Saturday, September 26, 2020

A Constitutional Amendment - My Proposal

 I propose the following for a new amendment to our Constitution. 

An Amendment regarding Terms and Limits

1.       Any previous laws or amendments contradictory to this amendment are superseded by this amendment.

2.       The president of the United States shall serve one (1) term for 8 years.

3.       Senate members shall serve one (six) year term.

4.       Congress members shall serve one (1) two-year term.

5.       The number of seats on the Supreme Court shall be nine (9). No Supreme Court member shall serve more than 20 terms of the court. However, they may continue to serve in the lower courts upon the end of their Supreme Court service.

A.     To prevent campaigning while in office; no member of the above positions of government, or the vice-presidency, may run for another political position until two (2) years have elapsed from their leaving office.

B.      Once a member has been sworn-in to one of the above listed positions, or vice-presidency, they may not run, be appointed, or be elected for that position again.

C.     A Supreme Court term may not exceed one calendar year and is set by the Chief Justice.

D.     Current Supreme Court members with more than twenty terms are not required to retire. Those with less than twenty terms are not exempt.

E.      A partial-term counts as one term.


Narrative: Can we all agree that politicians who over-stay their keep are bad for our country? Even a good politician ought to return to the public sector and not linger in the halls of government. 

The House of Representatives is supposed to represent the people. The people ought to have a fresh choice every two years. The Senate was supposed to represent the states, and were originally meant to be indirectly elected by state legislatures. Only for a little over 100 years has that been changed. 

The President is supposed to execute the laws of the land. Almost everyone in America agrees that the president is the most powerful person on Earth. How can they be doing their important job while running for a second term? Also, we want stability at the top. Therefore, I have proposed giving each president a full 8 year term. Let them be removed by impeachment if they turn out to be rotten. 

My amendment fixes the number of Supreme Court justices at 9 and allows them to serve 20 terms. I don't say years because their term may start during the middle of a court term, which would require them to leave in the middle of one too. 

This amendment also pre-supposes trickery where someone may try to game the system to get more than one term or more than the normal proposed years allotted to each position by serving 'partial' terms.