Posted on 03/17/2010 10:55:56 PM PDT by Xottamoppa
Proposed Constitutional Amendment
What would it take to start the ball rolling for a constitutional amendment that states, in essence:
"The House of Representatives shall initiate no bill that does not spectify from its outset the exact Article and Section of the United States Constitution which enumerates and authorizes the proposed legislation as a legitimate constitutional function and delegated power of the General Government."
The purpose of this amendment is not to change the Constitution, per se, but to force Washington to adhere to it as it already stands. By demanding that every bill be required by law to state chapter-and-verse authority from the Constitution before being introduced, we would at least force representatives to consult the Constitution more frequently.
Additional force may be needed. We might add the clause:
"The Senate shall investigate, explore and validate the constitutional claim of each bill proposed by the House of Representatives in a written report made public before initiating any debate of the merits of said legislation."
To be followed, of course, by:
"The President shall investigate, explore and validate the constitutional claim(s) of each bill issuing from the Congress in a written report made public before affixing his signature."
With radio and television today, surely common sense proposals like this could quickly gain the 2/3 support needed to rein in the federal government with the help of patriots.
We have got to hold the feet of these people to our Constitution.
I’m afraid the rats are about to propose a constitutional ammendment that health care once they slaughter us and the Constitution (their version) as a right.
You’ll find this attached to every bill:
Article I Section 8: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
They think that allows them to do anything.
I would like to see an amendment that outlaws the socialist party, the communist party and any citizen that claims membership to any of these parties shall be deported. They are incompatible with our form of government.
How about:
“Congress shall meet on January 3 and adjourn for the year on January 4.”
What is the proposed remedy if the amendment is ignored? Who will enforce the remedy?
I’m afraid out problem is the practical enforcement of the Constitution. Congress being full of politicians are disinclined to limit their own power. The Federal courts being appointed by the same are similarly disinclined to limit Federal Power.
hell the only one even remotely inclined to limited federal power are the ones who stand to loses, namely those made subject to the same, the people and their States.
Here lays the problem, Unless you can get it to where the Constitution is practically enforced and interpreted by a party with a vested intrest in the goverment which it defines being limited, the document is little more then a peace of paper.
Until the Time of the U.S. Civil War the People and their States had a equal or superior right to enforce the Constitution then the Federal government and its court, this was practical cause they also held all the practical powers.(The Federal government was mostly impudent prior to the civil war, and thats the way it was meant to be for good reason!)
If we want to restore our system we have to clearly restore the balance of power back to the people and their states and away from the Federal government. That means the Constitution needs to be practically enforced and interpreted by the People and their states NOT the same government which is defined by it.
Any amendment should be looking towards that end.
I honestly would like to spell out that in matters of Law of the Federal constitution as it retains to the limits of federal power to be resolved by State courts.
The problem with any further amendments to the Constitution is that the Senate, Congress and the shoe shine boy in the White House would have to approve it. Good luck with that.
I would like to see an amendment that outlaws the socialist party, the communist party and any citizen that claims membership to any of these parties shall be deported. They are incompatible with our form of government.
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I thought almost the EXACT same.
Why can’t we?
If we want to restore our system we have to clearly restore the balance of power back to the people and their states and away from the Federal government. That means the Constitution needs to be practically enforced and interpreted by the People and their states NOT the same government which is defined by it.
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How do we do this? I want this.
Don’t mess with the Constitution.
We don’t want to open that can of worms with the current electorate and current representatives/senators/POTUS.
Just fire those representatives/senators/POTUS who refuse to do the people’s will.
Vote them out.
Educate everyone within your sphere of influence.
Arizona Representative John Shadegg has run a bill to do that, in the House, every session since 1996, it has never gone any where.
The last thing I want to see, with this congress being as brazen as they are, is a Con-con.
Who knows. :-(
As with most things, the question of how has many answers, I can suggest some but not all possible options.
I am not closed mined to other people’s routs, I therefore merely stated what I believe to be the overall direction that we must go.
One important options for getting us a good part of the way(although experience demonstrates not far enough). is to repeal the 17th amendment. help return the senate to it’s original structural protecting function, and thus help keep these power centralizing acts from getting passed in the first place.
Going futher would require clearly and unambigusly we remove the clear conflict of interest in allowing the Federal Courts to dictate the extent of their own and their employees power. That means making Federal Constitutional issues the domain of the States. for good measure we might look at doing the opposite for State constitutional issues.
A Court of law can hardly be a court so long as it is not impartial. Being empowered by the same laws it has been given the responsibility to apply on a case by case basis does not represent a position of fair impartiality.
Either for State courts with regard to the State Constitution or in Federal courts with regard to the Federal constitution.
The trouble is, while there may be just 1 federal court systems, there are 50 separate and equal State court systems. It is true that in many respects the interpolations of the Federal Constitution need not necessarily be uniform across the united States but in some they must, particularly in regard to inter-state disputes.
Finding a way to get 50 State courts to come to a signal agreement on the Federal Constitution is a paramount problem, in resolving the Federal court’s Constitutional conflict of interest issue.
As our pre-civil War history demonstrates this is really not as crippling of a problem as you might think it would be, leading only to the war itself only after some 70 years of relative peace, yet active interstate nullification, and really only the key interstate disputes such as the extradition of escaped slaves, tarries, and the western terroroy’s.
Many of theses dispute are now mute, as there is no more significant western terrory’s which could shift the ballade of power in the senate significantly. just as there is no more slaves for states to have heart-ack over the extradition of.
Lets face it the difference between extraditing a save and a criminal is, we don’t tend to care if we don’t see the criminal in our state again, we don’t want em around! so refusal to extradite on the basis of the Death Penalty as I believe California was trying to do not so long ago, is really not all that big of an issue.
But inter-state dispute issues that are still with us include trade policy, and defense policy.
As both of theses policy’s are clearly foreign affairs letting the Federal court be an arbitrator on legal disputes set by the same, is not necessarily a bad thing, so long as you keep their powers limited to what is actually leaving the United States.
In other-words the Interstate and international commerce clause needs to be kept to just that and NOT allowed to intrude into the domain of intrastate commerces.
Basically all I’m talking about here is the art of union, is the art of learning to leave each-other alone in peace, and work-together on only common interest.
In fixing up our system we must take that fact into account in enumerating and limiting the number of possible disputes.
I don’t pretend to have the wisdom to do this myself, and so I cannot give you all the options. We need YOUR brain power to help work out theses issues.
Actually, while there is no way we can limit what they can do in a Constitutional convention except in our refusal to ratify anything but a mere amendment, A constitutional convention CAN simply propose an amendment.
So to be strictly speaking, if we do have to call a convention, it would be wise to have at least 13 or more States agree upfront agree that there is no circumstances in which they will ratify anything but an amendment, which says X,Y, and Z.
Thereby constraining the “imagination” of the delegates.
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers...
Article V - AmendmentThe Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
The President’s Veto can be overridden by a 2/3rds vote of both House and Senate.
We can neuter the ‘shoeshine boy’ if we can take that many seats in both houses.
Although, I think the Amendments most needed are ones that limit the Federal government’s abilities to tax and spend. The 16th Amendment was passed on the ASSUMPTION that the initial income tax rate of 1% was it, but the Amendment was not written to include the percentage. I think a new Amendment should be written to say that the maximum tax rate on income cannot exceed 10% and no personal income can be excluded, nor expenses deducted or tax credited. Whatever the rate is, it must apply equally to all persons and to all sources of income.
Another Amendment needed because the Founders never considered it possible to spend as we have, would be to Constitutionally limit spending to a maximum of 20% of the prior year’s GDP or actual tax revenue, whichever is less.
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