Proposed Constitutional Amendments
Constitutional Amendment Proposal I - Term Limits for Congress:
Supporting rationale:
We believe twelve year lifetime term limits will improve the accountability, fairness and quality of Congressional leadership for the following reasons:
- More frequent changes of leadership will enable the American people to reap the benefits of a much more diverse leadership pool and enable new ideas and approaches to come to government faster since the formidable barrier of defeating incumbent officeholders will be removed every twelve years. Said another way, the “ruling class” we have of Congressman with 20-40 year congressional careers will be removed from power.
- The power and influence of lobbyist and special interests would be greatly diminished since the Congressmen’s ability to be re-elected will be limited, thereby freeing the Congressmen to do what is in the best interest of the country versus their best interest to get re-elected.
- The influence and power of the major political parties – which were never intended by the Constitution, and warned against by George Washington, would be reduced since party pressure to vote a certain way would be irrelevant to Congressmen ineligible for re-election.
- The loss of experience is not significant since:
- Terms would remain staggered in the Senate so no more than 1/3 of the Senate would be “forced” out on any single election day
- A term staggering plan could be developed for the House if need be
- We have more than 200 years of proof that changing the Presidency on a general frequency of eight years or less – the most powerful position in the world, is not only successful, but for the most part, desirable.
Constitutional Amendment Proposal II – Taxpayer Funded Elections
We propose that the election campaigns of all elected Federal offices be funded with public, taxpayer dollars, with the requirement that all nominees receive equal dollars for equivalent offices.
Supporting rationale:
We believe publicly funded elections would enable new, more varied and likely higher quality leadership into the Congress by eliminating key barriers and reducing the effect of wealthy special interests as described below:
- Publicly funded elections would remove the single largest barrier to qualified people who would otherwise run for office – the need to literally raise many millions of dollars. For perspective the average incumbent in the respective Senate and House now raises approximately $8.6 million and $1.3 million respectively (Center for Responsive Politics). Eliminating this barrier would enable Americans to truly have the potential to have the best and brightest leadership America has to offer.
- Publicly funded elections would eliminate the influence and the potential resulting corruption of special interests and wealthy individuals, corporations and groups since their influence would be no greater than the common American citizen. Publicly funded elections would free candidates to compete for office solely on their ideas and leadership potential and eliminate the potential for the most successful fund raiser to win. Results from the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections show that the higher fund raiser wins approximately 85% of the time, and successful challengers often have to spend twice as much as incumbents (Department of Communication, University of Washington).
Publicly funded elections would level the election playing field entirely and force candidates to manage their limited funds in the most effective way. Building a winning organization through the effective use of limited financial resources, by itself would be a good indicator of good leadership skills. - Publicly funded elections would not be an infringement on First Amendment rights since all citizens would still be free to volunteer, speak and write publicly and privately in support of their candidate. Public funding would simply preclude individuals and organizations with disproportionate funds or access to media from using those resources in disproportionate ways to influence elections.
Constitutional Amendment Proposal III – National Presidential Primary Election Day
We propose the establishment of a National Presidential Primary Election day, to be held approximately six months before the national general election day.
Supporting rationale:
We believe a national presidential primary election day would improve the quality of presidential candidates and enhance the enfranchisement of American voters as described below:
- A national presidential primary election day would eliminate the disproportionate effect of early primary state voters where early victories result in campaign donor funds flowing to the early victors, often resulting in the nominations of national candidates by a small fraction of American voters.
- A national presidential primary election day eliminates the disenfranchisement of many American voters whose primary elections are currently held late in the primary season – often after the party nominee has already been determined.
- Candidates would be forced to compete on their ideas simultaneously on a national scale versus focusing narrowly on specific states or regions, enabling the entire American voting public to choose at the same time from a level playing field
- The quality of nominees would likely improve since they would have to compete solely on their ideas and leadership and evaluated and selected by the entire American voter population.
