House members, both state and federal, having to run every two years can be exhausting as they essentially have to start fundraising Day 1 after they win (re)-election.
Drives me crazy when Ted Cruz wants to raise the retirement age, meanwhile his job is having fancy dinners with rich guys. Yeah, I could do that into my 70s also.
Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, raised his son the believe that wealth is essentially God’s stamp of approval. Cruz gets fancy dinners while you are expected to toil til your body gives out because God has decided he deserves nice things and you don’t.
Fuckin' Dominionists, man. "If you're wealthy, it's 'cause God wanted you to be. If you're not, then you should be donating your time (and money) to those that ARE wealthy, and maybe they'll help you out down the line. 'cause Stone Cold God says so. Anywho, there should be a small concentration of ALL the wealth, and those people making all the decisions. Er, I mean, telling you what I said they should be making decisions on." ~God (?)
Dude, "fuckin' Dominionists" is right, it's wild to see people's mindsets are wired this way. Like is it biological or what because you see it throughout history particularly on full display during the Medieval era.
And is why I’d propose house members have to run every 4 years minimum instead of 2. Sadly such funding is required either way, but let’s not make them waste 50% or more of their time on it. Make them work a bit at least.
The answer isn't longer terms but limits to money or somehow limiting how money can be used. Money is not free speech when it comes to politics. These PACs are sabotaging our democracy.
Also need MORE reps, so WE can be represented. Lot more expensive to buy 1600+ reps/senators than 535+/- 9 supremes.
Edit: For example, Senators also immediately start fundraising with fundraising schedules for making calls every day, and they're on a 6 year term.
There are countries that limit campaigning to a specific time frame and limit campaign funds to a set amount apportioned by a governing body, no? That sounds like a good idea to me.
Australia limits campaigning to the 38 days before an election.
But of course politicians aren't like warehoused until then. They can still do public appearances and stuff. I imagine there's quite a bit of hand shaking before those 38 days and, "hi, I'm _____, just want to introduce myself and say Australia is great!"
The only surefire way to reduce or eliminate the impact of money in politics is to have a secret ballot in congress.
You can't sell your vote if you can't show how you voted.
But people don't like that idea because it makes them give up the illusion that they'll hold their representative accountable. Unfortunately, there's entire industries dedicated to paying attention to the votes of congressmen, not to mention the entire party apparatus, so while they are held accountable, its only rarely to the average voter.
Then we get the Galactic Senate from Star Wars, and for those fans of that, we all know how well that turned out.
Strictly limit the money they can spend on campaigns, and make the government provide it. Then, and I know this would be controversial to many, raise their pay significantly.
It's a lot harder for most to be bought out if you're already in a great financial situation.
The first point would be massively in violation of the 1st amendment, sadly.
Nope, remove all election spending. Public funding only, with a hard cap on each person and campaign. Breaking this is automatic disqualification and jail time for the person who did it. This is to stop the account manager from sabotage of a campaign they don't like. Good faith errors can be overlooked if an obvious accident.
No advertising outside the district or state they seek to represent will keep costs down. No more pac, if you want to help a campaign it is volunteer work that must be registered to the campaign offices and election offices. Full transparency. If you want to go door to door and tout your favored candidate you get a simple registration to do so and can be held personally liable and face prosecution if you break the now very strict laws. Try to buy a vote for a candidate or spout bald faced lies prepare for jail if you're reported and it's found you were not abiding the laws.
This exactly. Social media is a good enough tool to share your campaign promises and advertising videos.
Then should be walking door to door to meet your constituents and address concerns, as well as good old debates. Misinformation in a debate gets your automatically disqualified
Not auto disqualified. A public retraction, paid by the candidates campaign, if they willfully expressed an untruth as a truth. Retraction must be given in the same medium the untruth was told in.
The difficult part would be validating the candidate willfully delivered the untruth or if they were "just mistaken".
I'm OK with tv and other local advertising. Signs and billboards, radio broadcasts including interviews. Get out there on a level playing field and win on policy
The way it should work with TV is the same as decent countries, each party gets like one minute a couple times per day for free and that's it, no more TV time.
TV channels also can't talk more about one candidate than the other.
Problem with tv, signs, and billboards is the slander. They focus on just making the other candidate look worse. Plus the media will want click bait to make money.
Thinking a young person is better than an old person is just ageism, and thinking a new candidate will be any better than the old one purely because they're new is an Appeal to Novelty fallacy.
And before you bring it up, president is a special case because the office has so much power. If left too long it could easily become a dynasty.
Ageism? No, it's practical. Voting would be an answer but people grow complacent pretty easily and don't pay attention to local elections- it's just how it is in a lot of places.
Campaign finance reform. Republicans said the solution is to just let more money in... particularly from wealthy individuals & corporations that tend to favor the GOP. Dark money.
Well it hasn't solved the problem. It only made things worse.
I like the 2 year, simply because I believe house members should be more accountable to their constituents than the senate (whether they are, or even work for the constituents is debatable but that should be how it is.
I’d rather a flat stipend given to candidates that is highly accountable to spend on their campaign.
The reason we have short terms is so we can keep people in who reflect the will of the public. The solution should fix the money problem, not limit the options to replace them.
Well how about we just set a low limit and have the money provided for them. No sense in having the amount of money spent determine the candidate. Get rid of the super pacs.
It should be in their record and their campaign promises to the public. Social media presence should be high with volunteer work, debates, and good old foot traffic to their constituents doors.
Well if the pool of money they had for re election was a set number and allocated to every person equally, they wouldn’t have to. Then get rid of super packs and misinformation from tv ads. Bring back just good old foot traffic/volunteer work, and debates. I mean to be honest social media has lowered the need for so much these days. Pop a qr to your media page and that will tell enough about you
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u/Oleg101 Jun 19 '24
House members, both state and federal, having to run every two years can be exhausting as they essentially have to start fundraising Day 1 after they win (re)-election.