Fixing a Broken System in 800 words

This piece was written to be an Op-Ed.  The Washington Post has rejected it.  I will take it down when and if some newspaper publishes it.

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We live in a nominally democratic society; but it ain’t working and we all seem to agree without knowing what to do about it.  Two quotes inform my thinking about this matter: 1) In a democracy, the people get the government that they deserve, and 2) freedom without responsibility is license.

Here are my suggestions:

We have institutional problems, political problems, and civic problems.

Institutionally

• The single most crucial section of the U.S. Constitution today is the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection clause; anyone who is not 100% on board with equal protection should have no seat in public office.
• We need to build an unbridgeable wall between Big Money and politics and governance; a Constitutional amendment that puts an end to “corporate personhood” and declares that money is not protected political speech under the First Amendment.  That the candidate with the most expensive megaphone will be heard by many more voters is an offense to democracy.
• Winner Take All contests subvert democracy.  We need to institute Ranked Choice Voting everywhere.  This will allow voters to choose the best candidate, not the lesser of two evils; it will also destroy the stranglehold of the two major (already corrupted) political parties.
• We need honest voting machines.  The software must be open source to anyone who wants to examine the logic.  If a manual recount finds a meaningful discrepancy with the machine’s count, the CEO of the voting machine company should spend five years in prison.
• Voter Suppression: Anyone who prevents a legitimate voter from voting should spend five days behind bars per voter suppressed.  Even – and especially – a state’s Secretary of State.
• In order to give candidates for office an equal chance, paid advertising (TV, radio, newspapers, internet) must be prohibited.  Communication between candidates and voters will be by Town Hall meetings and rallies, candidate web pages, televised debates, and retail politics (living room gatherings and knocking on doors).  In televised debates, formal debating rules will apply; a candidate will be removed from further participation at the sole discretion of a debate judge; audience members who are disruptive will be removed.
• The Electoral College makes a mockery of one person one vote; it should go.
• Leadership of all agencies will be experts in their fields and friendly to its mission.  Staff will have approval power over their selection.

Politically

• We need honest, capable, and public-spirited representatives.  Every candidate for public office must pass the 100 question Citizenship test with a 90% grade and his state’s high school final American history exam with a 90% grade, at unscheduled dates, repeated every few years.
• No one may stand for high public office who has not performed at least two years of public service.
• Unyielding Conflict of Interest should be grounds for immediate removal from public office.
• Recalls should be available in every state; the special election to replace the recalled individual must include that individual.
• Every bill before Congress shall have an Executive Summary of two pages that will thoroughly explain the bill’s intent such that no reasonable person will be surprised by any detail within the bill.
• No bill before Congress shall have a poison pill amendment.
• Wealth must be taxed, else our most fortunate pay no income taxes whatever.

Civically

• Our Founding Fathers feared a pure (or direct) democracy, self-rule by mostly ignorant and uninformed citizens.  Are we – collectively and individually – capable of self-rule?
• In a representative democracy – distinct from pure democracy – we elect our fellow citizens to represent us.  Candidates for office will tell us what they believe, and we will choose those whom we trust will do the best job.
• One measure of a citizen’s capacity for self-rule will be that same Citizenship test that immigrants must pass in order to earn the right to vote; a citizen’s right to vote shall depend upon passing the same test with a 70% grade (it is 60% for an immigrant).
• Surely, one person one vote is more democratic than one dollar one vote.  Equally obvious is an uninformed voter should not have the same voting power as a professor of American history or a professional historian (or self-taught history buff).  Informed Americans deserve a multiple of up to 5x that of the least uninformed voter.  Knowledge must translate to political power.
• Worse than voter apathy is voters who have no respect for indisputable facts.
• We need citizen soldiers, 5% to 10% of the adult population.  If we can’t gather this many patriots long term, we should give up on representative democracy and try the Showing Up model, where those who “show up” will govern.
• Once we show ourselves worthy of self-rule, once we choose to live in a real democracy, issues like gerrymandering and term-limits will take care of themselves in due course.  Ultimately, We the people are in charge.

Good luck to us!