Rules for Party Leaders on Passing Laws

[emilynghiem]

I propose to pass a resolution where Party leaders and members AGREE to ground rules
on passing laws to resolve conflicts in advance to prevent deadlocks at taxpayer expense:

A. Policy on "separating church and state" or "separating federal from state government"
B. Policy on what is Constitutional BEFORE writing a bill and voting on it by majority rule
C. Policy on restitution to taxpayers for past abuses or waste of public funds on conflicts

A. Equal respect and inclusion of diverse religious beliefs and political ideology:
On separating church and state OR federal from state government

1. No law should be passed without PROOF the solution or reform works first, especially to voters objecting who BELIEVE otherwise. Otherwise, this is a "FAITH-BASED" argument, and cannot be imposed by govt based on the FAITH of some voters over the FAITH of others. Voting by majority rule should not be abused as a criteria to prove agreement or disagreement, but the conflicts in beliefs should be resolved or the laws rewritten.

Examples:
a. beliefs or faith about when life begins and when the state is legally responsible for defending life of an individual
b. beliefs about the Constitution and limited govt versus public services through central govt
c. beliefs or faith about homosexuality as either natural or unnatural, before proving this scientifically where opponents agree to change their minds freely
d. beliefs or faith about health care choices, and the role of government
e. beliefs or faith about capital punishment and/or other means of restitution or correction

2. Consent of the Governed: Voters should freely choose to adopt the law without political coercion. Once they agree to follow it, they can be held to enforce it; but not if they never agreed in the first place.

If all voters AGREE on a faith based argument, this does not violate anyone's beliefs.
If voters do NOT AGREE, this requires proof accepted by the opponents

Otherwise, faith based arguments favoring one side cannot be imposed by government without violating equal religious freedom and equal protection of the laws against discrimination by creed.

3. Consensus on how a law is written and interpreted:
Once Voters agree on a law or reform, the wording and interpretation of the law should be agreed upon to prevent from introducing a conflicting bias or consequence.

B. What makes a law Constitutional

1. It respects the LETTER of rules, limits and process set up under the Constitution and does not abuse Majority Rule to override objections on these grounds, to take shortcuts in enacting laws or reforms, such as by Partisan or Media influence, or conflicts of interest with supporters financing campaigns. See also Code of Ethics for Government Service.

2. Consent of the Governed: Equal protection of religious beliefs and political ideology
See Part A above. Conflicts of interest and/or of beliefs should be resolved in advance BEFORE voting so that majority rule or partisan influence is not abused to violate consent of the governed or to impose taxation without representation. If voters cannot agree due to conflicting beliefs, that will not change but equally protected, the law should be rewritten to remove conflicting points, or policies should be separated by groups and funded and managed locally by choice of participating members, such as by state or by party.

3. Responsibility for Consequences: Laws cannot be passed that impose a burden or create additional problems for objecting voters who do not agree to that responsibility; but this added responsibility should be agreed to be carried by the advocates in accordance with Part A: proving it first to establish consent of the public affected and consensus in writing.

C. To test out these criteria to see if they work, I propose to select cases of conflicts of interest in laws that violated religious or political beliefs, or abused tax money on fraud.
Where leaders of respective parties form teams around contested issues, assess the damages and debts owed to taxpayers per case, and set up accounts through the Federal Reserve to issue notes or credits to taxpayers relative to each case. These proposed accounts will be used to finance the corrections of the abuses, creating jobs in reform,
restoration, and rebuilding communities and economy harmed by waste of public funds.

And either the cost of each project will be charged back to the wrongdoers, through teams of lawyers or law school interns to create jobs negotiating settlement plans, collecting government debts on behalf of taxpayers for an agreed commission rate per case, or else citizen and corporate investors who choose to buy out the debts may opt to negotiate to own shares in the property or programs built around the corrections used as collateral to back the loans or investments until the debts and damages are fully paid off.

Examples for test cases to use as national models:

a. 1.6 billion in tax money and interest spent to bail out Maxxam Corporation when it took over Pacific Lumber in California to destroy pristine rainforest and river ecosystems and wildlife; where financing against this debt could fund education and jobs in environmental science until the natural ecosystems and endangered wildlife are restored over time.
The forest can be made into a national park, held as collateral to finance the restoration.

b. 10 to 15 million in Federal Reserve money, and 3.4 million in local city money, abused by conflicts of interest to destroy instead of preserve the National Historic District of Freedmen's Town near downtown Houston. Plans to restore the district as a campus can house health care for Vets, elderly and disabled through supervised student interns on a sustainable basis to reform welfare; while providing onsite training in financial and property management to break the cycle of poverty, and to fund longterm historic preservation.

c. estimated 24 billion cost of the federal government shutdown, dividing responsibility proportionally between the parties represented in Congress that failed to negotiate based on the above standard proposed for testing. Either 75/25 split between Democrats and Republicans to raise and pay back 24 billion across the states to invest in test models for health care reform, in order to prove these first before asking taxpayers to participate. Or 50/50 if the parties cannot agree on the proportion of fault over the ACA conflicts that caused the shutdown. I further recommend that the Green Party and Occupy teams per city work with Democrats to set up a working model for health care reform that is sustainable and meets the above criteria. And the Libertarians and Tea Party invest in free market alternative models, such as the campus model proposed to renovate the public housing in Freedmen's Town. This campus model can also be applied to develop safe communities for businesses and military prisons or teaching hospitals along the border to resolve state budget issues over prison and immigration reform, using restitution from trafficking, sweatshops, and other criminal violations to rebuild sustainable economies.

References:
Code of Ethics for Government Service http://www.ethics-commission.net
Sustainable Campus Plan http://www.campusplan.org
Vet Housing plans in Freedmen's Town http://www.freedmenstown.com
Application to Immigration Reform http://www.earnedamnesty.org

 

[Michelle420]

Great idea Emily

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Love to see a parity law where for every new law that's enacted, a few redundant or out-dated ones have to be REmoved. Removing laws is considerably more difficult than enacting new ones, but so long as they're 'on the books' they can be arbitraily ignored or enforced so removing them is a good idea. Plus, there's so many redundant ones that they aren't helping anybody any more.

 

[emilynghiem]

Thanks Drifter, Thanks Delta!
Appreciate your support and feedback.

P.S. I love that you brought up parity, I considered using this term to mean ending "disparity" in representation. And push for "political parity" in terms of "equal inclusion" of beliefs instead of competing to overrule by party. I wanted to use this term as a pun on "political parody" because I write satires. So I wanted to spoof the Westboro Baptist and create a Constitutional church under the name "Eastboro Center for Political Parity" and push for corrections to conflicts where restitution is paid back to taxpayers in the form of financial reimbursement, labor and systems set up to reform the abused laws, institutions or cases. (for the media outreach and fundraising, the fun part would be producing video parodies for public education and fundraising for creative solutions, so the pun would be appropriate.)

Love to see a parity law where for every new law that's enacted, a few redundant or out-dated ones have to be REmoved. Removing laws is considerably more difficult than enacting new ones, but so long as they're 'on the books' they can be arbitraily ignored or enforced so removing them is a good idea. Plus, there's so many redundant ones that they aren't helping anybody any more.

Yes, I think this can be done at the same time. We've never set up means for correcting outdated laws; also conflicts over the terms of Medicaid or Social Security that were supposed to be short term and expire.

I'd like to model a system after the OSHA hearing process in the legislation by Ralph Nader, and form some kind of citizen review board of laws and rulings to answer objections,
and delegate issues by party so as many of the objections can be addressed.

If this is delegated by Party, then members of all parties can participate with equal representation regardless of the size of the following instead of majority rule by the largest groups.
The Green Party already has a model for proportional representation by party, and also consensus on decision making (I suggest all objections must be answered with a correction to resolve the conflict)

I believe the First Amendment redressing of grievances should be a REQUIREMENT of govt, not an option for citizens to petition without any guarantee of resolving anything.

If you don't take responsibility for resolving grievances, you shouldn't be counted as govt. Whoever takes that responsibility, that's what determines who is really in charge. Not just voting or preaching, but actually building and managing solutions -- governing something! By your own equal labor and efforts, not telling other people what to do and how to do it.

 

[emilynghiem]

Great idea Emily

P.S. I love your new avatar and quote. I've been trying to explain in secular terms that Jesus represents Justice. So this quote makes sense if you see God as Love (or Universal Truth). made manifest in Jesus or Justice on the level of man's laws on earth. And the point is to reconcile the natural laws of man with the universal laws on the collective level that God represents, or Jesus as Equal Justice for All humanity.

 

[nodoginnafight]

C. Policy on restitution to taxpayers for past abuses or waste of public funds on conflicts

Where's the money for this going to come from?

 

[P@triot]

First - great post as always Emily

Second - the #2 problem we have in Congress is that almost no one actually reads a bill before they vote for or against it. Literally, almost no one. To illustrate this point, Tom Moore Jr. in the Texas state legislator introduced a bill to honor Albert DeSalvo for his "innovative techniques to population control". DeSavlo is better known as The Boston Strangler. Sadly, the bill passed. Moore withdrew it and scolded his fellow respresentatives for passing a bill that they hadn't bother to read one word of.

Third - the #1 problem we have is an ignorant electorate. They are literally too lazy to take the time to vet the candidates, understand who they are and what they stand for, and then cast an informed vote. And lets not kid ourselves, that's exactly what the overwhelming number of candiates in Washington prefer. More than 92% of voters will cast a vote for the name they saw the most on posters, commercials, etc. Exit polls showed that the day Barack Obama was elected, 70% could not name the candidates for president!!! The #1 search on Goolge that day? Who is running for president!

The bottom line, we're fucked until we drain the swamp. All of the rules in the world won't matter because both sides ignore the rules (and there is nobody there to stop them from doing so). If they ignore the Constitution, they sure as hell will ignore these great ideas passed into law.

Frankly, the only thing I can think of that will save the election is to have a pre-election exam. At the ballot, if you can't correctly identify the candidates, their party, and their platform, you don't get to cast a vote. Why should you be allowed to cast critical votes on issues and for candidates which you are completely and totally uninformed about? You have to pass a text to receive a diploma. You have to pass a test to drive a car. You have to pass a test to receive a concealed carry license. All of these are done to ensure that you KNOW what you're doing when you do it. So why don't you have to KNOW what you're doing when you cast critical votes?

Of course, the Democrats right now are about bent over having a heart attack at the thought of losing their "useful idiots" and will proclaim "that is unconstitutional". Well, I'm not saying piss on the Constitution. I'm saying amend it so that we don't end up with a lifetime of an ignorant piece of shit like Nancy Pelosi who ignorantly declares "we have to pass the bill before we can find out what is in it".

Short of sending people of integrity to Washington who will actually abide by the law, no amount of new laws will ever matter. But you have some GREAT ideas for people of integrity should they ever get elected!

 

[P@triot]

[MENTION=22295]emilynghiem[/MENTION] - I just thought of something else I would add. A percentage cap on taxes (I would say 10% but that could be debated). Here is what I realized tonight - there is no real incentive for Washington to improve the economy. Quite the contrary, it is advantageous for the Democrats to make sure as many people as possible are dependent on government because then they will be dependent on Democrats.

But......if taxes are capped in concrete at 10%, then if the federal government wants more revenue, they need more people working and/or higher wages for people already working.

10% of $20,000 is $2,000 but 10% of $200,000 is $20,000. So now the federal government is directly hurt when their policies negatively impact our economy and they are directly rewarded when their policies positively impact our economy. They feel the consequences of their own policies (just like we do) and will be forced to do the right thing when they want more money instead of just taking more by force.

 

[emilynghiem]

[MENTION=22295]emilynghiem[/MENTION] - I just thought of something else I would add. A percentage cap on taxes (I would say 10% but that could be debated). Here is what I realized tonight - there is no real incentive for Washington to improve the economy. Quite the contrary, it is advantageous for the Democrats to make sure as many people as possible are dependent on government because then they will be dependent on Democrats.

But......if taxes are capped in concrete at 10%, then if the federal government wants more revenue, they need more people working and/or higher wages for people already working.

10% of $20,000 is $2,000 but 10% of $200,000 is $20,000. So now the federal government is directly hurt when their policies negatively impact our economy and they are directly rewarded when their policies positively impact our economy. They feel the consequences of their own policies (just like we do) and will be forced to do the right thing when they want more money instead of just taking more by force.

Totally agree! I also believe in 10% as the cap -- also for math reasons, to simply the process so less time is wasted on accounting errors, etc. People don't get that "administration time" eats up resources that could go directly into real work and service. Right now we still need income tax, but it could be that anything above 10% is LENT to government and citizens can "buy back" schools, hospitals, prisons etc. using these sites as collateral against these debts/loans to govt until the budget is balanced by paying back and keeping it managed on a financially sustainable basis. In the future, I would like to see govt completely run on 10% sales tax, where all income tax would be voluntarily LENT and no longer mandatory to pay. I think we could achieve this by shifting more govt programs back to the private sectors,
in ways that reward citizens for managing these locally and cutting down on crime and corruption/waste and other excess costs from problems that are not sustainable but preventable or correctable.

What do you think of a cap or a tax on political campaigns?
What if each candidate can raise and spend 1 million per office campaigning for
per state, or up to 50 million for a national election; and after that, 10 to 15%
of campaign money raised has to go toward sustainable projects agreed upon.

Like 10% of all Democrat candidates funding will go to their party membership pool to set up singlepayer health care through their own internal system of registering members.
And 10% of all Republican funding can go into a free market system of helping members pay for their own health care, without forcing insurance, but keeping it as a free choice.

Or 15% of national election funding will go into saving environmental sites to create jobs for students to pay back loans; or into saving historic houses or businesses for Vets
to create jobs and campus communities to support themselves and regain independence.

Since campaign contributions are voluntary, it may be better to introduce and test out reforms with that system, and seeing if lending against capital development projects would work
to shift management and representation to local democracy instead of federal bureaucracy we have now.
Before proposing to change mandatory govt taxes to a related system.

 

[bripat9643]

Love to see a parity law where for every new law that's enacted, a few redundant or out-dated ones have to be REmoved. Removing laws is considerably more difficult than enacting new ones, but so long as they're 'on the books' they can be arbitraily ignored or enforced so removing them is a good idea. Plus, there's so many redundant ones that they aren't helping anybody any more.

That would get complicated by the problem of defining what constitutes "a regulation." Would it be an entire bill, like Obamacare, or would it be each sentence in the bill? I would have a law that limited the total amount of government regulations to a specified number of words, say 100,000 words. If Congress or bureaucrats wanted to create new regulations, they would have to get rid of some old ones.

I would furthermore make it mandatory for Congress to vote an every regulation. The bureaucracy could come up with them, but Congress would have to give final approval. I don't see anything in the Constitution that allows the executive branch to make laws, and that's what regulations are.

 

[hazlnut]

B. Policy on what is Constitutional BEFORE writing a bill and voting on it by majority rule

That's up to SCOTUS and traditionally this is done after the law is in effect because how a law it implements is key to determining this question.

We have 3 branches for a reason….

 

[P@triot]

B. Policy on what is Constitutional BEFORE writing a bill and voting on it by majority rule

That's up to SCOTUS and traditionally this is done after the law is in effect because how a law it implements is key to determining this question.

We have 3 branches for a reason….

Obamacare proved that we don't have 3 branches. Democrats stacked the Supreme Court court with a bunch of unhinged loons (Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and the troll Kagen) who knowingly violate the Constitution to rubber-stamp their masters agenda.

Obamacare is so egregiously unconstitutional that nobody on earth (including Obama himself) could deny that if they were connected to a polygraph.

And since Obama keeps unconstitutionally bypassing Congress, we literally have one branch of government which is lead by an unhinged wannabe dictator.

 

[P@triot]

[MENTION=22295]emilynghiem[/MENTION] - I just thought of something else I would add. A percentage cap on taxes (I would say 10% but that could be debated). Here is what I realized tonight - there is no real incentive for Washington to improve the economy. Quite the contrary, it is advantageous for the Democrats to make sure as many people as possible are dependent on government because then they will be dependent on Democrats.

But......if taxes are capped in concrete at 10%, then if the federal government wants more revenue, they need more people working and/or higher wages for people already working.

10% of $20,000 is $2,000 but 10% of $200,000 is $20,000. So now the federal government is directly hurt when their policies negatively impact our economy and they are directly rewarded when their policies positively impact our economy. They feel the consequences of their own policies (just like we do) and will be forced to do the right thing when they want more money instead of just taking more by force.

Totally agree! I also believe in 10% as the cap -- also for math reasons, to simply the process so less time is wasted on accounting errors, etc. People don't get that "administration time" eats up resources that could go directly into real work and service. Right now we still need income tax, but it could be that anything above 10% is LENT to government and citizens can "buy back" schools, hospitals, prisons etc. using these sites as collateral against these debts/loans to govt until the budget is balanced by paying back and keeping it managed on a financially sustainable basis. In the future, I would like to see govt completely run on 10% sales tax, where all income tax would be voluntarily LENT and no longer mandatory to pay. I think we could achieve this by shifting more govt programs back to the private sectors,
in ways that reward citizens for managing these locally and cutting down on crime and corruption/waste and other excess costs from problems that are not sustainable but preventable or correctable.

What do you think of a cap or a tax on political campaigns?
What if each candidate can raise and spend 1 million per office campaigning for
per state, or up to 50 million for a national election; and after that, 10 to 15%
of campaign money raised has to go toward sustainable projects agreed upon.

Like 10% of all Democrat candidates funding will go to their party membership pool to set up singlepayer health care through their own internal system of registering members.
And 10% of all Republican funding can go into a free market system of helping members pay for their own health care, without forcing insurance, but keeping it as a free choice.

Or 15% of national election funding will go into saving environmental sites to create jobs for students to pay back loans; or into saving historic houses or businesses for Vets
to create jobs and campus communities to support themselves and regain independence.

Since campaign contributions are voluntary, it may be better to introduce and test out reforms with that system, and seeing if lending against capital development projects would work
to shift management and representation to local democracy instead of federal bureaucracy we have now.
Before proposing to change mandatory govt taxes to a related system.

I'm a little uncomfortable with telling the American people how much they can donate (I'm all about freedom and choice). If we're going to do anything, I'd say lets cap how much the politicians are allowed to spend on campaigns.

But you are dead on with properly returning power to the local municipalities. It's too bad so many liberals can't figure it out. Everyone in the U.S. can live exactly how they want (liberals in their liberal utopia, conservatives in their conservative utopia) if we would return to Constitutional government.

 

[emilynghiem]

Love to see a parity law where for every new law that's enacted, a few redundant or out-dated ones have to be REmoved. Removing laws is considerably more difficult than enacting new ones, but so long as they're 'on the books' they can be arbitraily ignored or enforced so removing them is a good idea. Plus, there's so many redundant ones that they aren't helping anybody any more.

That would get complicated by the problem of defining what constitutes "a regulation." Would it be an entire bill, like Obamacare, or would it be each sentence in the bill? I would have a law that limited the total amount of government regulations to a specified number of words, say 100,000 words. If Congress or bureaucrats wanted to create new regulations, they would have to get rid of some old ones.

I would furthermore make it mandatory for Congress to vote an every regulation. The bureaucracy could come up with them, but Congress would have to give final approval. I don't see anything in the Constitution that allows the executive branch to make laws, and that's what regulations are.

Hi Bripat: I really would appreciate your participation and input on a resolution to Party leaders, I've read your posts and believe we are on the same page with the commitment to Constitutional foundations and rule of law.

as for brevity I think this would take care of itself by making laws by consensus. there are very few points and principles that all parties would agree to back, so that would naturally limit federal govt to just basic terms and not a bunch of mumbo jumbo. that is usually a sign that things need to be managed locally if they require that many different conditions so leave that part to the states and the people.

for a great example of streamlined law passed by consensus see th e Code of ethics for govt service. when you stick to common principles, it usually means cutting out all the other details that aren't necessary. look at the bill of rights also, all very short. good govt would be where we all agree which is on the core principles.

thanks bripat
and yes i agree this will shorten the laws and clean up govt,
moving all the bureaucracy to the local levels to sort out and remove from federal levels.

 

[emilynghiem]

B. Policy on what is Constitutional BEFORE writing a bill and voting on it by majority rule

That's up to SCOTUS and traditionally this is done after the law is in effect because how a law it implements is key to determining this question.

We have 3 branches for a reason….

Hi Hazlnut: even the people running the judiciary and legal system need checks and balances. or else we become like a religion where the priests or popes dictate to the people how to interpret the laws.

there is nothing wrong with consenting to legal jurisprudence.

but hazlnut when it comes to religious principles, the govt not even the judges can be in the business of dictating against the will of the people.

we still need for citizen review of govt on all levels to make sure we are in agreement constitutionally to prevent abuses. kelo was a wake up call where judges were going along with corporate interests to make their profits a justification for taking land by eminent domain.

after the judges in kelo made that decision, the people acted to curb and check that interpretation on the state levels to prevent abuse. look up kelo and that is what I'm talking about. where for profit interests argued that private profit would generate tax revenue for the public as justification for taking land from private owners by eminent domain, not for roads or other public use, but for private profit arguing that tax revenue was public benefit.

 

[emilynghiem]

I'm a little uncomfortable with telling the American people how much they can donate (I'm all about freedom and choice). If we're going to do anything, I'd say lets cap how much the politicians are allowed to spend on campaigns.

But you are dead on with properly returning power to the local municipalities. It's too bad so many liberals can't figure it out. Everyone in the U.S. can live exactly how they want (liberals in their liberal utopia, conservatives in their conservative utopia) if we would return to Constitutional government.

sorry i wasn't clear as i agree with you. what i'm saying is after the first one million, then donations or contributions would be taxed under some schedule all parties and candidates agree to follow with their members. the point is not to dictate but agree to invest a percent directly into solutions, and give junior members projects and positions to work on to prove their leadership for future candidacy. instead of spending all that money on empty media campaigns, wed agree how much goes into national projects that demonstrate reforms. and this can be part of the publicity for the campaigns and the leaders showing their skills.

thanks RW and I invite your partnership on writing this up for presentation to leaders concerned about future campaigns.
i am in SJL congressional district 18. whoever is going to take over her district when she retires will need to rebuild all those relations
so why not start now. why not create a campus system of training upcoming leaders and candidates from all parties so the work can be done and shared among people willing to do it.
as long as it makes the candidates look good, they will go for it. it has to benefit all people and there is no reason to oppose it. all parties need to see how this would strengthen and fulfill their goals.