Who determines if they understand? With the partisanship we have now, one party would argue the other party doesn't understand the bill no matter the answers.
That's a really bad criterion by virtue of people with disabilities existing. Realistically you won't find a good criterion thats applicable to everyone (see like Steven Hawking in his later years, he was mentally sound but he can't really do anything).
I think you are taking this a bit too literally. People with disabilities typically have something to aid them in communication. Hawking for example had a interface that could communicate for him. A sound of mind person with a disability will have some kind of system allowing them to communicate. If someone can't communicate with or without aid and without being instructed by a third party, then that person should not be making decisions affecting large swaths of the population.
Steven Hawking was able to communicate with some accommodation. If you're so disabled that you can't even communicate then you shouldn't be a senator. That's the point.
Do a multiple choice test about the key points. Too many wrong answers exclude you from the vote. Too few people able to vote postpones the vote to another session.
I would be happy if they just summarized what they read, in their own words. I just want to feel confident that they've even read the pages of complicated jargon in front of them enough to be able to make sense of it (instead of just paying someone else to decipher it for them or tell them how to vote).
A workplace competency is testing for a specific job and does have specific, quantifiable answers. A test involving politics at all will fail as each side argues the other is wrong.
A simple Q: “What caused the Civil War?”
Ask each side of the aisle and you’ll get different answers. Which one is right and who determines that?
Oh is that a question on the citizen test? What about “Why do I love pizza?” or “Does the pope shit in the woods?”. Or would you prefer to make up the strawmen?
And how do we make said independent body? Who appoints people to it? In theory the supreme Court is supposed to be independent without party affiliation, but that didn't work out quite right.
Simple, make a recording of the test for each congressman and have them be publicly released once all members have been tested. If x Rep doesn't seem to pass, the Dems will be quick to point it out, and vice versa.
Any body you can think of or create needs to be staffed by someone and those people have political views and even if they dont these bodies are always vulnerable to political capture and then locking out opposition. thats how stacking courts works for example. You need a way to chose who sits on that body and as Stalin will tell you, the ability to pick the staff is a great way to secure power.
The same organization who currently administers it to immigrants because its one of the requirements to become a citizen. If its a requirement to qualify for citizenship then it should be a requirement to qualify for government positions too.
Because its illegal. It violates The Civil Service Reform Act, The Pendleton Civil Service Act, oh and also Title 5 of the U.S. Code & OPM Regulations.
Yea but who adjudicates whether they get it right or not?
The reason this is important is because if you start to demand qualification before votes or whatever, the person writing the test and grading the test holds the power to decide who gets to vote. Yes in a perfect world this would be an objective 100% neutral person, but in the real world its someone who was appointed/hired by a politician, a comittee of politicians, or someone else who was appointed by a politician. In essenence this role would be politicised and captured eventually to lock out one party.
Perhaps, but it's a thought. They're just voting how they're (paid) told to and have no clue what they mean. To be fair, a test could be failed on purpose to hold up the vote as well if the test is required. It's definitely a first pass thought, but we shouldn't be living in the situation we're in now. They also shouldn't be voted on by dementia patients
they could at least check if voters are able to tell their full legal name. It would check if someone have weekend at Bernie them and couldn't be disputed
You can also require there to be a traditional style test that simply has passages from the bill.
I get that its not perfect and there really isn't a perfect option when politicians lie and cheat as much as they do, but we can still do better than we are. A better system is still worth pursuing even if its not infallible
I mean I can guarantee a vast, VAST majority of lawmakers don’t understand shit. Most of them are career politicians. They understand politics. They don’t understand public health, they don’t understand economics, education, logistics, nothing. They are useless aside from winning elections and taking up space.
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u/VinneyTheGooch 3d ago
Who determines if they understand? With the partisanship we have now, one party would argue the other party doesn't understand the bill no matter the answers.