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I am in favor of returning all laws to state jurisdiction except those things and regulations that affect ALL citizens (interstate and international transportation, the FDA, printing coinage and currency, national defense, prosecuting crimes that cross state borders, etc., etc., etc.)
I am confident that there are more than enough people in each state to prevent a return to such laws that allow discrimination to any large minority group.
I agree, but I'm also willing to bend. Us moderates should agree on the things we feel can be returned to the states, & get those done. Solving problems together is what most of us want, even if we must be flexible to get there.
Nobody likes lobbying in its current form, campaign finance in its current form, the feds trying to mandate everything to the states, runaway political corruption by both parties, having SS and medicare on shaky ground, our massive national debt, ect.. There's so much the majority of us agree on that is being ignored by our elected officials its holding us all back.
No movement will succeed until as long as we pick and choose the parts of The Constitution that we want to live by.
Agreed. Its the radicals on both sides that are doing that, not the 60% in the middle. We'd need to use that as our base to build from. If anything, strengthen the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
I'd be for mandating a balanced budget amendment, mandating zero cost base budgeting, & eliminating continuing resolutions. The out of control spending must be stopped, & that requires new laws evidently, because whatever we have now ain't working. We donthave a tax revenue problem, we have a spending problem.
Its time for the 60% to force our will on DC, and the radicals on both siees who are dividing us.
I’m wishy-washy about term limits. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think someone should be in office for 40 or 50 years, but at the same time, how many people REALLY want to run for office given how awful campaigns can be? Would we reach a point where some positions can’t be filled due to lack of interest, if we place term limits on everyone?
Maybe another option could be to limit some positions but not others? Like for example, place term limits on the House of Representatives but not the Senate?
IDK about term limits. Then the staffers would be in total control.
I agree with most of the previous suggestions.
Then we turn over a portion of the staff every 8 years too, maybe 1/3rd of them so there's continuity, but not too many where they gain too much control.
Ok.... here's an opinion that's unpopular on both sides.
Lobbying is the act of influencing or attempting to influence a politician or political body to achieve an outcome favorable to your objectives. That's all it is. When you write a letter to your rep about some issue, you're lobbying.
In and of itself, lobbying is a critical component in our system of government, and we should be extremely careful about any unintended or hidden effects when it comes to restricting lobbying in any way, which is effectively a restriction on our own political speech.
In our economic system, we typically exchange our labor for units of currency called dollars. Each dollar you earn represents a corresponding unit of your labor. You use those dollars - your labor - for various purposes, from acquiring food to exchanging your labor (dollars) for the labor of others, for instance, when you hire a plumber or take a trip using Lyft.
Your dollars, and the things you use them for, are an extension of yourself. The car you bought with them is the product of your labor - it's a thing you created through hard work and cooperation with thousands of other people who were also exchanging their car-building/transporting/selling labor for things (currency) which they can then trade.
If I spend the bulk of my time working and creating more dollars, I have little time left over for lobbying my representatives directly. I could choose to spend less time making money and more time lobbying, but the trade off is unacceptable. Our quality of life would suffer severely, my business would fold and my employees would all be out of work.
Instead, I choose to use my labor (dollars) to pay others to lobby on my behalf. Not only do I not lose the time it would require to do that lobbying myself, but my voice is joined with others who also share the same or similar political goals, and collectively, our voice is much louder than several individual voices would be.
We need to be extremely careful about limiting our voices. There's nothing the government would like more than to be able to do whatever it wants, without any substantial public complaint. Most people are too caught up in the chaos of their own lives to also properly lobby their representatives. We need lobbying groups.
All that said, the corruption is a problem. No question about that.
Keeping former politicians from becoming lobbyists is keeping the people who best know how government works and can be most effective from participating in the process. There's also the issue of those individuals' 1st Amendment rights - they can't lobby their own representatives? That's no good.
Also unpopular is my opinion on term limits. Again, we have a serious problem with career politicians and corruption, but my argument here is simple. I should be able to vote for whomever I want to represent me in government.
If I think that Louie Gohmert has been doing a good job of representing me, I should be able to vote for him to keep doing it. It's not more complicated than that. Denying me that right is denying me a representative form of government, plain and simple.
I’m wishy-washy about term limits. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think someone should be in office for 40 or 50 years, but at the same time, how many people REALLY want to run for office given how awful campaigns can be? Would we reach a point where some positions can’t be filled due to lack of interest, if we place term limits on everyone?
Maybe another option could be to limit some positions but not others? Like for example, place term limits on the House of Representatives but not the Senate?
How often does a Congressional seat, or Senate seat not have a challenger willing to run against the incumbant? I know it happens in the House, but not not for Senate seats.
We should fix how awful campaigns are, if that is the real problem.
if the question is "what are some centrist ideas", then sure, those can be shared/discussed/vetted.
I'll start with term limits and campaign finance.
I think they should all be term-limited at 12 years. That's 6 Rep terms or 2 Senate terms. Keep POTUS at 2 terms is fine. Those Reps that are effective and can garner state-wide support, they can become Senators (though personally I'd just limit them all at 12 years total).
Campaign finance. While I'd prefer the government spend a set amount per candidate, including requiring free broadcast by outlet and multiple mandatory debates, I don't think that'll fly in free speech, as some have said. But you can require full disclosure and actually disclose it. If we have individual limits, I don't see any reason that you can't use lobbyists instead of dark money - the lobbying is indeed freedom of speech. Getting rid of the dark money would keep the spending down, and rid us of most worthless attack ads.
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