How Would You Go About Truly Reforming Our Political Parties?

Earlier Posts under <i>Loyal Opposition</i> ^ | October 27, 2001 | Avoiding_Sulla

[hedgetrimmer]

Central committee meetings need to be held under Robert's Rules of Order, not 'consensus' meetings.

[boomop1]

I get the raspberries every time I say term limits is the only way, nothing else will stop the power mania.

[dirtboy]

No reforms will work as long as a large number of voters pay more attention to selecting their laundry soap than they do to electing their representatives. So the real work is to get otherwise apathetic people informed and motivated.

[sphinx]

1. National Right-to-Work. Forced union dues plowed back into politics amount to hundreds of millions of dollars every year. The only real way to stop it is to make union membership voluntary, which it should be anyhow. At a stroke, this would transform the democratic party for the better. Democrats would initially think the sky was falling but in the long run they would be liberated from bossism. Good for the democrats in the long run and good for the country. It would also, of course, be good for Republicans because it would level the financial playing field.

2. Curb gerrymandering. For many years democratic dominance at the state level allowed them to put a big thumb in the scales at the congressional level. Republican success at the state level in recent cycles have levelled to playing field. But a Congress in which 90%-plus of the districts are non-competitive -- this in a basically 50-50 country -- is absurd. Districts should be compact, contiguous, and to the extent possible should respect local boundaries. Let the chips fall where they may.

3. Term limits. I prefer a longer rather than a shorter term because experience does count. Much of the useful work in Congress is done by the mid-seniority folks, the subcommittee chairmen, who have been around 4-6 terms and have learned a thing or two. Make the limit 12 years, or 18 (three Senate terms). The evil to avoid is the lure of the lifetime sinecure, which corrupts younger members and allows too much deadwood from safe districts to rise to leadership through seniority. (The democrats are about to get a severe object lesson in this.)

4. Repeal CFR and allow candidates and/or parties to raise whatever they can wherever they can subject only to a requirement for full and immediate disclosure. If you want to build a firewall between candidates and big money, fine. Just allow the parties to raise most of the money. That's what political parties are for.

[Vaduz]

Best answer I have seen yet.

[Silly]

This is an excellent post, and I thank you for sharing it. Sounds to me like you have real practical, nuts-and-bolts insight into how these things work.

I'm going to do a bit of reading of your posts, but if you have anything else to share, feel free to add a link.

Not being,

[Sacajaweau]

The folks here at FR put sugar on their rasberries. Relax. No one knows the total solution. The problem is ignorant voters.

[PhilCollins]

I agree with your suggestion about redistricting. Too many congressional districts were drawn in strange shapes, to ensure that the majority of the voters are Blacks or Hispanics, to ensure that the congressman will be a member of that group. The legislators who drew the lines must have assumed that the majority of voters are racists, since the legislators probably thought that those voters would only vote for a candidate of his or her ethnic group and that Whites will vote against the minorities, because of their ethnic group.

I agree with your suggestion about term limit laws, but I think that candidates should be encouraged to sign pledges which would limit their terms, with shorter limits than the proposed amendment. The majority of the republican congressmen who lost last week were first elected 12 years ago, and many of the voters wanted a change. If those congressmen decided to not run for reelection, the voters could have received the change that they wanted by voting for new republican candidates. If that happened, Republicans probably would have won 6-9 more seats last week.

I agree with you about CRF because it restricts freedom of speech that was promised by the First Amendment. I wrote to about five U.S. senators and 10 U.S. reps., and I asked them to abolish the presidential campaign matching funds.
I said that each candidate should be responsible for funding his or her campaign without taxpayer help. I said that I hope that none of my tax money was given to Sen. Kerry and that many Democrats probably hope that none of their tax money was given to President Bush. I sent the letters at least three months ago, and I haven't received any responses.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Question: "How Would You Go About Truly Reforming Our Political Parties?"

Response: Reform our selves.

[boomop1]

Right there is no perfect solution like taxes we will never see reform.

[Avoiding_Sulla]

It looks like I never called your attention to this thread.

The thought for it grew out of comments at another thread. The current discussion (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2621417/posts) reminded me of it.

Notice how there is no indication anyone decided to even try to move onto better ideas and more effort. I’m no exception because I’ve always been waiting for another leader to arise. I think it’s time to recognize how pathetic that appears to be. There is an explanation — people who are capable of doing real things have little interest in leading (which often degrades into wanting to rule?) others, simply wanting to do their little, enjoyable part.

Seeing as how I didn’t use the word bloc, it’s possible that whenever I saw it in print I may have thought it was a misspelling of “block.”

Building blocs, small to start, are key to this approach. Sadly, that’s work that producers in real world things are generally not interested in. Now with so many people out of work, they may still be thinking of that excuse out of habit.

Are the current circumstances ripe for us to finally understand the meaning of “leaders are made, not born” do you think? I think this is where prayer comes into play like never before.

[calcowgirl]

You are forgiven for not calling my attention to this thread. It was posted before my time! lol

You are right about the lack of action. Unfortunately, civic duty and involvement is one of those things that few make time for in the last couple generations. Politics has been "professionalized," with campaigns being run by paid hacks and politicians seeking office as a career choice. You find few citizens attending city council meetings unless something directly effects them. You see few citizens running for a single term in office to make their small contribution to society. Big moneyed interest work behind the scenes to make their leaders -- while Joe Citizen is left unrepresented.

The time is ripe -- more than ripe, actually. Unfortunately, I think there are so many people busy trying to make ends meet that it will be harder than ever to motivate much more than lashing out from those sympathetic to the tea party message. Even that "grass roots movement" seems to have been taken over by the pros and barely resembles the early rants like those from Rick Santelli.