[michaelmarion]

This would never pass muster in the context of freedom of speech.

Instead, we should just remove money from politics entirely: campaigns should be publicly financed at a fixed amount each cycle, and term limits should be set on all elected offices.

Politics should not be a career. I want a Congress that's comprised of representatives from a variety of trades and occupations: farmers, doctors, engineers, construction workers, and so on.

Representing your district or state in government should be a seen as a public service of finite length — almost akin to a tour of duty in the military.

[gremlinsinc]

Term limits should also be placed on Justices. Say 10 years with a rolling limit i.e. a sitting president can only 'place' 2 justices, any other justices would need to be chosen by the house (which is more fairly distributed by #s). The senate would have to ratify/approve still but unanimous house vote chooses the supreme court. This would ensure no party controls the justice system. It might even be beneficial if they just 'alternate' maybe the president gets first pick, then the house, then the president.

I think the house/justice system could also be increased quite a bit. I don't know the numbers but I'm pretty sure the # of house members is in-line w/ population of the early 1900s and is due a major overhaul, I think I heard the house could easily be tripled in size allowing a more diverse/population-centric voice.

We could potentially double the house and justices, perhaps even having two supreme courts running simulatenously if there are enough cases for that, and each court could have a 'leader' who becomes tie breaker for the other court when needed.

But major change is almost inevitably never going to happen in America, especially in our current climate. Maybe after 2020 when the power shifts which I'm hopefully it will shift somewhat more progressive, but then again all shit could break loose again, there's still a good year for things to hit the fan.

Widening the 'voice' of America is something that will probably net benefit democrats of Republicans, as GOP is really good at controlling districting and making themselves seem a bigger 'bloc' then they really are. Though, I think that is shifting a lot of states for instance are instituting non-partisan redistricting committees to handle district changes and updates without the involvement of elected officials. Even here in Utah they voted for this to happen, so that's a good thing.

Getting money out of politics though is desperately needed. I totally agree that campaigns should have a fixed amount. If they do allow donations they should only allow up to 1000 per individual and $0 from organizations. Corporations are NOT individuals NOR are they citizens.

PACs should ONLY be able to push for/against propositions and issues NOT elected officials. All candidate videos should ONLY be sanctioned/pushed by the candidate not by pacs and super pacs.

[WalterBright]

> publicly financed

The trouble with that is who gets the government financing? It could easily be corrupted into an incumbent re-election fund.

[michaelmarion]

All candidates get an equal amount — including incumbents — and no outside or personal funds are eligible for use towards a campaign.

The incumbent advantage would be negated in some part by term limits.

[WalterBright]

How is a "candidate" determined?

[michaelmarion]

Ahh, I see your point. Good question.

[zbyte64]

The same way we determine who gets on the ballot. Next question.

[WalterBright]

Who gets on the ballot is determined by laws designed to protect the two party system.

Even so, getting on the ballot requires campaigning, which requires money. For example, there is no ballot for 2020 yet, but there's a heluva lot of campaign money being spent right now.

[theandrewbailey]

There's also that nasty Electoral College thing that makes the presidential election effectively 50 sub-elections. That requires each candidate to register in each state to get on their ballot. No doubt, there's fees for that.

[repsilat]

> remove money from politics entirely

I used to think that the best (and only real effective) way to get money out of politics was to get the power out of politics. If the government can't subsidise companies/sectors, protectionism shrinks. Wherever there's opportunity for influence to be bought, I thought, money would find a way.

Recently there was an article on here that had a different opinion -- that there's really surprisingly little money in US politics. Worth a read:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21012637