If you could pass three laws that would improve government, what laws would they be?
They could be pretty much anything. Social, financial, legislative, whatever. Here’s mine. These would apply to all levels of government. Names of legislative bodies may vary from place to place, but if you’re bright you’ll get the idea.
#1 – All bills limited to a single subject. You could combine many projects in a local area in a hurricane relief bill in Florida, for example, provided everything was legitimately hurricane related, but no social pork or fire stations in Montana. None of this omnibus bill crap. If it’s legit it will stand on its own just fine. All votes must be immediate public record.
#2 – ALL laws and regulations must be approved, individually, by an elected body, i.e. Senate or House of Representatives. No law making by unelected bureaucrats. All votes must be immediate public record.
#3 – “Can’t vote? Can’t contribute.” If you as a human cannot go into a voting booth and pull the proverbial lever, you cannot contribute money (or anything of value) to a candidate’s campaign or ballot issue. That means no corporate money… at all… including PACs, and that includes no vague generic “anti-candidate” advertising. If you live in Oklahoma, you cannot contribute to a Senate campaign in Ohio. That kind of thing. We don’t need public money, that’s no less corruptible, we need honest money. Also, all contributions are immediately public record accessible by anyone who wants to know. No anonymous money… at all. In this case, the people’s collective right to know who is attempting to buy their politicians outweighs an individual’s right to privacy.
That would be a great start. But wait, there’s more. The “bonus law”…
#4 (Bonus) – Lawmakers cannot exempt themselves from any laws they pass that everyone else will have to live under. Kinda self-explanatory.
I believe actual honesty and REAL transparency would go a long way. Oh, and if a Constitutional Amendment were necessary to make any of this happen, so be it.