My favorite lawyer and constitutional scholar has a very interesting post over at his blog on wordpress. He brings forward some outstanding ideas toward reforming our system through constitutional amendments originating from state legislatures.
"You Say You Want A Revolution": How To Reform Our Political System
Before we can change the system, we have to change our attitude passivity and collectively declare "enough." While our leaders control the political branches, they do not control the political process itself. That is controlled by the Constitution, which remains in control of the people, in our control. It is not too much speech or too much money that is draining the life from this Republic. It is a lack of faith in ourselves to force change without the approval or support of our leaders. If we are going to go through the constitutional amendment process, then let’s make it worth our while and achieve real political change in this country.
He goes on to list several changes to our system aimed at rescuing our politics from a two party stranglehold that has been poisoning it for decades.
Here are the bullets of his proposals, but please go read his posting for yourself because I can't say it any better than he did, and I don't want to push fair-use rules.
- Remove barriers to third parties
- End the practice of gerrymandering
- Change the primary system
- Abolish the electoral college
- Require a majority for presidents to be elected
I won't elaborate too much on these because I want you to read his post, but hopefully there will be a good discussion in the comments. I know many here are averse to talk of third parties, which given recent history is well justified, but a major change in the system could allow them to be much more viable and allow real progress on some of these tough issues. Here are Mr. Turley's thoughts in closing.
The current anger and outcry will mean nothing unless we can harness and channel it toward serious reform. Simply seeking a constitutional amendment on campaign finance reform would do little to truly reform the system. Though it may require a third party to seek such changes, it can be done. We have to accept that the leaders of both parties are unlikely to solve this problem. They are much of the problem. The framers gave us the tools to achieve real change in our system.
A push for constitutional changes would be very tough and is rife with unintended consequences, but this is something that we should talk about.