The Plan B Amendment - or - The Congress After Amendment

[William Benton]

I don't need to preach to you about the sins of the Affordable Care Act.  How it was pitched. How it was passed.  And how it has been propped up.  It is in my opinion one of the very worst political atrocities in American history.  A point of shame for the grand government of our great country.  I was hopeful that we would win a majority in 2010 and be able to repeal it.  I was hopeful it would be struck down by the Supreme Court.  I was hopeful that Governor Romney would win and dismantle it.  I am still hopeful for something to happen and undo that grand folly of good intentions bringing unintended (and perfectly predictable) consequences; but we are quickly running out of options.

I solve problems for a living.  When I see something like this happen I try to get to the root causes and figure out how to prevent it from happening again.  Short of taking the vote away from stupid people I don't see a cure for the real root cause.  When you cannot remove a root cause the next thing you do is find a counter measure.  And my idea is a counter measure to the failures that led us to the situation we are in with the Affordable Care Act.

The problem we had here was a temporary super majority held by the Democrats which allowed them to act unilaterally to pass the ACA into law.  Once it became law we saw one of the largest political backlashes in history as the American people stood up and shouted NO! at the tops of their collective tea-party voices.  But it was too late.  The damage was done.  And the same political gridlock that should have prevented a law this horrific from ever passing is now what is standing in the way of undoing it.  What we need is a new power; a new limitation of government; a new process than insures that the people of the United States through their elected Representatives have the power to say NO! and undo insanity done by our elected government such as the ACA.  And the only way to create such a new power for the people, such a new limitation to the power of government, is by Constitutional Amendment.

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Constitutional Amendment:

During the first 30 days of a new Congress house members may petition for any act signed into law during the previous Congress be given a re-vote. Any such act receiving a number of requests equal to half the number of house members plus one must be submitted for a re-vote in the House during the second 30 days of the new Congress. No House rules may prevent the re-vote once the requisite number of requests have been submitted. For the law to be overturned the House votes to undo the law must exceed the House votes that previously passed the law, and must be a majority vote.

Any legislation signed into law after October 16th of an election year may be extended one additional Congress under the same rules.

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I have submitted that to the White House petition board to try and get the word out and discussion happening.  I am very interested to hear your opinion on the idea.  The basic idea is that the House is the only chamber that can reflect the current political will of the people after every election.  They are the body where the electorate can decide to change direction with every election.  I am not proposing any changes to how laws are passed.  I am only looking for a plausible way to let the people stop the government when they stop listening to the people who cast the votes.  

For clarification, the ACA passed with 219 votes in the house.  Under this Amendment the next congress could have repealed it with 220 votes.  If it had passed with 300 votes it would have taken 301 votes to undo it.  If a law was passed with less than 50% of the votes then it takes at least 50% + 1 representatives to undo it.  If a bill is signed into law on or before October 16th of an election year then the only opportunity to use this power lies with the next congress.  A bill signed into law after the 17th and before the next Congress can be stopped with the next Congress or the following one.  That prevents a lame duck congress from bypassing the safety net that this provides.

What are your thoughts on this?  I think this would be a valuable addition to our Constitution.

I have posted this on the White House petition site in hopes of garnering some attention to the ides.  The signatures it has recieved are a testament to the power of that mechanism.  If you want to endorse it there you can find it at this link....  http://wh.gov/SHwt  Unfortunately you have to create a profile to vote, which in light of this administration's actions toward political opponents is a risky affair.

William Benton

[Debra A Shawver]

In response to Papp below...I did not vote for any of this...why I belong to a Tea Party now and am making my voice heard! Am I guilty of neglecting our country and leaving it on auto pilot as was suggested below, yes, but am fully awake now! And very active!

[Debra A Shawver]

I agree with Morton...we are being attacked on all sides and the sheeple are too stupid to notice...they continue in la-la land...worried about the next reality TV show...or their obamaphone....How about we stick with the Constitution? If it is not in there not one dept in DC legislative or otherwise can pass it ..and SCOTUS needs a lesson in the Constitution.....Congress should be repealing every single one of the thousands of unconstitutional laws on the books..that should keep them busy for 100+ years....Americans forget that the Bolsheviks won their revolution with only 17% of the population supporting it....mass murder was the plan for dissidents....how can Americans think it will be different here??? All our fractionated Constitutional groups must get on the same page and unite. We all have the same goal but 50,000 different names and groups. We need one or 2 leaders to lead...and unite and quickly. The left has been working at this for over 100 years and are very good at disinformation. Names that come to mind quickly are Sheriff Joe Arpaio, St Sen Russel Pearce, Shane Krauser, Jim DeMInt, Allen West,  Rep. Michelle Bachman, Rep Matt Salmon Wild Bill of Wildbillfor america, Constitutional Sheriffs of which there are now many...and we organize through them...now..not next year, now. And we ALL get on the same page!

[MORTON STEVENSON]

THIS IS GOOD START THINKING ABOUT ACTIONS AND SOLUTIONS.

These sounds very complicated. You should go to a congressional exspert on this matter.

I have never heard of this.

Here is the problem as I see it. The marxist have been working on this a very long time.

A very well organized minority can win the disorganized majority.

 

The chess board is set for the marxist to win. The right doesn't know how to play chess.

 

The marxist have hit us up from some many sides and there coming together right now.

 

We have to many fronts right now.

 

Subversion of the eduaction system

obamacare

Islam

IRS

Over taxing

Over regulating

Gun confiscation

Communist Judges

Unconstitutional laws

Unconstitutional actions

Subversion of our morality

Freedom of speech

Freedom of Christian religion

 And many more.

Were do you start?

 

Know who and how enemy functions.

 

Know your enemy and your self.

 

Start with the childrens. Stop the subversion now, Home school.

 

Once we know the enemy and have a short term and long term strategy.

 

Attack them from within.  Slow them down. Give us time to work.

 

Gather up people and organize.

 

Take a disadvantage and make it a advantage.

 

Learn the art of war and strategy. MAKE NO MISTAKE WE ARE AT WAR.

 

TAKE ACTION. Solution and action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Russell S. Danis Sr.]

As much as we want this monstrosity repealed, neither side will will let it happen. The democrats did it to create more government power with the buying of votes to pass it. Once it was passed, the republicans saw the power they would have when and if they ever gained control over all of congress and the WH and will try and keep it going under the guise of "the democrats made this mess, WE can fix it". Elected officials haven't listened to their constituents for decades. They are habitual liars that convince the gullible that they can fix all the problems with government. The problem is that once they get to Washington, they either play the political game put before them or they are culled from the herd and left to die a short political death...with the help of their own party. Additionally, the politicians with weaker ethics and moralities are quickly bought off with positions of power, insider information that leads to large sums of money, or by blackmail with evidence of any past shady dealings that future opponents came use against them in upcoming elections. Our country is quickly becoming the New Soviet Union of the world, with the ruling elite controlling the masses with their new security forces (DHS, Secret Service, IRS, CIA, FBI, HHS) and all the local police forces that are getting bought and paid for with new toys and law enforcement grants.

[Julyette Willmann]

Defund it and then repeal it!

[brendon bailie]

repeal obamacare now!

[Ralph Baker]

To William Benton:

While reading James Madison, note that at all times his faith was in the people themselves to correct any wrong doing.  Every thing he did was to keep the power in the hands of the people and to separate the powers of government.

As Ben Franklin is quoted in the 5,000 Year Leap, the citizens must never over pay their representatives.  They must come from the population subjected to the hardships produced by the government and then thrown back into the population where they will suffer any injuries caused by their own tenure, just like the rest of us.

Representation should be a civic duty that is reluctantly accepted and gladly disposed of.

                     The first thing we should do is reduce their salaries and benefits.

                     That's how you attract civic minded people instead of just the ambitious.

We are a self governing people that have had a government that was so successful that we aloud it to run on auto pilot.  We have given up the civic habits of self-government while those that oppose liberty and freedom have taken over our responsibilities and don't want to give them back.

We are now going to have to take them back, but, we have forgotten how and it is hard.

The one thing that was unimaginable in the time of our forefathers is that the art of politics would breakdown at the local level.

I have complained of this in the past and I don't have a solution for it yet.  I can talk to a thousand people all across the country through this web site and others, but, I have no way of contacting the people who are in my local voting district, where it really counts, without going door to door and that means knocking on some 400,000 doors or more.  That's a lot of time moving around without any discussion taking place.

[Gene Szymanski]

We must rally together and reassemble our country as our FOUNDING FATHERS had directed in their penning of the ORIGINAL CONSTITUTION OF THESE UNITED STATES.

[William Benton]

@Ralph Baker, yes, I agree.  The point of the Constitution is to limit the power of government.  There have been amendments that by their nature do not comply with that philosophy, and as a result have weakened rather than strengthened our government.  Weakened because they poison those in power with too much power and begin a downward spiral of self destruction through power greed.  We must when amending the Constitution stick to the principle of limiting the powers of government and that will strengthen our nation and allow it to last for generations into eternity.

[William Benton]

@Andy Reid, the point of doing this through a Constitutional Amendment is to bypass the current need for the whole mechanism of government to be required to undo bad laws.  Once the political lines are drawn the natural gridlock that should have prevented the ACA is not preventing its removal.  This cuts past the gridlock, but only for the purpose of undoing actions, not for implementing new things.

@Lou Mndia, this would give the power of that 70% to undo actions they do not agree with.  We cannot let a temporary super-majority like we had in 2008/2009 act to permanently change the character of our country and then use the very mechanisms in place to prevent radical change to stop us from undoing the non-sense they voted into law.  This would give the power to the American people to say NO!  And have the command followed.

@Colleen McLaughlin, unfortunately corruption is a human condition.  The best you can do is keep the power of government to a minimum to prevent corruption from having greater inertia than the power to stop it.  Where this will help is it makes it possible to hold representatives to a campaign promise; the promise to undo something specific from the previous congress.  Once the Representatives realize that if they do something against the will of their constituents they can be replaced by a person with the power to fix the mess, they will need to vote in a fashion closer to the will of those they represent or risk immediate replacement.

Thanks all for the feedback, for sharing this, and for voting for it on the White House site.  I have been reading through the federalist papers this weekend and wondering how James Madison would have argued this idea.