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New Strategies and Techniques »

"There Oughta Be A Law"

Why Is This Idea Important?: This method would finally make it a democracy and representative of the interests of the people as a whole. Currently all this power for change rests with the elected officials, regardless of what the public wants or thinks. This allows people a place in the legislature with a distributed vote. Federal, state and local governments could all use this method to empower citizens and create real democracy.

There needs to be a process whereby the public can initiate a process to introduce popular legislation with legal input on Constitutional issues. One option would be to create a site for each registered voter to sign in, be verified and get a numbered account. At that site, somewhat similar to this one, new legislation could be proposed that would also be sent to their Congressional representatives, and then voted on in each category. Once an idea reached a certain level of votes it would have to be considered, given a fair legal review, and then proposed into the legislative process and not held up in Committees endlessly. Such popular legislation should then be made available for all voters to consider, with public television access for full debate, and legal input on Constitutionality, and the voted up or down either by referendum or by the method mentioned earlier, giving the public voters just as many votes in Congress in both Houses as there are current Members. 100 in the Senate and 435 in the House. These votes would be divided proportionate to the referendum votes in each state and would count along with the representative votes in passage or failure of each new law.

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Submitted by copa 3 years ago

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Comments (9)

  1. gracemission.ucc

    I like the idea of being able to submit ideas for legislation, though I have no idea whether the suggested steps to do this are feasable. Of course we are always able to put our ideas to our elected officials, however, this idea assumes (and probably correctly) that one has to have a way to get past those officials to really be heard. I'll vote yes for this because I really think this idea will resonate with a broad spectrum of people. What ever steps put in place to move the ideas along would have to be sufficient to be sure the ideas don't just get pushed aside at an early point of development. There ought to be a law - I like that!

    3 years ago
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  2. Bryan Rosander

    There existing ways for new legislation to be submitted by petition already. These typically get voted on at national elections.

    3 years ago
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  3. gilwill58

    I would like to be a registered US Citizen, knowing that what input I have really gets counted. Folks who are paid up on their taxes should have the ability to access this kind of site as a known citizen (there could be a regular forum for non IDed folks). This site would tie in to the US congress. We should be able to vote for ideas that become statistics and the data should be visible to all. Electronic Democracy has a future, put this up against the K street influence.

    Gilbert H Williams

    United States Citizen

    Spring Green WI

    3 years ago
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  4. copa

    Thanks for your comments. Referendums and initiatives do allow proposed laws to be suggested in some cases, but not in all state, counties or cities, and not nationally. Also, where they do exist the bar is very high, requiring signatures of 10% of the voters in the last election cycle or more, and the cost of collecting these means only the very rich usually get their laws put to a vote. My method makes it much easier. To be truly inclusive it should include a way to get into the same system without a computer, using regular mail or posted lists at post offices of the proposed items to allow new ideas, voting and status reports. I like the additional idea that all citizens, not just registered voters, be allowed to participate based on their residence for state or local issues. I would much rather vote on issues than for politicians. Congress also has caucuses which should allow similar input to the citizens they represent to propose new legislation. Any idea will be improved on with more input and in practice, I'm just laying the groundwork.

    3 years ago
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  5. in-box

    The general concept is interesting. I think the volume of suggestions for citizen discussion alternatives here show at least some people are eager for a "citizen forum", but most of the suggestions are a bit grandiose.

    3 years ago
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  6. Bryan Rosander

    A better idea is to ask your representative to create the legislation. There is a reason we have a constitutional republic.

    3 years ago
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  7. copa

    I can tell you haven't tried to ask a representative about creating legislation or done much lobbying. Even when legislation is introduced very little of it gets out of Committee for a vote during each session and then you start over and reintroduce it if you are lucky. This "constitutional republic" is broken and the reason we have and keep it is to frustrate popular democratic will. It is dominated by corporate interests, and the representatives do not reach out to approach or question the people, their constituents. Lobbying by paid interests is inimical to democracy. My idea is to make the process participatory not elitist, and to allow public interest and support to be easily gaged and responded to, or if not then at least it is visible that the popular will is being ignored by someone who does not represent it. I am sure if you put the voting records up against polls and public support for tax allocation they would not match at all. All who live in the privilege created by the system that exists find it adequate, the vast majority of the disenfranchised do not. Jefferson wanted a democracy and direct popular control. We are in the 21st Century now, not the 18th, and communication and travel and mass media are far different than when we began this experiment. Jefferson did not expect their system to be cut in stone for all time but to be changed, he hoped for every generation to do so less privilege go back to the hands of a few. Rights are not asked for they are exercised or lost either expanded or diminished. Doing things the way they have always been done is a bad idea right now. Brainstorm does not mean repeat what we have already tried.

    3 years ago
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  8. Bryan Rosander

    Alternatively, you could run for office and actually listen to people. Or you could try supporting people who will listen to you:

    http://seantevis.com/

    http://www.ronpaul.com/welcome.php

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rand_Paul

    3 years ago
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  9. Debra Bryant

    Want to see the surplus money the US government and all states, local governments have? http://CAFR1.com and http://TaxRetirement.com

    and support Campaign for Liberty

    3 years ago
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