> It would also be a bad idea to abolish the EC because then candidates would only ever campaign in cities. They would completely ignore rural areas, which are financially and culturally different.

This already happens, though. Candidates largely ignore entire states they know they can't win, as well as ones they think they will win.

(Ask Hillary if she regrets not campaigning more in Wisconsin, for example.)

The irony here is (3) is by far the closest to actually occurring as in practice, it doesn't require amending the constitution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta...

Of course, the SC could easily declare it unconstitutional....interpret any amendments as they see fit anyway. The decision on the 14th very nearly went the other way.

Who cares about campaigning? It's whats happens after the election that matters: Does the representative represent their constituents? That's not an electoral system issue.

Each eligible voter should get one vote of equal weight to all others. The EC breaks that.

> No chance 3 ever passes

It’s honestly the hardest one on there.

> a wealth tax would require an amendment

Genuine question, why?

> It would also be a bad idea to abolish the EC because then candidates would only ever campaign in cities

This doesn’t mathematically work. Most Americans live in suburbia. (We define “urban” very, very broadly for statistical purposes.)

And this effect is more than compensated for by the existence of the Senate and even House.

> it would complicate the recount process

No messier than now. And you’d only be delayed in close elections, in which case carefully recounting everywhere is fine.

If we keep pardons, no reason to give that power to the executive branch at all.

These are all great ideas.

> pardons and clemency are a good thing to have in the system

Congress can do it any time. The fact that it will probably result in a statute change, too, versus a one-off benefit, is a feature of that process.

I debated this for a while, myself. Kept creating carve-outs. But at the end of the day, pardons are a shitty and ineffective check on either the judiciary or criminal statute, and they have been known to be a potential source of corruption since at least the Roman Republic, which denied this power even to their dictators.

> we should also create room for Congress to create rule-making agencies that exist within the Congressional branch

Eh, I prefer independent agencies. If the Congress wants a law it can pass it.

We haven’t tried in a generation. I could see pardon power and independent agencies getting through recent Congresses. (Between Biden and Trump, the former has been thoroughly abused. And the Congress likes creating independent agencies.)

This is not a problem in other western countries, so why would it be in the US? It sounds very much like post-hoc justification to me.

> you can’t talk about abolishing the EC without a national voter ID law.

Sure we can. We can even do it right here. I'd never let someone tell me what I can and cannot talk about.

> Throw something in there about gerrymandering

Can be done through statute. And, I’d argue, is better done there. Independent redistributing commissions? Proportional representation? Expanding the House? Combination thereof? I don’t know if we know the answer; hard coding a solution ex ante seems unnecessarily risky.

if we're making a wish list, I also want:

- term limits for congress

- voter day national holiday

- if budget isn't balanced all members of congress become ineligible for election

- repeal citizens united (maybe covered by op)

- and change all fines/tickets to paid in human hours of community service rather than money

lol, abolish the fed and only complain about Biden’s pardons. I thought I was the most the openly partisan person on this forum but apparently I have competition.

Campaigns already have strong limits. They get around it by giving money to PACs, which can spend money opposing other candidates or talking about issues in particular.

Should there be limits on spending on messaging opposing a certain candidate? Or supporting / opposing a specific policy? It's going to be pretty tough to draw a line there that doesn't sound a lot like solidifying and entrenching the powers that already exist. And it usually includes an ugly way of determining what speech is "political" and what is not.

> Congress may regulate, but why would they? They directly benefit from more money in politics

One, they have. Repeatedly.

Two, the reasons historically varied, but it tended to range from it being good for them when winning elections to most electeds being okay fundraisers and not wanting to compete with the great fundraisers.

The more sclerotic the Constitution becomes, the more likely it is to have the entire system overturned and replaced wholesale.

If you try to make the Constitution unamendable, you guarantee that the Republic that is founded on the Constitution will eventually fail.

I can't think of a worse idea for the long-term health of the Republic.

> the bigger issue is that the 14th amendment only survived by one fucking vote

We have two corrupt justices. Until a President has the balls to enforce the law, this won’t be a problem solved by changing text on paper.

Probably.

The linked article calls them conservatives, which seems like something they'd like to call themselves as well.

Aka “trust me bro, I can decipher the hidden meaning that will surprisingly match my preferred political outcomes”