Fix Our Democracy
Exhibit 2 below is the portion of the ASRP that will help to “Fix Our Democracy.” It is supported by the following proposed legislation to deal with the five issues that negatively impact our democracy: the institutionalized system of bribery, the Electoral College, unlimited terms in office, gerrymandering of congressional districts, and the exorbitant amount of time and money to run for office.
A. Institutionalized Bribery.
In America, bribery has been institutionalized in the form of political contributions, which enable wealthy and powerful special interest groups to control or influence the governmental electoral process, the legislative process, the congressional appropriations process, and the ability of the government to implement programs that benefit the people.
Appendix 4A summarizes the political contributions in America for the 2015 and 2016 election cycle retrieved from the (Opensecrets-Political Contributions. n.d.) website on September 25, 2016. The website keeps track of political contributions made by the thirteen (13) political industrial sectors listed in Appendix 4B to the presidential campaigns and to each of the standing committees in Congress, where legislation and appropriations are developed.
Based on the data available on September 25, 2016, the sectors contributed about $779.5 million to the presidential campaigns or an annual average of $32.5 million per candidate for the 24 candidates; about $2.6 billion to the committees in the Senate or an annual average contribution of $7.4 million per senator; and about $735.6 million to the committees in the House or an annual average contribution of $1.0 million per House member.
Based on the potential salaries of the presidential candidates, the institutional bribery ratio of the average annual contributions to each presidential candidate to the salary of the President is 40.6 to one. When only the contributions to the two winning party presidential nominees are considered, the institutional bribery ratio of the average contributions to the winning party candidates to the potential salary of the President goes up to 524.8 to one.
The institutional bribery ratio of the average annual contributions to each Senator to the average salary of each Senator paid by the people is 21.3 to one. The institutional bribery ratio of the average annual contributions to each House Member to the average salary of each House Member paid by the people is 2.9 to one. With this huge difference in income, who will the Congress likely be serving the most, the special interest groups or the people?
The percentage of the Finance/Insurance/Real Estate Sector of the total 13 political industrial sectors is only 7.7% compared to their total contribution percentage of 22.9%. The next highest contribution percentage of 12.9% is from the Other Sector, a catch-all sector for contributions that cannot be assigned to one of the other 12 sectors.
The fact that all 13 industrial sectors in America are making annual contributions to politicians that far exceed the salaries paid by the American people, along with the history of the banking system in America, is compelling evidence that special interest groups have the power to control or strongly influence the daily operations of government and the election of our governmental leaders.
To rescue our government and the American people from the financial and social bondage imposed by these special interest groups, we the people must have the courage to demand that the power of government be returned to the people through the power of the vote.
To begin this process, we must address four tools that special interest groups and power brokers use to control our electoral and legislative processes: the Electoral College, the unlimited terms in office for governmental officials, the gerrymandering of congressional districts, and the exorbitant amount of time and money required to run for public office.
B. The Electoral College.
The Electoral College disenfranchises millions of voters by utilizing a “winner-take-all” strategy for electoral votes in all but two states. This means that the presidential candidate with the majority of the popular votes in a state will get all the electoral votes, and all the popular votes going to the minority candidates in a state will be lost.
It is extremely important that the vote of every citizen be counted toward the results of every general election and that the votes of citizens are not eliminated by the electoral process or replaced by the votes of the small group of elected officials in the Electoral College.
Appendix 4C shows the results of the 2016 presidential election by two different electoral methods: the current “winner take all” Electoral College Method; and the proposed People Method, which distributes electoral votes to all the presidential candidates (one person, one vote) in proportion to the number of votes they received in each state. By the “winner take all” Electoral College Method, President Trump won by 77 electoral votes.
By the People Method, Secretary Clinton would have won by 5.59 electoral votes, but since neither candidate had a majority of all the electoral votes, a run-off election would have been required in fourteen (14) states to determine the winner (AZ, CO, FL, ME, MI, MN, NV, NH, NM, NC, PA, UT, VA, and WI).
By the “winner take all” Electoral College Method, President Trump won the election with 2,868,691 fewer votes than Secretary Clinton and only 46.1% of the popular vote. This means that 73,684,412 voters or 53.9% of the popular votes were disenfranchised. If we are to become a true democracy, this should never happen again.
The “winner take all” strategy of the Electoral College allows presidential candidates to concentrate their campaign efforts in a few “battleground” states with large concentrations of electoral votes. The People Method requires that the candidates tailor their campaign message to all the states and consider the needs of every state because any state can determine the outcome of the election.
Appendix 4D shows the 2020 presidential election results by the “winner take all” Electoral College Method and the proposed “People Method.” By the “winner take all” Electoral College Method, President Biden won by 74 electoral votes over President Trump.
By the “winner take all” Electoral College Method, President Biden won with 7,052,770 more votes than President Trump, who had only 46.9% of the popular vote. By the People Method, President Biden would have won by 18.76 Electoral Votes, and he would have won all but three of the elections in the 14 contested states and a run-off election would not have been necessary.
Appendix 4E is an analysis of the past six U.S. presidential elections since 2000 based on surveys of the U.S. electorate by the U.S. Census Bureau. The first spreadsheet shows the estimated number of voters by age and sex who reported that they registered to vote in the election. The second spreadsheet shows the number of voters by age and sex who reported that they actually voted in the election.
The left five columns of the first spreadsheet show the winners and losers of the last six presidential elections from 2000 to 2020 and the total votes cast for all candidates in each election. The left five columns of the second spreadsheet show the net difference in the votes cast between the winner and the loser in each election.
In the last six presidential elections, three have been won by Democrats and three have been won by Republicans, but of the three won by Republicans, only one candidate received a majority of the popular vote. The worst winning performance of a Republican candidate was by President Trump in 2016 with only 46.1% of the popular vote, which is about the same as he received in the 2020 election with only 46.9% of the popular vote.
In the 2020 election, only 72.7% of eligible voters registered to vote, and only 66.8% of eligible voters actually voted. This means that about one-third of eligible voters failed to participate in the 2020 election, which had the largest voter turnout of all six elections. The females who registered to vote in 2020 were 2.9% higher than the males who registered to vote, and the females who actually voted were 3.6% higher than the males who voted.
For the full power of the vote to go to the American people (one person, one vote), the “winner take all” strategy in the Electoral College must be eliminated in favor of the apportionment of the electoral votes in each state in accordance with the total votes received by each candidate. If this process does not provide an overall majority of votes for the leading candidate, then run-off elections would be conducted between the top three candidates in those states that do not have overall majorities.
C. Unlimited Terms in Office.
The second tool that special interest groups and power brokers use to control and influence elections and governmental decisions is the unlimited terms in office of governmental officials. As revealed in Appendix 4A above, senators and representatives receive astronomical political contributions from the thirteen political industrial sectors that control and influence the legislative and appropriations decisions of the standing congressional committees.
These huge political contributions make it very difficult for an incumbent senator or representative to be defeated in their congressional district at the state level, and relatively easy for an incumbent to be defeated if those huge contributions should go to an opponent at the state level.
Consequently, these contributions can have an enormous influence on the deliberations of Congress and can keep incumbents in office for many years with very little competition from the state level. As a result, the power brokers and special interest groups have the power to cause decisions to be made by Congress to restrict competition and negatively impact the common good of the American people and the nation.
Therefore, we the people must demand term limits for senators and representatives: two six-year terms for senators and six two-year terms for representatives are proposed. Since the Judicial Branch of government is not immune from the influence of special interest groups and power brokers, it is proposed that federal judgeships that currently have lifetime term limits be revised to term limits of sixteen (16) years.
Supreme Court Justices and the Justices of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, who currently have lifetime terms, would have staggered terms such that no President could make more than one permanent appointment of a justice to the Supreme Court during a four-year term in office.
If more than one Supreme Court vacancy should occur during a President’s term in office, the President would make a temporary appointment to the excess vacancy to serve until the end of the President’s term in office. The next President would either confirm the temporary appointment or make a new appointment.
The same process would be applied to the 167 Justices of the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Appendix 5A is a proposed schedule for the staggered appointments of all 9 Supreme Court Justices and the 167 Justices of the U.S. Courts of Appeals. With this appointment schedule, the President would appoint one (1) Supreme Court Justice and 20 Justices of the Courts of Appeals during each term in office.
To assure the timely appointment of all federal judges, it is proposed that a staggered schedule similar to the one above be set up for the Federal District Courts with 10-year terms and the other courts with 15-year terms. This legislation should include a four to six-year implementation process to convert from the existing plan to the proposed new plan.
D. Gerrymandering of Congressional Districts.
The third tool that politicians use to control and influence elections is the gerrymandering of congressional districts. The redistricting that now occurs after each census encourages the political party in power to gerrymander the congressional districts in some states to enable incumbent politicians to reduce their political competition by choosing their voters before their voters choose them.
In the past, the following criteria for congressional districts have been applied to the redistricting process: (1) compactness with established boundaries, so that voters can easily identify with a territory and their representative; (2) continuity of territory from one election cycle to another, unless there is a substantial reduction in the population of a district; (3) relatively equal populations between all of the districts within the state (one person, one vote); and (4) respect for existing political subdivisions, such as cities, towns, and counties.
An analysis by the Washington Post Newspaper (Washingtonpost-Redistricting Commissions. n.d.) revealed that independent redistricting commissions have done a better job at avoiding gerrymandering, as measured by traditional redistricting criteria. It is proposed that Congress develop unbiased redistricting criteria for the establishment and appointment of independent redistricting commissions within each state.
The representatives of the redistricting commissions should come from a diverse cross-section of the populations within each state to improve the integrity of the electoral process and ensure that the voices of all the people are heard in Congress.
E. The Exorbitant Amount of Time and Money to Run for Office.
The fourth tool that special interest groups and power brokers can use to control and influence elections is the exorbitant amount of time and money required to run for public office. The current two-year election cycle selects candidates for national office based on the amount of money they have or the amount of money they can raise to gain name recognition before they can present ideas for programs that will improve the quality of life of the American people.
It requires any citizen desiring to run for a national office to spend an enormous amount of time and money to present their ideas to the people, and, if they are not wealthy, to spend substantial time away from their present occupations.
Due to the current system of institutionalized contributions to incumbent members of Congress, most incumbents can easily raise the money needed to fund their re-election campaigns, but new candidates can have a very difficult time funding their campaigns.
When the incumbents of national offices desire to run for a higher or different national office, they run into some of the same problems as new candidates running for national office. They must spend an enormous amount of time away from the duties of the offices for which they were elected to serve, which is a disservice to the people who elected them to serve.
To reduce the time and money required for candidates to run for the Office of the President, it is proposed that Congress give the Federal Election Commission the authority and direction to establish a one-year process for the election of the president that includes the electors from each state and provide a relatively inexpensive way for the ideas of candidates to be presented to a national audience. To accomplish this, it is proposed that the following process be considered by the Federal Election Commission (FEC):
- In the December prior to the election year, the FEC would work in conjunction with the State Election Commissions to select a slate of electors for the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, and the Independent Party for each state, using a standardized and unbiased process based on voting records and interviews. An independent would be defined as anyone who belongs to a party other than the two major parties or who does not typically vote consistently for one of the other two major parties.
- Also, in December, all candidates for President would submit their applications to the FEC, except for the incumbent President, along with their party affiliations. The FEC would vet the candidates for basic qualifications and then work with the election commissions from all the states to establish criteria to reduce the candidate list to a reasonable size, such as having a certain number of signatures or rankings in national polls.
- The FEC would then set up at least two official national debates on a national television network for each of the three electoral parties in the month of February for mandatory participation by all candidates for the presidency, except for the President. The incumbent President would not participate.
- After hearing both debates of all three parties, the electors from each of the three parties of electors from each state would vote on the candidates that should go forward to the Primary Election debates for their party. Each Republican elector would be required to vote for one of the Republican candidates or abstain. Each Democratic elector would be required to vote for one of the Democratic candidates or abstain. And each Independent elector would be required to vote for one of the Independent candidates or abstain.
The percentage of electoral votes received by each candidate from their party electors would determine if they would participate in the nationally televised Primary Election debates. If an elector abstains from voting for a candidate in their own party, it means that, after hearing all the debates, they believe there is a better candidate in one of the other two parties.
The candidates that receive the majority of the electoral votes for each party would participate in the national debates during the primary election period for that party. If all the candidates for a party do not receive more than 25% of the electoral votes for that party, or if only one candidate applies for a party, then no national primary election debates would be scheduled for that party, but the poll numbers of the applicant(s) for that party might get them included in the primary debates of one or both of the other two parties.
- After receiving the results of the three parties of electors, the FEC would set up at least three official Primary Election debates on a national television network for each of the three electoral parties from March through May of the election year, which would include the incumbent President, if he or she has competition.
If the Independent parties do not receive sufficient votes for an Independent Party primary election, or if they have only one Independent candidate, the Independent candidates might be able to participate in the primary debates of the other two major parties. In order to participate in the primary debates of the two major parties, the Independent candidates would need to receive reasonably high poll numbers in at least two major national polls, which would be determined by the FEC.
The results of the Primary Elections would be determined by the actual votes of the people, and the electoral votes would be apportioned to the candidates in accordance with the number of votes they received in each state. The winner of the Primary Election would be the candidate that runs against the candidates from the other two parties in the General Election for President.
If no candidate receives a majority of the primary popular votes in some states, the electors from those undecided states would vote for a winner at the national convention for that party. The number of electors going to each of the Independent Party Conventions would be proportioned by the percentage of the independent vote that each Independent Party received of the total independent votes cast.
In order for a write-in candidate to be included in the Primary Debates of a party, he or she must poll at least as high as the least popular candidate in that party in at least two of the major national opinion polls.
- After receiving the results of the Primary Elections and the national political conventions, the FEC would set up at least three official General Election debates on a national television network between the three electoral parties (Republican, Democratic, and Independent) during the months of August through October of the election year.
The Independent Party might have more than one candidate in the National Election which may come from different party conventions. The results of the General Election would be determined by the actual votes of the people, and the electoral votes would be apportioned to the candidates in accordance with the number of votes they received in each state.
If no candidate receives an overall majority of all the votes cast, a run-off election between the top three candidates would be conducted in those states where no winner received a clear majority, before the end of November of the election year. The run-off election would then determine the winning candidate. See Appendix 5B for a synopsis of this proposal.
A similar one-year process could be established at the state level for the election of U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives, as well as the Governor and other state offices.
F. Revelations from the Histories of 17 Secular World Powers and Major Empires.
The analysis of the 17 Secular World Powers and Major Empires in Volume 2 revealed that the breakdown of virtually all of these major powers began with the internal struggle for political power within each empire, which is what is happening in America today.
The United States of America is a product of the Age of Enlightenment in which the power of government was transferred from monarchs to a republic in which the will of the people is governed by a constitution and a president with limited power.
The American Revolution was a major influence on the French Revolution, which was a major influence in the conversion of all the European empires from absolute monarchies to constitutional monarchies and independent republics.
During the French Revolution, the primary instrument used to go from monarchy to republic was the guillotine. Today major forces in America are trying to move our nation in the opposite direction from republic to monarchy or autocratic rule by the primary instrument of the gun.
To prevent the internal political power struggles that are now occurring in America from destroying our democracy and the rule of law, we the people must come together and use the power of the vote to demand the political reforms needed to address these five tools that special interest groups and power brokers are using to control our electoral and legislative processes before it is too late.
Appendix 4A - U.S. Federal Political Contributions 2015 – 2016
Appendix 4B - U.S. Political Industrial Sectors
Appendix 4C - 2016 Presidential Election Results by Two Methods
Appendix 4D - 2020 Presidential Election Results by Two Methods
Appendix 4E - Presidential Election Results from 2000-2020 by Sex and Age Group
Appendix 5A - Proposed Schedule for Judicial Appointments
Appendix 5B - Proposal Schedule for One-Year Presidential Election Cycle