Beyond Plutocracy and Its Two-Plutocratic-Party System:
A Populist Amendment
This is the rough draft of a populist Amendment I promised to publish several days ago as an example of what might be considered in the two-phase strategy I have recommended to rescue America from the plutocratic abyss in which we presently are drowning.
Mr. Mark Jones of USDOR questioned a list of classes of citizens to be excluded from serving as Representatives, jurors and ethics commissioners (other than lawyers), and also a lower age-limit for Representatives, and I've dropped both (that list was expanding unto infinity anyway, and so I've decided to trust in the laws of probability and the good sense of the American people instead).
Perhaps the most innovative aspect of the following is its establishment of a Fourth Estate, the ethics commissions.
At any rate, here is
A Populist Amendment
1. a. The President of the United States shall be elected in secret ballot by a majority of all adult citizens in the United States, but if no candidate receive such majority vote, or if that majority is less than ten percent greater than the next highest candidate percentage, or if the Presidential office be vacated through resignation, physical but not psychological or psychiatric incapacitation, conviction of a felony, impeachment, or removal for unethical behavior, then the President shall be appointed and serve as described below, the Vice President in such case serving as President pro tem.
b. The Governors of the several States and Territories shall be elected, or appointed and serve, similarly to the President.
c. Executives—President or Governors—permanent, temporary or acting shall recuse themselves from signing into law or vetoing any measure with regard to which there exists a personal, familial, social or financial conflict of interest, and any wilful and knowing non-recusal shall instantly disqualify for office, and be treated as the gravest of ethical violations necessitating removal from office, and further prosecuted as the highest-level felony, and upon prosecution and conviction punished even unto death and revocation of corporate charter and total confiscation of assets of all principal conspirators including organizations in the worst cases.
d. Executives shall have line-item veto power over legislative riders and bundled and omnibus bills.
e. The power of pardon, reprieve or commutation is hereby withdrawn from the Executives and given to the Houses of Representatives as described below.
2. a. The legislatures of the United States and of the several States and Territories thereof shall each consist of two Houses, a Senate in which each State or electoral district is given equal representation, and a House of Representatives in which each is given representation proportional to its population.
b. Senators shall be at least three-quarters of the modal (most frequent) lifespan in age, and shall each have served at least one full and honorable term as Representative, although Senators already serving at the time of ratification of this Amendment shall not be subject to these qualifications, and shall be elected in secret ballot by a majority of all adult citizens in their respective districts, but if no candidate receive such majority vote, or if that majority is less than ten percent greater than the next highest competitor, or if the Senatorial office be vacated through resignation, physical but not psychological or psychiatric incapacitation, conviction of a felony, impeachment, or removal for unethical behavior, then a Senator shall be appointed and serve as described below.
c. Representatives shall be selected on a yearly basis by random lottery from among the adult citizens of their respective electoral districts, and if the Representative office be vacated through resignation, physical but not psychological or psychiatric incapacitation, conviction of a felony, impeachment, or removal for unethical behavior, a new Representative shall be elected by random lottery in the ordinary way.
d. The House of Representatives may by a three-quarters vote of all Representatives and the consent of the Executive, or by a seventeen-twentieths vote of all Representatives alone, pass, modify or repeal any law—other than this Constitution and its Amendments—or treaty or court ruling.
e. All electoral and other political and legal including juridical and ethical districting shall be delimited by the respective House of Representatives.
f. The House of Representatives may appoint by a three-quarters vote of all Representatives or remove by a four-fifths vote of all Representatives the Vice Executive, Cabinet officers, department, agency, division or branch heads, or any inferior Executive branch managers it deems fit.
g. The House of Representatives, meeting in a committee of the whole convened specifically for that purpose, shall have power by a two-thirds vote of all Representatives to grant commutation, reprieve or pardon for any offense under the laws of their jurisdiction other than political-corruption or financial offenses or offenses prosecuted under authority of this Amendment.
h. If no candidate for Executive attain a majority vote of all adult citizens, or more than a ten percent majority greater than the next highest competitor, or if the Executive office be vacated through resignation, physical but not psychological or psychiatric incapacitation, disqualification, conviction of a felony, impeachment, or removal for unethical behavior, the respective House of Representatives shall appoint the new Executive from itself, to serve in consultation with and at the pleasure of that House, and a new Representative selected by lottery from the respective district to replace that appointed.
i. If no candidate for Senate attain a majority vote of all adult citizens, or more than a ten percent majority greater than the next highest competitor, or if the Senatorial office be vacated through resignation, physical but not psychological or psychiatric incapacitation, disqualification, conviction of a felony, impeachment, or removal for unethical behavior, the respective delegation from the respective State or Territory or district of the respective House of Representatives shall appoint that officer from itself, to serve in consultation with and at the pleasure of that delegation, and a new Representative selected by lottery from that respective district to replace that appointed.
j. Neither Executive nor Senate nor Judiciary shall have any power of appointment, censure or removal over Representatives.
k. All national treaties must be approved by the Federal House of Representatives, and any treaties adopted previous to the adoption of this Amendment may be repealed by a two-thirds vote of all Federal Representatives.
l. Legislators whether elected, selected or appointed shall recuse themselves from voting on any measure with regard to which there exists a personal, familial, social or financial conflict of interest, and any wilful and knowing non-recusal shall instantly disqualify for office, and be treated as the gravest of ethical violations necessitating removal from office, and further prosecuted as the highest-level felony, and upon prosecution and conviction punished even unto death and revocation of corporate charter and total confiscation of assets of all principal conspirators including organizations in the worst cases.
m. There shall be no legislative riders or bundled or omnibus bills, and any submission thereof shall be treated as an attempt to subvert the authority and duty of legislators and Executive alike, and any wilful and knowing violation of this prohibition shall instantly disqualify for office, and be treated as the gravest of ethical violations necessitating removal from office, and further prosecuted as the highest-level felony, and upon prosecution and conviction punished even unto death and revocation of corporate charter and total confiscation of assets of all principal conspirators including organizations in the worst cases.
n. The Senate may impeach officials and the House try such impeachments, in mirror order to the original process.
o. The Executive offices and all those of both Houses shall be staffed by the civil service, and Federal Senatorial and Representative home-district offices by the civil services of their respective States.
p. Both Houses of each legislature shall record and publish on the Internet the recordings and verbatim transcripts of their proceedings on a Federally-maintained, freely- and publicly-accessible, ordinarily-formatted (e.g., xhtml) Internet archive.
q. There shall be no franking of, nor any other executive or legislative sending or broadcasting of, unsolicited advertising, solicitations, messages, gifts, tokens or materials of any sort.
3. Every public oversight commission shall be selected on a yearly basis by random lottery from among the adult citizens of the electoral districts of the geographic region overseen by that commission.
4. Cities and towns and counties and parishes shall be governed by commissions selected on a yearly basis by random lottery from among their adult citizens.
5. a. All trials shall be passed on and if accepted referred to the respective courts by grand juries the jurors of which have been selected by random lottery from among the adult citizens of the respective juridical districts.
b. All trial facts, law, verdicts and sentences shall be found by jury selected by random lottery from among the adult citizens of the respective juridical districts.
c. All appeals at each appellate level up to and including the supreme shall be passed on and if accepted referred to the respective appellate courts by grand appellate juries the jurors of which have been selected by random lottery from among the adult citizens of the respective juridical districts.
d. All trial and appellate lawyers and judges shall be selected on a case-by-case basis by random lottery from the pool of lawyers attached to the respective and inferior courts, and any compensated intervention in such trials by other lawyers shall result in their instant disbarment, and further prosecuted as the highest-level felony, and upon prosecution and conviction punished even unto death and revocation of corporate charter and total confiscation of assets of all principal conspirators including organizations in the worst cases.
e. There shall be no administrative law courts.
6. a. The ethics of every Federal, State and Territorial executive department, agency, division and branch, and each House of every legislature, and every civil service, and every profession at the Federal and State or Territorial levels, and corporate behavior at the Federal and State or Territorial levels, and every securities exchange or market, shall be policed by a standing ethics committee the commissioners of which have been selected by random lottery on a yearly basis from among the adult citizens of the respective electoral districts of the respective geographic region, but no citizens of other countries shall be so commissioned.
b. Ethics commissioners shall recuse themselves from voting on any measure with regard to which there exists a personal, familial, social or financial conflict of interest, and any wilful and knowing non-recusal shall instantly disqualify for office, and be treated as the gravest of ethical violations necessitating removal from office, and further prosecuted as the highest-level felony, and upon prosecution and conviction punished even unto death and revocation of corporate charter and total confiscation of assets of all principal conspirators including organizations in the worst cases.
c. Ethics complaints shall be passed on by the respective standing ethics committee and if accepted by that committee referred to an ethics commission newly-randomly-selected to adjudicate that complaint.
d. Ethics commissions shall operate in public and observe due process.
e. Ethics commissions shall have full powers to demote, fire or expel as appropriate, except that in the case of a Federal, State or Territorial Executive the commission shall make its case to a committee of the whole of the respective popular House for approval of that decision by a three-fifths vote of all Representatives; reclaim pensions and benefits, and disqualify for further office or employment, wholly or in part; and publicly report their findings and decisions.
f. Appeals from ethics commission findings other than upon Executives may be made to the courts.
g. All ethics committee actions shall be reported to a central, Federally-maintained, freely- and publicly-accessible, ordinarily-formatted (e.g., xhtml) Internet archive.
h. Ethical complaints about ethics commissioners shall be made to a standing central ethics committeee the commissioners of which have been selected by random lottery on a yearly basis from among the adult citizens of the respective electoral district and which shall pass on such complaints and if accepting them referring them to ethics commissions newly-randomly-selected for those complaints.
i. Ethics commissions shall have full power to subpena individuals and evidence, without any bar of secrecy or confidentiality; to find in and jail for contempt; and to refer for criminal trial bypassing grand-jury review.
7. All randomly-selected officials referred to above—jurors, lawyers and commissioners—shall be compensated the same as Representatives, prorated on a daily basis, and with expenses.
8. Any wilful and knowing electoral or selective-lottery fraud or tampering, including false inclusion or exclusion of candidates or voters, and issuing of false information as to election-dates or poll-locations, and wilful refusal to provide adequate election materials and accurate machineries, and conspiracy thereunto, shall be prosecuted by the Federal government as the highest-level felony, and upon conviction punished even unto death and revocation of corporate charter and total confiscation of assets of all principal conspirators including organizations in the worst cases.
9. This Constitution may be amended by vote of a majority of adult citizens in each of three-quarters of the States or a majority vote of three-quarters of the adult citizens of the United States.
[Additions needed: Each act by trial/appellate and ethics jury and directive commission must be confirmed by a second randomly-selected jury/commission; union ethics commissions; protection for citizen data/privacy; protection for citizen communications; protection for ethical/criminal whistleblowers; protection for recording/filming/videoing public events and police actions; Madisonian legislative nonexemption; term limits; and campaign finance reform.]
Mr. Mark Jones of USDOR questioned a list of classes of citizens to be excluded from serving as Representatives, jurors and ethics commissioners (other than lawyers), and also a lower age-limit for Representatives, and I've dropped both (that list was expanding unto infinity anyway, and so I've decided to trust in the laws of probability and the good sense of the American people instead).
Perhaps the most innovative aspect of the following is its establishment of a Fourth Estate, the ethics commissions.
At any rate, here is
1. a. The President of the United States shall be elected in secret ballot by a majority of all adult citizens in the United States, but if no candidate receive such majority vote, or if that majority is less than ten percent greater than the next highest candidate percentage, or if the Presidential office be vacated through resignation, physical but not psychological or psychiatric incapacitation, conviction of a felony, impeachment, or removal for unethical behavior, then the President shall be appointed and serve as described below, the Vice President in such case serving as President pro tem.
b. The Governors of the several States and Territories shall be elected, or appointed and serve, similarly to the President.
c. Executives—President or Governors—permanent, temporary or acting shall recuse themselves from signing into law or vetoing any measure with regard to which there exists a personal, familial, social or financial conflict of interest, and any wilful and knowing non-recusal shall instantly disqualify for office, and be treated as the gravest of ethical violations necessitating removal from office, and further prosecuted as the highest-level felony, and upon prosecution and conviction punished even unto death and revocation of corporate charter and total confiscation of assets of all principal conspirators including organizations in the worst cases.
d. Executives shall have line-item veto power over legislative riders and bundled and omnibus bills.
e. The power of pardon, reprieve or commutation is hereby withdrawn from the Executives and given to the Houses of Representatives as described below.
2. a. The legislatures of the United States and of the several States and Territories thereof shall each consist of two Houses, a Senate in which each State or electoral district is given equal representation, and a House of Representatives in which each is given representation proportional to its population.
b. Senators shall be at least three-quarters of the modal (most frequent) lifespan in age, and shall each have served at least one full and honorable term as Representative, although Senators already serving at the time of ratification of this Amendment shall not be subject to these qualifications, and shall be elected in secret ballot by a majority of all adult citizens in their respective districts, but if no candidate receive such majority vote, or if that majority is less than ten percent greater than the next highest competitor, or if the Senatorial office be vacated through resignation, physical but not psychological or psychiatric incapacitation, conviction of a felony, impeachment, or removal for unethical behavior, then a Senator shall be appointed and serve as described below.
c. Representatives shall be selected on a yearly basis by random lottery from among the adult citizens of their respective electoral districts, and if the Representative office be vacated through resignation, physical but not psychological or psychiatric incapacitation, conviction of a felony, impeachment, or removal for unethical behavior, a new Representative shall be elected by random lottery in the ordinary way.
d. The House of Representatives may by a three-quarters vote of all Representatives and the consent of the Executive, or by a seventeen-twentieths vote of all Representatives alone, pass, modify or repeal any law—other than this Constitution and its Amendments—or treaty or court ruling.
e. All electoral and other political and legal including juridical and ethical districting shall be delimited by the respective House of Representatives.
f. The House of Representatives may appoint by a three-quarters vote of all Representatives or remove by a four-fifths vote of all Representatives the Vice Executive, Cabinet officers, department, agency, division or branch heads, or any inferior Executive branch managers it deems fit.
g. The House of Representatives, meeting in a committee of the whole convened specifically for that purpose, shall have power by a two-thirds vote of all Representatives to grant commutation, reprieve or pardon for any offense under the laws of their jurisdiction other than political-corruption or financial offenses or offenses prosecuted under authority of this Amendment.
h. If no candidate for Executive attain a majority vote of all adult citizens, or more than a ten percent majority greater than the next highest competitor, or if the Executive office be vacated through resignation, physical but not psychological or psychiatric incapacitation, disqualification, conviction of a felony, impeachment, or removal for unethical behavior, the respective House of Representatives shall appoint the new Executive from itself, to serve in consultation with and at the pleasure of that House, and a new Representative selected by lottery from the respective district to replace that appointed.
i. If no candidate for Senate attain a majority vote of all adult citizens, or more than a ten percent majority greater than the next highest competitor, or if the Senatorial office be vacated through resignation, physical but not psychological or psychiatric incapacitation, disqualification, conviction of a felony, impeachment, or removal for unethical behavior, the respective delegation from the respective State or Territory or district of the respective House of Representatives shall appoint that officer from itself, to serve in consultation with and at the pleasure of that delegation, and a new Representative selected by lottery from that respective district to replace that appointed.
j. Neither Executive nor Senate nor Judiciary shall have any power of appointment, censure or removal over Representatives.
k. All national treaties must be approved by the Federal House of Representatives, and any treaties adopted previous to the adoption of this Amendment may be repealed by a two-thirds vote of all Federal Representatives.
l. Legislators whether elected, selected or appointed shall recuse themselves from voting on any measure with regard to which there exists a personal, familial, social or financial conflict of interest, and any wilful and knowing non-recusal shall instantly disqualify for office, and be treated as the gravest of ethical violations necessitating removal from office, and further prosecuted as the highest-level felony, and upon prosecution and conviction punished even unto death and revocation of corporate charter and total confiscation of assets of all principal conspirators including organizations in the worst cases.
m. There shall be no legislative riders or bundled or omnibus bills, and any submission thereof shall be treated as an attempt to subvert the authority and duty of legislators and Executive alike, and any wilful and knowing violation of this prohibition shall instantly disqualify for office, and be treated as the gravest of ethical violations necessitating removal from office, and further prosecuted as the highest-level felony, and upon prosecution and conviction punished even unto death and revocation of corporate charter and total confiscation of assets of all principal conspirators including organizations in the worst cases.
n. The Senate may impeach officials and the House try such impeachments, in mirror order to the original process.
o. The Executive offices and all those of both Houses shall be staffed by the civil service, and Federal Senatorial and Representative home-district offices by the civil services of their respective States.
p. Both Houses of each legislature shall record and publish on the Internet the recordings and verbatim transcripts of their proceedings on a Federally-maintained, freely- and publicly-accessible, ordinarily-formatted (e.g., xhtml) Internet archive.
q. There shall be no franking of, nor any other executive or legislative sending or broadcasting of, unsolicited advertising, solicitations, messages, gifts, tokens or materials of any sort.
3. Every public oversight commission shall be selected on a yearly basis by random lottery from among the adult citizens of the electoral districts of the geographic region overseen by that commission.
4. Cities and towns and counties and parishes shall be governed by commissions selected on a yearly basis by random lottery from among their adult citizens.
5. a. All trials shall be passed on and if accepted referred to the respective courts by grand juries the jurors of which have been selected by random lottery from among the adult citizens of the respective juridical districts.
b. All trial facts, law, verdicts and sentences shall be found by jury selected by random lottery from among the adult citizens of the respective juridical districts.
c. All appeals at each appellate level up to and including the supreme shall be passed on and if accepted referred to the respective appellate courts by grand appellate juries the jurors of which have been selected by random lottery from among the adult citizens of the respective juridical districts.
d. All trial and appellate lawyers and judges shall be selected on a case-by-case basis by random lottery from the pool of lawyers attached to the respective and inferior courts, and any compensated intervention in such trials by other lawyers shall result in their instant disbarment, and further prosecuted as the highest-level felony, and upon prosecution and conviction punished even unto death and revocation of corporate charter and total confiscation of assets of all principal conspirators including organizations in the worst cases.
e. There shall be no administrative law courts.
6. a. The ethics of every Federal, State and Territorial executive department, agency, division and branch, and each House of every legislature, and every civil service, and every profession at the Federal and State or Territorial levels, and corporate behavior at the Federal and State or Territorial levels, and every securities exchange or market, shall be policed by a standing ethics committee the commissioners of which have been selected by random lottery on a yearly basis from among the adult citizens of the respective electoral districts of the respective geographic region, but no citizens of other countries shall be so commissioned.
b. Ethics commissioners shall recuse themselves from voting on any measure with regard to which there exists a personal, familial, social or financial conflict of interest, and any wilful and knowing non-recusal shall instantly disqualify for office, and be treated as the gravest of ethical violations necessitating removal from office, and further prosecuted as the highest-level felony, and upon prosecution and conviction punished even unto death and revocation of corporate charter and total confiscation of assets of all principal conspirators including organizations in the worst cases.
c. Ethics complaints shall be passed on by the respective standing ethics committee and if accepted by that committee referred to an ethics commission newly-randomly-selected to adjudicate that complaint.
d. Ethics commissions shall operate in public and observe due process.
e. Ethics commissions shall have full powers to demote, fire or expel as appropriate, except that in the case of a Federal, State or Territorial Executive the commission shall make its case to a committee of the whole of the respective popular House for approval of that decision by a three-fifths vote of all Representatives; reclaim pensions and benefits, and disqualify for further office or employment, wholly or in part; and publicly report their findings and decisions.
f. Appeals from ethics commission findings other than upon Executives may be made to the courts.
g. All ethics committee actions shall be reported to a central, Federally-maintained, freely- and publicly-accessible, ordinarily-formatted (e.g., xhtml) Internet archive.
h. Ethical complaints about ethics commissioners shall be made to a standing central ethics committeee the commissioners of which have been selected by random lottery on a yearly basis from among the adult citizens of the respective electoral district and which shall pass on such complaints and if accepting them referring them to ethics commissions newly-randomly-selected for those complaints.
i. Ethics commissions shall have full power to subpena individuals and evidence, without any bar of secrecy or confidentiality; to find in and jail for contempt; and to refer for criminal trial bypassing grand-jury review.
7. All randomly-selected officials referred to above—jurors, lawyers and commissioners—shall be compensated the same as Representatives, prorated on a daily basis, and with expenses.
8. Any wilful and knowing electoral or selective-lottery fraud or tampering, including false inclusion or exclusion of candidates or voters, and issuing of false information as to election-dates or poll-locations, and wilful refusal to provide adequate election materials and accurate machineries, and conspiracy thereunto, shall be prosecuted by the Federal government as the highest-level felony, and upon conviction punished even unto death and revocation of corporate charter and total confiscation of assets of all principal conspirators including organizations in the worst cases.
9. This Constitution may be amended by vote of a majority of adult citizens in each of three-quarters of the States or a majority vote of three-quarters of the adult citizens of the United States.
[Additions needed: Each act by trial/appellate and ethics jury and directive commission must be confirmed by a second randomly-selected jury/commission; union ethics commissions; protection for citizen data/privacy; protection for citizen communications; protection for ethical/criminal whistleblowers; protection for recording/filming/videoing public events and police actions; Madisonian legislative nonexemption; term limits; and campaign finance reform.]
posted by John Kennard at 2:50 PM
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