th]

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[nathanbedford]

Nathan Bedford's first Maxim of the American Constitution:

The Constitution has become so distorted in interpretation and application that it has become at best ineffective in protecting liberty and at worst an instrument inflicting tyranny.

Nathan Bedford's second Maxim of the American Constitution:

The American Constitution is being amended everyday without the consent of the governed.

In order to believe that a Convention of the States presents a greater threat to liberty than our current state of politics one must believe:

1. The Constitution is not being amended by three women in black robes +1 liberal in black robes +1 swing vote on a case by case basis.

2. The Constitution is not being amended at the caprice of the president by executive order.

3. The Constitution is not being amended at the caprice of the president when he chooses which laws he will "faithfully" execute.

4. The Constitution is not being amended daily by regulation done by an unaccountable bureaucracy.

5. The Constitution is not being amended by simply being ignored.

6. The Constitution is not being amended by international treaty.

7. The Constitution is not being amended by Executive Order creating treaty powers depriving citizens of liberty as codified in the Bill of Rights.

8. The Constitution is not being amended by international bureaucracies such as, UN, GATT, World Bank, etc.

9. The Constitution is not being amended by the Federal Reserve Bank without reference to the will of the people.

10. The federal government under our current "constitutional" regime has suddenly become capable of reforming itself, balancing the budget and containing the debt.

11. The national debt of the United States is sustainable and will not cause the American constitutional system and our economy to crash and with them our representative democracy, the rule of law, and the Constitution, such as it is, itself.

12. The Republican Party, presuming it gains a majority in the House and the Senate and gains the White House, will now do what is failed to do even under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and balance the budget, reduce the debt, stop regulating, reform the tax system, end crony capitalism, appoint judges who will not betray us and, finally, listen to the people.

13. That a runaway Convention of the States will occur, that it will persuade the delegates from conservative states, that it will be ratified by three quarters of the states' legislatures among whom conservatives control a majority, that we will not be able to carry 13 legislatures in separate states out of 99 legislatures in 50 states, and the end result will somehow be worse than what we have now.

14. If we do nothing everything will be fine; if we keep doing what we have been doing everything will be fine; we have all the time in the world.

[ljr1981]

CONVENTION OF STATES BABY!!!!!!!

Let’s push for it, work for it, do it!!!!!!!

The only other way is through violence and we do NOT want that at all!!!!!