Forum Post: Articulate 4 basic tenets of the movement, one of which should be...
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 22, 2011, noon EST by couponzilla
(3)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
The Occupy movement should take on some basic publicly-stated principles, one of which should be the support of an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to allow for the RECALL OF SENATORS AND CONGRESSMAN BY THEIR STATES.
The movement's unarticulated disaffection with economics and policy needs a focus. That focus should be directly placed on the partisan politicians that put political interests over the interests of the 99%.
So.... SUPPORT A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO ALLOW RECALL OF SENATORS AND CONGRESSMAN!!!!!!!
Admirable idea. However, I would not consider it as an alternative to a constitutional amendment to recall congressman, but as a different idea.
Unfortunately, I fully expect that any statement about recall elections and voting rules will likely not come to pass.
HOWEVER - and this is the important part - WE HAVE TO GET THE DIALOG MORE FOCUSED ON A KEY ELEMENT OF OUR PROBLEMS - THE SELF-INTEREST OF OUR PARTISAN REPRESENTATIVES.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w
Consider this as an alternative: rather than demanding the ability to swap in congressmen and representatives all willy-nilly (which, though an admirable ideal, would likely be extremely chaotic in practice), the movement instead demands more comprehensive voting measures that allow third parties and independent candidates to stand a chance in elections?
Given our extremely split bipartisan state, with one side merely being a mirror image of the other, a massive number of Americans (you, me, and most of the rest of the OWS movement, for example) are frustrated at the fact that neither party fully represents their interests. And, given the nature of a first-past-the-post bipartisan system, there is very little room for third-party candidates to grow. By demanding an overhaul of the voting system to, let's say, an instant-runoff system of voting, third-party candidates would be able to fairly compete against the big-dog political parties. Combine that with shorter terms, and every citizen would be able to achieve a certain level of satisfaction from the system, and no longer feel the frustration of having no representation.
Yes, term limits can be beneficial, but the public impact would not benefit the movement as much as a recall campaign. Admittedly, neither is likely.
However, a recall campaign more clearly sends the message that people are more important than party and that representatives should be mindful of that not only during re-elections, but while in office.
So what you're suggesting is that rather than serving terms, congressmen should be swapped at whim by the people? I get the idea behind your suggestion, but its implementation seems very tricky.
Term limits address the issues of public disaffection by allowing them to vote in somebody else should that representative prove ineffectual. What I would suggest as an alternative to your plan is simply shortening the term lengths of these houses, and perhaps even instating term limits. Senators serve 6-year terms, and can be elected as many times as the public will allow, whereas Representatives can serve unlimited 2-year terms. By balancing the term-lengths and limits for all of congress to, say, 2-year terms, we would go a long way towards giving the public a greater say in the affairs of the Congress.
Carpe diem!