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June 6, 2003

A Call for a National General Strike – Part 2

In my commentary on May 16th I made a call for a national general strike. In today’s commentary I will examine one possible objective for a strike - electoral reform.

To be successful, a general strike should focus on an issue having wide-ranging appeal to most citizens. On one such issue, the Harris Poll found that, “a 65% …majority (with only 12% opposing) favored campaign finance reform in regards to soft money.”[1] “90% (of Americans) think large corporate contributions have influence on members of Congress.”[2] If a poll asked whether unregulated and unlimited influence by corporations in politics tainted the political process, I am sure an equally high number would agree, especially in the context of the recent epidemic of corporate crime. It is safe to conclude that the need for electoral reform is a legitimate rationale for a strike. I therefore propose a strike that demands the Congress and the President immediately enact a Constitutional Amendment that effectively addresses deficiencies in the electoral system. Upon passage by the Congress and President, the amendment would go the states. Any state not passing the amendment should be subject to a state-wide strike.

The initial step in planning the general strike should be to create a draft of the legislation required to generate the reforms. It should address issues of fairness to all political viewpoints. Advocacy groups from across the political spectrum and all those favoring electoral finance reform should participate in drafting the legislation.

The Constitutional Amendment should include the following:

• Electoral campaigns should be limited to between two and four months duration.
  
  
• All soft and hard money contributions should be eliminated.
  
  
• A new independent federal elections agency, with a non-partisan citizen review board, should be created. The agency and review board should have wide-ranging powers to ensure fair and opens elections.
  
  
• Funding for elections should be administered by the new federal elections agency.
  
  
• All political parties with a minimum of one percent of registered voters should be eligible for federal election funding and should be included in all debates.
  
  
• Television and radio spots, and billboard and newspaper ads should be eliminated.
  
  
• For a period of five years following their term of office elected and appointed officials should not be permitted to work on behalf of any agency or business for which they had oversight.
• The electoral college should be abolished and the President and Vice-President should be elected by a simple majority of the citizenry.
  
  
• Senators should be elected by regions of equal population rather than by state. It is outrageous that a state having 500,000 citizens has the same political power as a state having 30,000,000.
  
  
• Proportional elections should be considered, where the percentage of votes a party receives is commensurate with the number of seats the party is given in the legislature.

These recommendations do not begin to address the injustices and inequalities in the United States, but could help us elect those who will.

[1] March 2002 http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp"PID=289

[2] June 2001
http://www.reforminstitute.org/cgi-data/news/files/4.shtml

Johnny Peaceseed