Congressional Reform Act of 2010

[VonVulcan]

Who wouldn't vote for this?

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Congressional Reform Act of 2010


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 will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen 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, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

[TechPro]

I'd vote for it, but you can be sure it will never come to a public vote ... only a vote in the halls of Congress.

[Flatlander]

Who wouldn't vote for this?

Hells yeah, where do I sign up?

[null0010]

Who wouldn't vote for this?

Every sitting congress critter?

[Will Robinson]

Who wouldn't vote for this?

Every sitting congress critter?

Exactly.
I'd vote for it and I'd love to see the congress have to explain why they won't but that would require a media/press that looks at congress as single entity instead of as some they like some they don't....as some they will confront, some they support.
The failure of the fourth estate is looking like it is going to be our downfall because without them we, the citizen voters, have no chance of forcing the government to change.
Well, not without the use of violence anyway and the way the members of government have so successfully polarized the citizen/voters into opposing camps that would never work either until things get so bad that everyone is looking to kill everyone in authority instead of reform authority.

[null0010]

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

I always thought it would be nice if congressional pay raises were tied with minimum wage raises, 27th Amendment aside.

[Krom]

Should also be a rule that says any member who brings forward a bill must have written and drafted it themselves in their own handwriting.

And yeah, I mean handwriting and all modifications to the bill also have to be done by hand. No word processors / typewriters allowed anywhere in the process. Doing it that way will go a long way in keeping bills from exploding into 10,000 page monstrosities.

[Will Robinson]

Should also be a rule that says any member who brings forward a bill must have written and drafted it themselves in their own handwriting.

And yeah, I mean handwriting and all modifications to the bill also have to be done by hand. No word processors / typewriters allowed anywhere in the process. Doing it that way will go a long way in keeping bills from exploding into 10,000 page monstrosities.

That is brilliant!
"Brevity is the soul of wit"...and now it can also be part of the salvation of our republic!

I'd like to add:
No more "riders" on bills. Each piece of legislation gets the up or down vote without tying any unrelated legislation to it.

[null0010]

The reason modern laws are so long is to avoid nonsense conflicts like:

\"oh what did the writers of this law MEAN when they wrote it? is it about the responsibilities of local militias or the private ownership of firearms or possibly both omg; woe is me i am soooo confused\"

[VonVulcan]

Even though we disagree on a number of issues, I count all of you as friends. My friend and neighbor wants to promote a \"Congressional Reform Act of 2010.\" It would contain eight provisions, all of which would probably be strongly endorsed by those who drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

I know many of you will say \"this is impossible.\" Let me remind you, Congress has the lowest approval rating of any entity in Government. Now is the time when Americans will join together to reform Congress - the entity that represents us.

We need to get a Senator to introduce this bill in the US Senate and a Representative to introduce a similar bill in the US House. These people will become American heroes

[Gooberman]

I know many of you will say \"this is impossible.\" Let me remind you, Congress has the lowest approval rating of any entity in Government. Now is the time when Americans will join together to reform Congress - the entity that represents us.

No, I think it’s quite possible. It will get a considerable amount of traction, and then the long arms of each party will fire off advertisement after advertisement, members will attach unpopular measures to the bill *just* so that they can run T.V. spots ridiculing the measures they themselves put in. They will publically ridicule anyone who becomes the spokes person for it, until people are ashamed to admit that they once supported it. You will hear the infamous, “I’m not opposed to reforming congress, just this Bill.”

It happened with the Tea Party, it happened with Health care (both of which, I believe, were begun with the best of intentions).

So long as television ads and cable news shows have such significant influence on the electorate , there will be no reform.

Delete the last 5 minutes of Mr. Smith goes to Washington, that’s the real world.

/rant

(edit: but yes I would support the measure )

[fliptw]

This would need to be a constitutional amendment for it to stick, and would only mean you'd see more new faces every 2 years and no real change in how Congress itself runs.