Constitutional Amendments for the
21st Century
Some additional suggestions :
( 11 ) Supreme Court Rules--
( i ) No referendum or state constitutional amendment, for
any state,
passed by the voters of that state, that is brought to the
Court to seek
its overturn on Constitutional grounds shall be declared as
unconstitutional
unless a minimum of 7 Justices out of 9 concur.
( ii ) All sitting justices who have previously voted to
overturn voter approved state
constitutional amendments shall hereby be retired from the
Court on the grounds
that such usurpation of the rights of states, such bad
faith in the capability of
drafters of state constitutional amendments, and such
blatant contempt for
the rights of voters in our American democracy, deserves
nothing less.
( iii ) The House and Senate shall each be permitted to
request the Court to hear the
non-binding views of Justices on the Constitutionality of
proposed legislation.
The purpose shall be to do away with time consuming and
costly litigation
concerning controversial new laws. Each chamber shall be
able to make
5 such requests each year at times of their choosing and
the Justices
shall comply within 30 days of the request.
( iv ) In no case shall the Court refer to foreign law of
any kind in reaching decisions.
This manifestly does not mean that any Justice is
prohibited from study of foreign law
but it does mean that the laws of other nations shall not
be made use of for
purposes of deciding American cases before the Court. One
class of exception
is allowed, when Justices concur by a minimum of 7 votes.
( 12 ) Congressional Rules --
( i ) No bill being considered for enactment shall be voted
upon unless the members
have the opportunity to read it first. It shall be regarded
as an impeachable offense
not to read a bill voted on. There shall be 1 day granted
for this purpose for
each 50 pages of text, and a minimum of 2 days in all
cases.
( ii ) The winning party in House elections shall be
enabled to choose chairmen
or chairwomen according to popular vote criteria. At this
time each chamber
has 20+ committees With a simple majority of less than 55 %
, the winning party
will have first choice for chairmanships for any 5
committees, all other committee
chairmanships allotted alternatively between the two major
parties. For example,
if the Democrats were to win an election with a simple
majority they would
chose which 5 committees their members would chair,
followed by
a Republican choice , another Democratic choice, and so
forth,
until all committees had chairs appointed. Each additional
2-1/2 % of the
vote and the number of "first choice" chairmanships would
increase by one.
For example, a victory margin of 59 % of total popular vote
and the
winning party would select the first 7 chairmanships. In
the case of
the Senate, given staggered elections, 2/3rds of all
committee chairmanships
would be held over and the remaining chairmanships
apportioned in a similar
manner according to popular vote percentages.
( iii ) No political party may nominate for office for any
given election
candidates who predominantly have one kind of professional
background.
No profession may be have more than 40 % of nominees. That
is,
lawyers of all kinds shall comprise a maximum of 40% of
candidates
for any political party. This applies to all other
professions, such as
academics together, such that the intent of this Amendment
is not circumvented
by considering professors of political science in a
different professional category
than professors of sociology or demography. This also
applies to
people in business, or anything else.
( 13 ) Primary Elections--
By common consent and tradition, Iowa shall hold the first
caucus, followed
by the New Hampshire presidential primary and primaries in
South Carolina,
Arizona, and Michigan. The Iowa caucus shall be held in mid
January, the
New Hampshire primary in late January, and the other
primary contests
shall be held in the month of February. In late February,
one state, not to be repeated
in this position until all other interested states are
accommodated, shall hold
its primary , similar to the example of Florida in 2008.
After this each party
shall select, in consultation with the other major party,
which states shall hold
their caucuses or primaries, but such that no more than
4 are scheduled for any
given week in the month of March. After that the parties,
in consultation , will be
free to decide on any arrangement that they prefer, such as
all remaining caucuses
and primaries on one Super-Tuesday, or anything else. If
any named state wishes
to opt out of early primaries or a caucus, it is free to do
so and the major political
parties shall select one replacement, acting in
consultation. In the case of a deadlock
between the 2 major parties, the party with the 3rd highest
votes will make
the determination.
( 14 ) End of Endless Appeals in Capital Crimes.
There is no justification for spending anywhere from $
40,000 to $ 50,000+
per year, per prisoner, to incarcerate persons
convicted of capital offenses,
year after year, with no practical limit because of
repeated legal appeals.
The money could be spent far more wisely for other
purposes. Henceforth,
only one appeal will be allowed, such that, if the appeal
fails, the execution
shall take place a maximum of 2-1/2 years from date of
conviction.
This principle will apply to all other cases such that,
only one appeal
will be allowed for any felony conviction.
( 15 ) Immigration Reform
Immigration shall be limited to a maximum of 1 million
people for any given year.
One half of that number must reflect the current
demographic makeup
of the population, one third based on America's
professional needs,
the remainder based on criteria such as uniting divided
families, length of time
on a waiting list, and so In all cases, priority shall be
given to applicants for
entry to the United States who can name a sponsor willing
to vouch for his or her
character and willing to guarantee the immigrant's debts.
ALL illegal aliens shall
be deported and the Federal Government shall have full
responsibility to enforce
all immigration laws including deportation of illegals. If
it happens that the Federal
Government does not do so in any calendar year, the states
may act on their own
to enforce the law until such time as the Federal
Government shows it is willing
to do so and establishes a record of compliance of at least
3 months.
There may be exceptions proposed by the President , agreed
to by the
Congress, for political refugees or other special cases,
but in no case
or combination of cases, to exceed an additional 250,000
people
in any calendar year. Congress may make a limited number of
exceptions,
for example, for children raised in the USA who are 18
years of age, or other
worthy criteria, but not to exceed 100,000 people for all
cases total, not yearly.
The automatic citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment is
hereby clarified
to define "natural born" to mean a child born to parents
who are US citizens,
or, when appropriate, when at least one parent is a citizen
and the other
is actively seeking citizenship. This is not ex post
facto and all grants
of citizenship prior to passage of this Amendment are
unaffected.
Respectfully submitted
Billy
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