How to improve the American political system? - An Unstuck brainstorming thread

Politics & News
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What are some no-brainer/why hasn’t this been implemented already ideas that would immediately improve the political system in the United States. Feel free to post your own ideas, or ideas that you’ve seen elsewhere.

Two well known ideas to get the ball rolling:

1. Term limits for all elected officials, judges and any other politically appointed positions.

Senators and Reps limited to 2 six year terms? Judges limited to 1 ten year term?

The fact that Mitch McConnell has been in the US Senate since 1985, was preceded by some guy named Walter Dee Huddleston and would have been forced out of office if term limits were in place some time around, oh I don’t know, 1996, makes it fairly obvious that Senators and Representatives should have term limits.

Other senators who have been in power for way too long:

Leahy 1975
Grassley 1981
Shelby 1987
Feinstein 1992
Etc. Etc

Reps:

1973
1979
1981
1981
1983
1985
1987
1987

The fact that the worst president in the history of this country will have appointed 1/3 of the members of the highest court in this nation in 4 years, and all 3 of those judges will serve for 30+ years seems like quite the oversight by the founding fathers.

2. Age limits to be elected and age limits to keep your position

You must be at least 35 years of age to be elected president, at least 30 years of age to be a Senator and 25 to be a Rep. No minimum age requirement to serve on the Supreme Court!

You should not be allowed to run for office if you are over 60 years old. If you are in office at the time of your 60th birthday, you are not allowed to seek re-election after your term is up.

Trump 74
Biden 77

Senators:

Feinstein is 87 years old
Grassley is 87 years old
Shelby 86
Inhofe 85
Roberts 84
Leahy 80
Alexander 80
Bernie 79
McConnell 78

Sixty-nine out of one hundred US senators are over 60 years old

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Way shorter elections. This alone would fix so much.

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I like Yang’s idea of giving money to every citizen to give to their choice of politician and, similarly, money to subscribe to newspapers. Maybe mandate it so that half of the money has to be to local candidates and local newspapers. And I think he’s right that bringing back earmarks makes sense.

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House terms longer than 2 years? Possibly 4?

Would increase the amount of time reps have to get stuff done and halve the level of campaigning/fundraising.

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60yo is probably about optimal for a Senator.

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  1. abolish the electoral college
  2. abolish the senate
  3. abolish gerrymandering
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  1. increase the number of members of the house by like a factor of 10 (at least)
  2. weaken the executive branch
  3. ranked-choice voting + proportional representation
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Hate the idea of term limits for elected officials. It just increases the power of lobbyists.

18-year term limits for Supreme Court justices, with the president able to re-nominate a justice if they’d like.

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  1. Eliminate the republican party
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I agree with term limits for SCOTUS, but don’t think you should be able to re-nominate. Could lead to potential issues - i.e. judge whose term is ending would have incentive to make decisions favorable to current administration to get re-appointed.

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Obviously remove the ability for corporations to fund campaigns in any way

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Agree, they should just go back down to a circuit of the federal court of appeals. This proposal also works well with expanding the court to, say, 17 justices. Either nominate one every other year until it’s full or just do a random drawing of sitting appeals court judges.

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I’ll allow this amendment.

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I am for abolishing the electoral college, because it gives more voting power to people who live in large, single party states like California. However, thinking pragmatically, if trends continue the way they have been, republicans may be looking at a completely unwinnable electoral map within 10-20 years.

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That’s kinds the point. They have no population based mandate so they have to resort to antiquated bullshit to ever even sniff a chance.

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The parties, both of them, will change as demographics change.

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  1. Eliminate lobbyist access to Congresspeople. 1 billion year prison term to any member of Congress who accepts a corporate lobby direct donation or indirect fund raise.

  2. Senators and Representatives must write their own legislation without assistance from “industry experts”.

Above current practices allow corporations to run this country.

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So step zero would be “repeal first amendment”?

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Since this all just fantasy, yes, overturn Citizens United. “We, the people” should not ever apply to corporate entities, imo.

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