Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Forty-One Reforms That Most Third Party Supporters Can Agree On

1. Improve ballot access for third parties, through multi-party primaries and ranked preferential voting.

2. Revoke the Commission on Presidential Debates’s charter, restoring host status to the League of Women Voters.

3. Pass measures that improve voters’ ability to access voter I.D. documents, register to vote, and access polls.

4. Pass comprehensive measures against voter fraud and election fraud in all jurisdictions.

5. Urge all states to implement mail-in voting and same-day voter registration, and count all absentee ballots.

6. Pass campaign finance reform, potentially through passing a federal law overturning Citizens United.

7. Shrink the number of government contractors, and abolish excessive and duplicative units of local government.

8. Restore the 10th Amendment; and decentralize, localize, subsidiarize, & strictly limit the size and scope of gov’t.

9. Abolish the U.S. Senate, reform the Electoral College, and / or convert to a unicameral coalitionary parliament.

10. Call for a constitutional convention, as long as one can be held without putting the Bill of Rights at risk.

11. Establish an all-volunteer military, by abolishing the draft, and ending mandatory Selective Service registration.

12. Amend the 2nd Amendment to protect conscientious objection, and prohibit mandatory civil service programs.
13. Bring the troops (& bases) home from Iraq and Afghanistan; draw down troops in Germany, South Korea, Japan.

14. Prohibit “enhanced interrogation” (torture), and extrajudicial killings of enemy combatants, and close Gitmo.

15. End domestic surveillance and warrantless wiretaps (spying), abolish the N.S.A., & restructure security apparati.

16. Cut all foreign aid: Cut, end, and abolish the disbursement of U.S. federal aid moneys to foreign regimes.

17. Legally mandate balanced budgets in all jurisdictions, and pass a federal Balanced Budget Amendment.

18. Audit the Federal Reserve System annually, allow votes to abolish the Fed, return it to congressional authority.

19. Require publicly announced local supermajority votes to pass property tax increases (and cut property taxes).

20. Decrease reliance on income taxes, end double taxation of income, and repeal the 16th Amendment.

21. Allow states to experiment with split-rate taxation, Land Value Taxation, and citizens’ dividends or U.B.I.G.s.

22. Shrink the executive branch, limit the power of the president to write law and wage war, & term-limit governors.

23. Pass term limits for members of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, and the state legislatures.

24. Reform congressional by-laws to protect supermajoritarianism from parliamentary procedural tricks.

25. End U.S. Supreme Court justices’ lifetime appointments, and pass other federal and state judicial term limits.

26. Create a Tenth District federal Circuit Court of Appeals, by splitting the Ninth District into two districts.

27. Support legislation to abolish the death penalty, and commute death sentences to life, in all jurisdictions.

28. Repeal statutes of limitations on all felonies and all corpus delicti crimes, especially for sexual assaults.

29. Enhance jurors’ and accuseds’ rights, by abolishing civil asset forfeiture, and normalizing jury nullification.

30. Reverse the militarization of local police forces, by altering or abolishing the 1997 N.D.A.A.’s 1033 Program.

31. Repeal federal mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines (especially in drugs and victimless crime cases).
32. Decriminalize and normalize - or legalize, tax, and regulate - cannabis, hemp, and other marijuana products.

33. Repeal legal barriers to importing legal and unregulated drugs from overseas, & trying experimental drugs.

34. In 45 states, legalize the interstate purchase of health insurance policies which are compliant with state law.

35. Repeal the federal tax credit for employer-provided health insurance plans (or extend the tax credit to all).

36. Abolish the U.S. federal Department of Commerce (abolishing all taxpayer-funded supports for businesses).

37. Amend Section 9 of the 1935 federal Wagner Act so as to allow dual-unionist, minority-unionist, and members-only collective bargaining.

38. Re-negotiate N.A.F.T.A. in a manner which protects the ecology and indigenous peoples, while lowering barriers to trade.

39. Prohibit infanticide in all jurisdictions, and in all jurisdictions prosecute partial birth abortion as infanticide.

40. Pass comprehensive reform of family courts and family law, potentially including the reform, investigation, and/or abolition of Child Protective Services agencies.

41. Pass constitutional amendments after building national consensus regarding age requirements for consent to sex, marriage, and contract; driving and car rental; purchase of tobacco and alcohol, and eligibility for public office.





Originally Written and Published on September 20th, 2017

Edited and Expanded on September 24th, 2017

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