Difference between revisions of "Draft GPUS Platform Amendment Political Reform"

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DRAFT AMENDMENT FOR THE 2010 PLATFORM OF THE GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES

CHAPTER 1: DEMOCRACY

Section title: A. Political Reform

Section subtitle: Halting corruption, empowering people

Our Position: Greens want to crack down on public corruption and strengthen the voice of the people at all levels of government.

Everyone deserves the opportunity to influence the governmental decisions that affect them. Greens seek to bring vibrant grassroots democracy to every part of the United States and ensure that all people have fair access to the democratic tools and structures necessary to individually and collectively shape their lives.

The defining characteristics of American politics are too often a combination of an intrinsically corrupting campaign finance system that enables corporate and wealthy elites to purchase public policy at the public's expense; and a plethora of anti-democratic electoral, ballot access and debate rules that minimize participation, voice and choice by design and give undue influence to powerful corporations and the wealthy.

Greens seek systemic change to the U.S. electoral system to counter these trends, from how elections are financed, to conducting them in more fair and representative ways, to ensuring accountability and transparency on all levels of government. Greens believe that the U.S winner-take-all voting system is fundamentally flawed, resulting in low voter participation, little choice or competition in countless elections, and far too few women and minorities in elected office. The failure of this system to fulfill the promise of democracy leaves millions of Americans too discouraged to vote. A system that promotes full and fair representation would draw millions of Americans into civic life and revolutionize democracy in this country.

Green Solutions

Electoral reform for a better democracy

1. Enact proportional representation voting systems for legislative seats on municipal, county, state and federal levels. These systems are designed to ensure that people are represented in legislatures in the proportions their beliefs are held in society and include proportional voting systems such as choice voting (candidate-based), mixed member voting (combines with district representation), and party list (party based); and semi-proportional voting systems such as limited voting, and cumulative voting.

2. Enact Instant Run-off Voting (IRV) for chief executive races like mayor, governor and president, etc. Under IRV, voters can rank the candidates in their order of preference (1,2,3, etc.). IRV ensures that the eventual winner has majority support, allows voters to express their preferences knowing that supporting their favorite candidate will not inadvertently help their least favored candidate, puts more power in the hands of voters compared to candidates and parties by freeing voters from being relegated to choosing between the lesser of two evils and saves money by eliminating unnecessary run-off elections.

3. Abolish the Electoral College and provide for the direct national election of the president by instant runoff voting. As a step in that direction, support the National Popular Vote bill which would guarantee the Presidency to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and the District of Columbia), which would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538).

4. Eliminate all ballot access laws and rules that discriminate against smaller parties and independents, and otherwise place undue burden on the right of citizens to run for office.

5. Replace the corporate-controlled Commission on Presidential Debates with a new publicly-funded People’s Commission on Presidential Debates, to open the presidential debates to all candidates on the ballot.

6. Support the right to initiative, referendum and recall.

7. Enact universal voter registration of every citizen who reaches voting age and of every person who becomes a citizen.

8. Enact a national "Right to Vote" constitutional amendment and include with it the right for same day registration and voting

9. Lower the voting age to 17 and the voter registration age to 16

10. Support DC Statehood

11. Restoration of voting rights to citizens with felony conviction, enable greater enfranchisement of overseas voters

12. Explore local voting rights for legal, non-citizen immigrants

13. Support strong enforcement of the Federal Voting Rights Act and, where applicable, state voting rights acts like the California VRA.

14. Require public ownership of voting equipment

15. Require voter verified paper ballots

16. Make Election Day a national holiday and/or have weekend elections

17. Standardize and professionalize election administration across the United States

18. Increase the number of polling places, pay poll workers better

19. Enact 20-year term limits for federal judges and Supreme Court justices

20. Give less power to the US Senate, eliminate the Senate's 60-vote supermajority filibuster rule

Curbing corruption and ending corporate control

1. Full public financing of federal, state and local elections, including free and equal radio and television time on our public airwaves for all ballot-qualified candidates. This is perhaps the single best investment that we can make to stop corruption and empower citizens.

2. Prohibit corporations from using their treasuries to influence elections, preferably by constitutional amendment abolishing corporate personhood, or as a condition of receipt of a corporate charter by federal chartering of corporations.

3. Tough new federal anti-bribery and gratuity laws to stop corporations and the wealthy from purchasing government action, and vigorous enforcement of anti-corruption laws by the Justice Department.

4. Prohibit elected officials and their staffs from accepting for their own benefit any gifts from lobbyists or the general public.

5. The U.S. Senate and House ethics committees must punish members of Congress for corruption and wrongdoing, instead of just letting them off the hook, as they currently do.

6. Require outside counsel to investigate ethics complaints against members of Congress.

7. Replace the Federal Election Commission with a vigorous watchdog empowered to enforce federal campaign finance laws.

8. Expand revolving-door lobbying "cooling off" periods for members of Congress and their top staff to at least two years.

Transparency and good government

1. New "sunshine laws" to provide citizens with all necessary information and access to their political system.

2. Place our most important federal, state and local government documents on the Internet, especially texts of bills, searchable databases of voting records, draft committee and conference reports, and court decisions.

3. Reinvigorate the independent investigative agencies, such as the General Accounting Office and the inspectors general.

4. Allow any member of Congress to require a floor vote on any congressional earmark, to stop wasteful spending.

5. Currently, incumbents are allowed to send mail to their constituents for free under a 'Franking' privilege. This allows the incumbent to tell their constituents what the elected official is doing. In order for the elected official to know what the citizens think, letters from Citizens to their Members of Congress and the President will no longer require postage.

[* See Discussion Page]

ORIGINAL 2004 TEXT

The Green Party proposes a comprehensive political reform agenda calling for real reform, accountability, and responsiveness in government through the powers and abilities of citizens as created by the Constitution of the United States of America.

1. Political debate, public policy, and legislation should be judged on their merits, not on the quid pro quo of political barter and money.

2. We propose comprehensive campaign finance reform, including caps on spending and contributions, at the national and state level; and / or full public financing of elections to remove undue influence in political campaigns.

3. All viable candidates at the state and federal levels should have free and equal radio and television time and print press coverage.

4. We will work to ban or greatly limit political action committees and restrict soft money contributions.

5. We support significant lobbying regulation such as strict rules that disclose the extent of political lobbying via “gifts” and contributions. Broad-based reforms of government operations, with congressional reorganization and ethics laws, must be instituted. At every level of government, we support Sunshine Laws that open up the political system to access by ordinary citizens.

6. We support increasing the role of independent expository agencies, such as the General Accounting Office.

7. We recognize individual empowerment, full citizen participation, and proportional representation as the foundation of an effective and pluralistic democracy.

8. We demand choices in our political system. This can be accomplished by proportional representation voting systems such as

Choice Voting (candidate-based),

Mixed Member Voting (combines with district representation), and

Party List (party based);

and semi-proportional voting systems such as

Limited Voting, and

Cumulative Voting.

All are used throughout the free world and by U.S. businesses, and community and non-profit groups to increase democratic representation. We call on local governments to lead the way toward more electoral choice and broader representation.

9. We believe in majority rule and reject the present method of election without a majority. Accordingly, we call for the use of Instant Runoff Voting in chief executive races, (mayor, governor, president, etc.) where voters can rank their favorite candidates (1,2,3, etc.) to guarantee that the winner has majority support and that voters are not relegated to choosing between the lesser of two evils.

10. We believe in multi-party democracy for partisan elections as the best way to guarantee majority rule, since more people will have representation at the table where policy is enacted. We assert that introduction of a multi-party democracy is essential because

The change in the structure of electoral politics will moderate the influence of extremist views and domination by the larger parties, and offer more fair representation to a greater number of citizens; and

A third party can validate and raise other points of view that need to be heard.

11. The Electoral College is an 18th century anachronism. We call for a constitutional amendment abolishing the Electoral College and providing for the direct election of the president by Instant Runoff Voting. Until that time, we call for a proportional allocation of delegates in state primaries.

12. Using our voice to help others find their voice, a national Green Party should spring from many sources: state and local Green Party electoral efforts, individual efforts, political involvement and direction at every level. We look toward forming bioregional confederations to coordinate regional issues based on natural and ecosystem boundaries instead of traditional political ones.