what changes would you make in the legislative process?

[onenote]

There has been considerable dissatisfaction voiced on DU with regard to the 110th Congress. Among the complaints: failure to enact legislation because of vetoes and filibusters and decisions by the leadership (Pelosi and Reid) to bring certain bills to the floor and to not bring other bills to the floor.

My question goes to whether DUers have specific suggestions for structural changes that they think would produce better results. For example, should the constitution be amended to do away with the president's veto power? Should filibusters be eliminated? Should the powers of the speaker/majority leader be expanded (if so, what changes should be made) or reduced (if so, what changes should be made). This thread is open for any and all other suggestions.

Personally, I'm not sure that I see any structural changes that are practicable or that wouldn't come back and bite us on the ass at some point, but I'm open to hearing what others think.

[AllyCat]

1. I don't think any of those changes should be done. What I would like to see

is major bills be "clean". I'm tired of amendments to bills that are completely unrelated to the intent of the bill. If they want to tack this crap onto bills to make a new holiday or a new week to honor white picket fences in American historic districts, fine. But adding stupid, unrelated crap to major bills like minimum wage are just dumb. I know it's the "way politics" runs, but I want it to stop.

It would also be nice if we had publicly-financed campaigns so we could have something approaching honest elections and get these morons to listen to their constituents.

Instead of whining, "but Bush will veto it!" about anything the Dems want, maybe they could try good old-fashioned compromise like they used to do. I think they used to do it. At this point, I don't even remember what they used to do.

[onenote]

8. self delete

[John Q. Citizen]

2. i don't see the legislative rules as the problem. I see the intentional shrinkage of

of democratic pluralism of the electorate as the problem.

Both parties have set up the rules of engagement to entrench both party's power brokers at the expense of the people.

This then leads to poor results for the people legislatively but works out very well for the major parties, whether they are in the majority or the minority.

Legislative votes are thus only considered in relation to minority or majority status of both party's candidates, but have little relationship to the asperations of the people in the country as a whole.

[KKKarl is an idiot]

3. a couple of changes come to mind

The electoral college needs to go. There would have been no doubt about Gore winning in '00 if that were the case.

The president should keep his veto right. But it should not go back to congress to override it. It should immediately create a general referendum paid for by the federal government. This will mean the president will only use a veto if he feels congress is acting against the will of the people and not against the will of his party.

[John Q. Citizen]

4. Those would both take constitutional amendments. Not very likely to

happen.

Also, why would a President not veto a bill again? What if he vetoed 20 bills. Your suggestion isn't feasible from a practical viewpoint.

[harlinchi]

5. No 1-party conference committee; no signing statements! n/t

[ProudDad]

6. PUBLIC FINANCING of elections

and TAKE BACK OUR AIRWAVES for substantive candidate statements and real debates on the issues...

Until that's done, it will continue to be BIG BUSINESS as usual...

Anything less is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic...

[pnutbutr]

7. term limits

on senators and congressmen. I think this would give us new and fresh ideas as well as limiting the influence of lobbyists and could even get more people interested in participating in politics and the political process. Lots of people just vote for the name they know and if they don't know any of the names they will have to learn about them. I would also like to see some kind of change that would allow citizens without much money run an effective campaign for seats in order to bring it back to "the people". I don't know quite how to make the second one work but I would like to see it.

[onenote]

9. thanks for the input

interesting responses. hope others add more