A campaign promise I'd like to see

As I read this, I wondered what I had forgotten about what I learned about the government back in high school and college. (It's been a long time ago!) So I found this site that explains how a bill is passed:

http://www.votesmart.org/resource_govt101_02.php

I imagine that to have this changed, we'd have to have all these guys agree to it. A bill would have to be passed to change how bills are passed.

I doubt that will happen.

Teyjattt I would like to propose a "friendly amendment." How about demanding that if a politican makes a campaign promise then he has to put such a bill on the floor of congress within 180 or publicly explain why he/she hasn't done it.

In theory your idea may sound nice, but it would be horrible in practice. The result would be that the already "do nothing congress" would do even less. It would end with more finger pointing and more accusations than before. They can barely get anything by with 51% of the votes. 66% would be nearly impossible. The only bills they'd pass would be to give themselves raises and better benefits.

I have a better suggestion. How about a President who promises to veto every bill passed by Congress and faithfully devotes two terms (8 years) to vetoing everything that Congress passes?

Robert Kiyosaki (author of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad") in his book "Cash Flow Quadrant" That the Federal Code (i.e., all of the laws passed by the Federal Government) now consists of more than 1.2 million pages and would take the average reader 23,000 years to read the entire code from cover to cover. Isn't that enough??? And this does not include the thousands of pages worth of laws passed by each state and each city in the U.S.

The fact of the matter is, is that when most bills finally wind their way through Congress they are a bi-partisan effort given that neither party has a sufficiently large majority to guarantee passage of any bill without the votes from members of the other party which are needed to offset the "No" votes of some of their own members who oppose the bill. Of course, in exchange for their vote for a given bill, each Senator and Congressman demands the right to slip in some pet project or cause that has nothing to do with the purpose of the original bill other than the fact that the item slipped into the bill would have no chance of passing on its own. Senator Harry Byrd (Democrat - West Virginia) uses his seat on the Senate Appropriations Committee to block any bill from going to the floor unless there is a piece of pork in it for West Virginia - this is why, buried with in the Homeland Security Act, is a clause appropriating funds to build a new Amtrack station in West Virginia's capital city, Wheeling. Doesn't the fact that there is a new Amtrack station in West Virginia (paid for with our tax dollars) make you feel safe from terrorist attacks? This is the kind of nonsense.

But it gets even worse. The fact is that Senators and Congressmen lend their names to bills and vote for or against them, the bills themselves are drafted by staffers who often insert things of their own in legislation. The result is that when a bill finally works its way through committees and each house approves a slightly different form of the bill, Congressmen, Senators and staffers get together and hammer out a compromise (with individual Congressmen, Senators and staffers all stuffing a few more totally unrelated things into it) and then present the bill, which now runs to thousands of pages, for a vote by both Houses of Congress and, when it passes, sends it to the President who, if it contains something he really wants, signs it into law. At this point, no one - no Congressmen, Senator nor President know what is in the bill other than the major item in its name and it is not until weeks later, after reporters for major newspapers like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, etc. have taken the time to actually read the bill and report write stories about its contents, that Congressmen, Senators and the President find out what exactly they voted for and approved.

This is why we need fewer, not more laws and why we could really benefit by electing someone like Congressman Ron Paul (http://hubpages.com/_shamrocks/hub/ron_paul_the_overlooked_Republican_presidential_candidate) who generally votes against everything, including his own pay raises.

Teyatt,

This is a most unconventional approach. So often the US system is criticised for being so full of hurdles. It's so difficult to make constitutional amendments which is why you have such outdated and immovable laws on guns to give just one example. Your proposal is to effectively demand (approximately) the same hurdle for all legislation as for Constitutional Amendments. There have been just 27 of these during the entire 220 year life of your country. It would be ridiculous. No spending or taxation proposal would ever get passed. The country would very quickly grind to a halt.

A more recognised approach would be to change the voting system to something which wasn't so rigid at preserving the status quo as First-Past-the-Post. A better system could allow more parties to flourish and gain seats and there be a broader range of ideas on offer. The compromise comes at this stage. In order to form any hope of a sustained legislative programme, differently minded parties would have to discuss, find where they agree and compromise on the rest. This kind of approach is fairly at odds with a Presidential system (and 'presidential' at state level too with Mayors). But the Executive is one person, so FPTP works fine for that. It is the legislatures that could be so improved by a better voting system.