During the General Assembly at OccupySJ a couple of nights ago we talked about what is that we need to do to change the direction of this country. And I got to thinking, what we have now is unbridled corporate collusion that has completely destroyed the party of Lincoln and uses its vast wealth to corrupt the party of FDR. Our voice and votes are being collectively diminished. Something has got to change and it needs to be done systematically on the Federal Level. First, we need to establish term limits for the do nothings that inhabit the US congress. Second, we need to cut off the ability of the 21st Century Trusts to buy off the system like was done in with Citizens United Supreme Court Decision. Third we need to limit campaign contributions to that of the constituency of the elected reps that serve us. Proposed 28th Amendment below the fold.
Proposed 28th Amendment to United States Constitution
"Within their lifetime, no person may be elected to US Senate for more than two six year terms regardless of state.
Within their lifetime, no person may be elected to hold office of US Congress more than five two year terms regardless of district and state.
All candidates for federal elected office inclusive of President are limited to receiving campaign financing only from persons who are registered voters of the United States whose residency is within the United States for President, their State for United States Senate, and within their district for United States Congress. Residency location is determined by the person's voter registration address.
Corporations are not considered person's and may not make campaign finance contributions to holders or those seeking federal elected offices for the President of United States, the United States Senate or the United States Congress.
Congress will establish decennial limits for personal contributions of federal elected offices in the same cycle as established census years."
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This amendment will resolve many things. We first and foremost need to limit time served in our US Senate and Congress. No office should be a job for life. Given most politician's start at local level and work their way up the ladder to state offices and on to federal offices 10 years in Congress and 12 years in the Senate with previous lower level offices served gives a person ample time for a reasonable career. The system is broken due to the unfair advantage incumbents design in for themselves. I have talked to many conservative, independent and liberal people who agree that turnover is a good thing. Although there are many good politicians who have served longer than limits proposed, the harm done by long serving corrupt politician's gaming the system will minimized by requiring them to be termed out.
We all can see that the amount of money required to campaign for federal offices has exponentially risen election year after election year. The internet has allowed special interest groups to pile more money into the system which ultimately feeds the Media Trusts voracious appetite to produce political adds. This in turn has created this bipolar system where each major party pander's to the extremes of their base in order to whip up further campaign contributions, many coming from outside district. Our effective voice with our elected representatives is being greatly diminished by contributions from outside district. It's a very simple solution that will level the playing field by requiring our elected representatives to do what we pay them to do, represent their constituencies within their district.
The Citizens United Supreme court decision enshrining corporate person-hood ranks as the epitome of allowing the 1% unlimited influence. If allowed to stand it will institutionalize fascism in America. As Robert Reich noted several days ago at Occupy San Francisco, "I will believe a corporation is a person when Georgia or Texas executes one." By clearly defining that corporations can not make campaign finance contributions we reduce their ability to buyout all sides in a given election giving power back to the people.
By requiring Congress to set the limits to campaign contributions every 10 years it will allow for reasonable adjustments to be made in keeping with the economy of the times.
The reason I propose this bundle is that is that history has shown it is not easy to amend the constitution and that all constitutional amendments so far have been proposed through US congress and then pushed back to the states for ratification. The alternative method which has never been done is to call conventions with the states legislatures. This was of course before the internet and social networking. It would be possible for "We the People" to use these tools to rise up and force our political system to work for us again by enacting this proposed amendment to require Term Limits for US Senate and Congress, Limit campaign contributions to voters within district, and scrap the abomination done to our Democracy of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision allowing Corporate Person-hood.