Posted on 06/29/2012 9:53:53 PM PDT by entropy12
Proposal for an Amendment to US Constitution
Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution: "Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States .."
I like it.
That like a Congressional veto override, Congress can set aside Supreme Court rulings with a two-thirds vote in both House and Senate.
A constitutional convention is just like inviting a vampire into your house. Might not be a great idea with so many communist / socialists so close to government.
“The congress dumped Obamacare on us, but gave themselves a deluxe healthcare insurance at tax payer expense.”
I agree that this issue is a sickening travesty. This outrage was widely discussed when Obamacare was passed, but I haven’t heard anything about it lately.
Doesn’t the 14th amendment already provide for equal protection under the law? What does your Proposed 28th Amendment add?
We don’t pay attention to the document now. Another amendment is pointless. What we need, and it makes me sick to write this, is a civil war.
***Assuming your post survives, I just thought it might make sense to bookmark this precipitous moment in FReeperdom.
We have amendments written a bit over 200 years ago. The text is there, guaranteed authentic. All of the debates over the text are on record to give us the intent. Various publications by the writers further help give us the intent. Further legislation and court decisions by the writers give us precedent.
It really can’t be any clearer. However, you’ve seen we’ve “interpreted” it successively over the years so that to re-write it using the interpretation it would result in a completely different document.
I give it max ten years before any new amendment is reinterpreted so that the plain text and intent no longer exist in practice.
AMEN!
I’d vote for your proposed 28th amendment, and submit my own 29th amendment (which would probably never become law, but might as well try):
29TH AMENDMENT
The Supreme Court of the United States shall be composed of one justice from each of the federal judicial districts, except the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. They shall be elected by the people thereof, for a term of ten years; and no justice shall serve for a period of more than three terms, or until they reach the age of 75, whichever comes first. No person shall be eligible to serve as a justice of the court, unless they live within the bounderies of their respective judicial district.
Each justice on the court shall have one vote, and elect from among their membership a Chief Justice, who shall serve in that capacity for a period of 10 years, and be ineligible to succeed themselves.
When vacancies occur on the Supreme Court, the President of the United States shall select individuals to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the U.S. Senate ratify such appointments, and that the justice appointed to fill the vacancy shall be up for a retention vote by the people of their judicial district when the next general election occurs.
This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Justice chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.
That like a Congressional veto override, Congress can set aside Supreme Court rulings with a two-thirds vote in both House and Senate.
But that still gives all the power to corrupt politicians in Washington. Why not also have an alternate method where 2/3rds of the state legislatures could pass resolutions to overturn a Supreme Court decision?
I like your idea.
+1
The problem with the preamble is that it contains incorrect information. Here are some of the inaccuracies:
1. Politicians do not receive full retirement pay after serving one term. They must serve at least five years and reach age 62 before receiving any retirement pay.
2. Member of Congress pay into and receive social security as part of their retirement package.
3. Members of Congress receive retirement under the Federal Employee Retirement System, the same as every other federal civilian employee.
4. Members of Congress select their health care insurance from the same programs from which federal civilian employees select there and they pay the same premiums as the federal civilian employees. Not all of those plans are “deluxe” plans.
Too many people believe the emails they receive suggesting the members of Congress are getting benefits not available to the people who are not members of Congress and are too lazy (or too dim) to ask the first question ever American should ask: Is this true.
Note that there is no guarantee that any member of the House of Representatives will ever receive a federal pension. Receiving a federal pension requires being elected thrice and then living until age 62—or being elected ten times after reaching age 40 or being elected fifteen times. And I might add that it is the people doing the complaining and circulating the emails who elect these people. Before you say, “Well, I did not vote for the guy!” remember the words of William E. Simon (That is a name you should recognize, but I doubt you do.) who said, “Bad people are elected by good people who do not vote.”
Another inaccuracy is that members of the military only get 35% of their last year of pay after 20 years of service and 75% of their last year of pay at 30 years of service not 50% of their pay.
Before you go messing with the Constitution, I suggest you do two things:
1. Get the facts straight.
2. Read the Constitution.
A few days ago I had an email exchange with a friend of 30 years who was spouting off about this and that being un-Constitutional. When it became obvious that he did not know of which he opined, I suggested he read the Constitution. He went on about all his life responsibilities-wife, job, house, two dogs, etc.—and said the did not have time to read the Constitution. A very slow reader can read that document in under two hours. (Understanding it may take considerably longer.) It really upset me that an intelligent man would claim this or that is un-Constitutional and then admit he has not read and does not intend to read the Constitution.
The proposed Constitutional amendment is also flawed:
1. Since the use of the term and/or would allow the creation of a law that applies to only the members of the House of Representative or to the members of the Senate.
2. Since the members of Congress are USA citizens, any law they make pertaining only to the members of Congress applies to the citizens albeit not to all the citizens of the United States.
3. If you amend the Constitution with the adjective “all” before two instances of the noun “citizens”, the amendment will prevent the Congress from passing any law applying to any group of citizens such as social security which only applies to working citizens.
Not a good idea. Suppose Congress passes a law that says that you are not allowed to criticize Congress or the President in online blogs like FreeRepublic. The Supreme Court issues an opinion that says this is an unconstitutional violation of first amendment rights. What you're suggesting is that the Congress could then override that Supreme Court decision and the law would stand as passed.
If people say they “believe in the Constitution”, they should have faith in its ability to survive and uphold the will of the people and states through statism like obamacare and the Roberts decision.
So, we need to amend the Constitution to remove the power of Congress to tax our behavior. At this point there is no Constitutional limit to tyranny.
1. The governor of each state gets an equal amount of appointees for circuit judges in the circuit district it resides, each voted and approved by that States legislator. No more circuit judge nominees selected by the President.
2. Out of each circuit district, each Governor gets to choose one selection to be put up for SC nomination, with the SC justice voted in by the state legislators within that circuit district using the same electoral system used in presidential elections to determine the number of votes each state in its respective district gets. The winner gets the SC nomination.
3. Term limits for SC justices.
4. SC decisions can be over-ruled by the vote of either a majority of all judicial circuits “6 out of 11 districts”, or 3/5th of state legislators. Each legislator/judicial circuit would hold its own vote. There would be a two month time limit to hold a vote to over-rule, or the SC ruling stands.
How about we simply follow the one we have? Vote out the idiots every two years and you won’t have a problem. But 90% of people look at elections as if they are fifth grade student government races.
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