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CERTAINLY WORTH A TRY!!
The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971...before computers, before e-mail, before cell phones, etc.
Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure.
Congressional Reform Act of 2011
1. Term Limits.
12 years only, one of the possible options below..
A. Two Six-year Senate terms
B. Six Two-year House terms
C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms
2. No Tenure / No Pension.
A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.
4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
8. All contracts with past and present Congressmen (sic) are void effective 1/1/11.
The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.
Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.
If each person (who reads this) contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. Maybe it is time.
THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!!!!!
3 comments:
We put in term limits here in Arkansas, and it's been a disaster. About the time legislators figure out how things work, they're term-limited out of office. As a result, the lobbyists--who do know exactly how things work--have at least as much (I'd say more) influence on our legislators as before.
This would be a disaster; ditto to John. It privileges wealth even more than currently known, and written in an over-directive, know-nothing way. Does the author even know about the 27th Amendment?
These are in general demagogic proposals that don't make sense.
Term limits are specifically extremely bad. I live in Michigan, which has had term limits for some years, with terrible results. Term limits result in legislators with: (1) a short term perspective, when the U.S. clearly needs more focus on the long-term; (2) lack of information by legislators, it takes them several years to be minimally informed of how government programs work; (3) as Jon Aransawyer said, domination by lobbyists.
I would also add the following: why would you restrict the democratic right of the people to choose their representative based on term limits? What's the philosophical rationale?
The CPI or 3% minimum makes no sense. Over time, this drives real congressional salaries towards zero. So, to serve in Congress, you need to be a millionaire.
Haven't we had enough demagogic statements about our elected representatives? If we don't like what they're doing, we can vote them out. Who is at fault for any wrongs that Congress does? "the fault, Dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves".
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