Month: July 2007

monoblogue’s Constitutional convention

This post sort of came about in a dream I had.

When I’m under the weather as I was this weekend, sometimes the combination of meds that I take for the cold/fever, the meds I take for my asthma, and lack of good sound sleep combine to give me the strangest sort of dreams. In this particular dream a portion of it dealt with me trying to advocate each state rename a pair of counties – one to Liberty County and one to Freedom County. My reason was that anyone looking at a map would have a reminder of the concepts. Of course, upon waking I realized that this would be utterly symbolic but no more so than having a state bird or a state song. Trust me, crazier things have been proposed.

The dream got me to thinking (in a more lucid manner) of some of the changes I’d like to see occur with our Constitution. Obviously our Congress tends to consider our founding documents as not much more than symbolic a great deal of the time, but the hour has come to propose a few new rules of the road. With these changes made, perhaps this document will be treated as much more than symbolic and with the reverence it deserves.

According to Article V, if the legislatures of 2/3 of the states called for a Constitutional Convention it could occur. Well, I’m not invested with that sort of power but I have some ideas for new Amendments, including a couple notable deletions, that I’m going to share.

Amendment XXVIII

Section 1. The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments to the Constitution are hereby repealed.

Section 2. The language regarding selection of Senators by the Legislature of each state originally in Article I, Section 3 of this document shall be reinstated in full, beginning with the expiration of the term of the Senators currently in office.

Amendment XXVIX

Congress shall make no law that codifies discrimination for or against any person based on their race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. This Amendment shall also be construed to include a prohibition on Congress enacting additional criminal code or punishment solely based on these factors.

Amendment XXX

Section 1. With the exception of the powers reserved for Congress in Article I, Section 8 of this document, and items outlined below; funds received by the federal government shall be disbursed to the States in accordance with their population in the latest Census figures. No restriction shall be placed on how the several States use these funds.

Section 2. Outlays for the operation of the offices of the President and other officers who shall be warranted by same shall be submitted by the office of the President to Congress, who shall, without amendment, vote up or down on the expenditures within ten days (excluding Sundays) of receiving this submittal.

Section 3. Outlays for the operation of the Supreme Court and tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court shall be submitted by the Attorney General to Congress, who shall, without amendment except in the case of convening a new tribunal inferior to the Supreme Court, vote up or down on the expenditures within ten days (excluding Sundays) of receiving this submittal.

Section 4. If Congress does not approve the submitted amount, both the President and Attorney General will have ten days (excluding Sundays) to resubmit a budget to Congress. In the event that either a new budget is not submitted by either or both parties, or if the resubmitted budget is not approved by Congress, the budget shall be determined by using the prior year’s figure and adding a sum equal to 3% of that figure.

Section 5. Congress shall not withhold funds from states based on existing state law.

Amendment XXXI

Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of Senator more than twice; nor to the House of Representatives more than six times, in his or her lifetime.

Section 2. Those who are serving in either the House or Senate at the time of ratification will be eligible to serve to the fullest extent of the time allowed under this Amendment, without penalty in regard to time already served. This time limit will begin when the member is sworn in for his or her next term of office.

Amendment XXXII

In addition to the language expressed in Amendment II of this document, Congress shall make no law infringing on the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

And now you’re probably asking what the rationale is behind all of these Amendments.

As part of my 50 year plan regarding taxation I advocated doing away with the Sixteenth Amendment so as to eliminate the income tax and force a tax system based on consumption. The advantages would be many, most particular in allowing one to have more control over their tax burden. People who are quite wealthy – sure, they’d get a big break on income tax but then all of their expensive playtoys would ratchet up their overall tax bill to meet or exceed the amount that they paid under income tax rules, with all of its shelters. And those who actually save money would get a double benefit of whatever interest they accrued and not being socked with a capital gains tax. There’s a lot of winners with the idea, certainly more than we have now. And with a Senate that answers to state legislatures, perhaps the states would regain a foothold in dealings with the federal government. Maybe it would end the scourge of unfunded mandates that plagues states trying to balance a budget without new taxes. (Yes I know Maryland doesn’t qualify there, I’m talking about properly-run states.) So that would be the 28th Amendment.

The next two amendments were originally mentioned in a very, very early monoblogue post I did called, “Does it ever change? A petition for redress of grievances.” This was written in the wake of the Abramoff scandal, and of course most of the commentors missed the point because I started out noting that the Democrats had fingers in the Abramoff lobbying pie as well – rather, they tried to paint that imbroglio as a purely Republican “culture of corruption.” They blithely ignored the idea behind the amendments that I proposed.

Amendment 29 is loosely based on a lot of Ward Connerly’s work against the racial quotas into which affirmative action has devolved. You’ll notice that when people yell “discrimination!” it’s always against something, but never does it occur to them that they’re getting the benefits from many regulations as well, like minority set-asides. The way I interpret the Martin Luther King, Jr. vision of a society based on character rather than amount of pigmentation, this amendment would satisfy that dream he had. Obviously those of the Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and La Raza ilk would disagree but could it not be argued that the result of some of these policies like affirmative action has been the attitude of questioning whether some have actually earned what they received or had it handed to them?

I’m all about equality of opportunity, and so is this amendment. Government has attempted to insure equality of outcome by tilting the playing field in myriad ways, and has failed miserably. This amendment truly levels it back out.

I proposed the language of the 30th Amendment in the wake of Abramoff. Yet, for all the talk about ethics in Washington back at the beginning of 2006 and the promises of change that we heard, we still suffer from big-money scandals and remain with a Congress that has many members who are tone-deaf to the wishes of their voters. (Exhibit number one – the immigration bill.) Moreover, even with the switch in power from Republican to Democrat brought in part because of the left’s adroit manipulation of the “culture of corruption” issue, we still have the same resistance to ending earmarks and pork spending. The solution as I see it is to Constitutionally reinforce the limits on what Congress can spend its money on.

The third leg of my troika I came up with recently as part of my “fiscal responsiblity” chapter of the 50 year plan. As I noted in that chapter, I’m a fairly new convert to the idea of a term limits amendment, but the precedent is already there with the 22nd Amendment that limits Presidential terms. I still think I’m quite generous with my time limits, as 24 years is longer than many professions take to reach their fully vested retirement. But it would eliminate some of the fiefdoms that longtime veterans of Congress can build because of their seniority.

And finally, I decided to add the 32nd Amendment regarding gun control because I believe that anyone who desires a gun should be allowed to have one. This would clarify that Congress cannot make gun control laws; thus any law of that sort on the books currently would have to be declared null and void because it violated this amendment. However, I explicitly stated Congress so states would be off the hook if they decided something more restrictive were in order. Yes, there are a few foolish states out there who desire that criminals run the show – after all, effective Sunday most felons who have completed their sentence are voters in Maryland.

Many of you probably think that these ideas are as crazy as the original dream that spawned them. But if you look at how the public reacted to the immigration bill, the conventional wisdom was that President Bush had enough GOP support in the business community to get the bill passed. Guess again.

If this one post can get these ideas out into the mainstream of thought, who knows what can be accomplished. We on (and in) the right have just won a big victory by advocating the enforcement of existing laws rather than passing a new omnibus immigration bill, so, to paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, now is not the time to go wobbly.

Wicomico Neighborhood Congress update

I had held up on this, partially because Delmarva Dealings mentioned the Tuesday meeting soon after it happened and I was going to allow G.A. to take the lead on covering it and revising/extending his remarks. But he didn’t so I’ll pick up the baton.

As of the meeting last Tuesday, the steering committee for the WNC was dissolved and four new subcommittees were formed: Guidelines and Membership Structure, Community Concerns, Meetings/Convention, and Membership/Recruitment. Because I was one of the people who expressed an interest in the organization, I was at last Tuesday’s meeting. Unfortunately I’d say that only about half or so of the original number of those who expressed interest back in January were there. As G.A. pointed out, Shanie Shields was not there, nor were many of the other members of the minority community.

It took them about five months, but at last they’re getting into the reason I wanted to get into the WNC in the first place. Personally I’m not worried about diversity of membership or geography because I figure that if the group is a success people in the various neighborhood groups, condo associations, and interested individuals who live in the more spread-out rural areas will eventually clamor to join anyway and that will take care of most of those perceived diversity problems, which I’ll expound more on later. What I am worried about is the impact on my neighborhood of problems like crime, street lighting, and property upkeep, so I signed on the the Community Concerns committee. In truth, I was surprised that half the room wasn’t over there. I suppose there’s folks who like dictating membership, figuring logistics, or selling the WNC to a skeptical public and they’re more at home on other subgroups.

These new committees are slated to meet later this month, which also impacts the schedule I wanted to keep for my own neighborhood group. We’ll have to get together again before this meeting. In fact, I did get a couple extra applications for membership so if you’re affilated with a neighborhood group or an interested individual, let me know. I gave one to a co-worker of mine who’s in a condo association so hopefully they’ll join as well.

One item of the WNC report to Rick Pollitt that I found intriguing is that many of the actual nuts and bolts that were argued over ad nauseum during the steering committee process were punted to a later date. According to the report:

On September 30, 2008, the WNC will convene and will be charged by the WNC Steering Committee to establish its leadership. It will be the responsibility of the WNC to adopt formal bylaws (emphasis mine), to choose their leadership, and to adopt goals for the future as they see fit to do.

So they sort of followed my original suggestion – hey, it only took them five months to see the wisdom of my ways. Maybe having members walk out on them convinced them to see the light. Thus, for the time being the WNC goes by what it terms the “Draft Membership Structure”.

The only issue I have in that portion of the report goes back to the diversity question, which I believe takes care of itself if the WNC is successful. Their goals talk about “(an) emphasis on geographic, racial, and economic diversity.” I’m sorry to pee in their corn flakes, but chances are that a welfare mom isn’t exactly going to be the go-getter type that would be a joiner of the WNC. As I’ve stated before regarding the local bloggers and their excess of motivation, people who join these sorts of groups tend to be the types who join several other groups. Those who are happy laying around watching Oprah and the 1001 judge shows on TV are more likely to be on the lower end of the economic scale but not likely to be interested in putting the time in to join our group. They’ll be the ones who complain but that’s all they’ll do.

So that takes care of my diversity rant. Now that I’m through with that, I’m ready to get to discussing how we can solve the problems which plague my neighborhood and other parts of Wicomico County. We’ll see what our little group is capable of doing, even if it’s not the most diverse one out there.