6 ms·

IMO, still too easily to legislate. I would require at least 3/4ths of both houses for all bills and give governors a 51% veto power. The US constitution was

IMO, still too easily to legislate. I would require at least 3/4ths of both houses for all bills and give governors a 51% veto power. The US constitution was supposed to limit the power of the federal government. It has failed to do that in a meaningful way.

zacharycohn 6y ago
The Articles of Confederation were designed to give limited power to a weak federal government and more power to stronger state governments. It was a disaster, then we tried again - the other way - with the Constitution. The Constitution puts limits on the power of government, the goal isn't a limited federal government.
- willcipriano 6y ago
  Limited government was certainly Jeffersons aim: "The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases." Washington seems to agree, for example this quote from his farewell address: "It is important that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position."
  - jfengel 6y ago
    We should have gone to Jefferson and Washington's farms and taken a vote on what kinds of changes were necessary.
    - willcipriano 6y ago
      If you think about that a bit more deeply, if Washington and Jefferson had been fans of a strong federal government slavery would've been a federal policy as opposed to a per state policy and likely would've been much more difficult to end as the northern states would've contained slave owners as opposed to only the southern states.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > The Articles of Confederation were designed to give limited power to a weak federal government and more power to stronger state governments. It was a disaster, then we tried again - the other way - with the Constitution. The country thrived under the Constitution with a narrow interpretation of the commerce clause and a federal government that spent 3% of GDP instead of 20% for more than a hundred years. The expansive "reinterpretation" of federal power in the 20th century was the source of all the existing trouble.
  - zacharycohn 6y ago
    And average education, health, and quality of life outcomes are significantly higher now.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      I would posit that those outcomes had more to do with scientific progress than with whether social security or the ban on leaded gasoline are implemented at the federal level versus the states.
      - zacharycohn 6y ago
        And a significant amount of that progress was funded by the government, relied on discoveries funded by government, or were made by people who lived or were educated because of government funding.
        AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        Which part of research funding requires it to be done at the federal level rather than the states? If anything we're under-funding it now for precisely that reason. The federal government extracts money from every state's tax base and then spends it on the F-35. Whereas the states have to compete with each other for talent, so California given their proportion of the same money would want to give it to UCLA or Berkeley to attract the sort of high-earning taxpayers who want to send their kids to those schools or graduate from them and stay in the state, or cause local research grant recipients to put down roots and found successful companies. And so would all the others.
clairity 6y ago
> "...give governors a 51% veto power." the senate was the selected compromise in this regard. give each state 2 senators that collectively have the power to represent state interests with majority vote, while being less prone to the corruption of single individuals (governors).
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  But then we switched from US Senators being elected by the state legislatures to being elected by the general public, so now the Senate is no longer an meaningful check on the populist tendencies of the House and state governments have no representation on federal legislation anymore.
  - dmatech 6y ago
    Yep. The 17th Amendment was probably a mistake for that very reason. I should probably research exactly why it was ratified by the states.
michaelmrose 6y ago
This would effectively mean that veto power on everything would be held by any 13 states. For reference the 13 least populated states put together have 4% of the US population. So at minimum blocking all progress needs slightly more than half or just over 2% of the populations support. What you are saying is that senators representing as little as 2% of the US population should be able to overrule the senators representing the other 98%. For practical purposes since we know which side are complete obstructionist what you are saying is that Democrats should surrender control of the country regardless of how much of the vote they win. On the An unholy alliance of Oklahoma, Utah, Alaska, Mississippi, Kansas, Nebraska, Idaho, West Virginia, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, and Wyoming. Republicans controlling 51% of the vote in states representing 7.8% of the US population could block all progress forever until they got their way. That is to say they would retain a death grip on all progress with as little as half of that 7.8% of the population behind them. This micro minority death grip on our nation would be so strong that the governors veto power hardly matters because anything that wasn't blocked by 1/4 of the senate would never find itself blocked after. In practice the uneven representation that is a design goal of the senate makes it both too easy for flyover states to force their agenda and too hard for policies that are broadly popular to be blocked by the flyover states.

zacharycohn 6y ago

The Articles of Confederation were designed to give limited power to a weak federal government and more power to stronger state governments. It was a disaster, then we tried again - the other way - with the Constitution. The Constitution puts limits on the power of government, the goal isn't a limited federal government.

willcipriano 6y ago
Limited government was certainly Jeffersons aim: "The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases." Washington seems to agree, for example this quote from his farewell address: "It is important that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position."
- jfengel 6y ago
  We should have gone to Jefferson and Washington's farms and taken a vote on what kinds of changes were necessary.
  - willcipriano 6y ago
    If you think about that a bit more deeply, if Washington and Jefferson had been fans of a strong federal government slavery would've been a federal policy as opposed to a per state policy and likely would've been much more difficult to end as the northern states would've contained slave owners as opposed to only the southern states.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> The Articles of Confederation were designed to give limited power to a weak federal government and more power to stronger state governments. It was a disaster, then we tried again - the other way - with the Constitution. The country thrived under the Constitution with a narrow interpretation of the commerce clause and a federal government that spent 3% of GDP instead of 20% for more than a hundred years. The expansive "reinterpretation" of federal power in the 20th century was the source of all the existing trouble.
- zacharycohn 6y ago
  And average education, health, and quality of life outcomes are significantly higher now.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    I would posit that those outcomes had more to do with scientific progress than with whether social security or the ban on leaded gasoline are implemented at the federal level versus the states.
    - zacharycohn 6y ago
      And a significant amount of that progress was funded by the government, relied on discoveries funded by government, or were made by people who lived or were educated because of government funding.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        Which part of research funding requires it to be done at the federal level rather than the states? If anything we're under-funding it now for precisely that reason. The federal government extracts money from every state's tax base and then spends it on the F-35. Whereas the states have to compete with each other for talent, so California given their proportion of the same money would want to give it to UCLA or Berkeley to attract the sort of high-earning taxpayers who want to send their kids to those schools or graduate from them and stay in the state, or cause local research grant recipients to put down roots and found successful companies. And so would all the others.

clairity 6y ago

> "...give governors a 51% veto power." the senate was the selected compromise in this regard. give each state 2 senators that collectively have the power to represent state interests with majority vote, while being less prone to the corruption of single individuals (governors).

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
But then we switched from US Senators being elected by the state legislatures to being elected by the general public, so now the Senate is no longer an meaningful check on the populist tendencies of the House and state governments have no representation on federal legislation anymore.
- dmatech 6y ago
  Yep. The 17th Amendment was probably a mistake for that very reason. I should probably research exactly why it was ratified by the states.

michaelmrose 6y ago

This would effectively mean that veto power on everything would be held by any 13 states. For reference the 13 least populated states put together have 4% of the US population. So at minimum blocking all progress needs slightly more than half or just over 2% of the populations support. What you are saying is that senators representing as little as 2% of the US population should be able to overrule the senators representing the other 98%. For practical purposes since we know which side are complete obstructionist what you are saying is that Democrats should surrender control of the country regardless of how much of the vote they win. On the An unholy alliance of Oklahoma, Utah, Alaska, Mississippi, Kansas, Nebraska, Idaho, West Virginia, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, and Wyoming. Republicans controlling 51% of the vote in states representing 7.8% of the US population could block all progress forever until they got their way. That is to say they would retain a death grip on all progress with as little as half of that 7.8% of the population behind them. This micro minority death grip on our nation would be so strong that the governors veto power hardly matters because anything that wasn't blocked by 1/4 of the senate would never find itself blocked after. In practice the uneven representation that is a design goal of the senate makes it both too easy for flyover states to force their agenda and too hard for policies that are broadly popular to be blocked by the flyover states.