Would you support a Fourth Branch of the U.S. Government?

The Trotsky said:
Representation is still relative in terms of size. The number may have been capped, but proportionally it's still the same.
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Incorrect. Wyoming has over 400,000 less people than Montana, but both states have only one Member of Congress in the House
 
Patchisou Yutohru said:
Personally (and I'm saying this admitting that I have ignorance on this matter), I don't really mind the fact that the house hasn't increased in size as long as they represent the people with their beliefs on various matters. I trust them a lot more than I trust my next door neighbor making a decision. Earlier you stated something about the majority opinion making decisions instead of having the system we have today.

As far as I'm concerned, the general population of America will make their decisions without looking into the subject matter. They won't take the time to educate themselves on things that are being tossed around everyday by politicians. They'll just go with whatever one looks best for their needs without looking any further. That's just how most humans are, instinctively.

But giving every single person in America who can vote a say in how America pulls out isn't a very keen replacement for the "lack of representation" that the House provides due to size. I mean, it's nice and all to believe that everyone has a direct say in what happens in every issue, I don't see that as the proper approach for decision making that will affect the country as a whole, since - as stated - a good portion of the people will be more concerned about what they'll have to sacrifice in order to make it happen, and that will lead most of them to voting for the wrong thing.
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There are no rights and wrongs in politics, there are only opinions. I take it that those who are so ignorant of our government won't even both to vote in the first place. People who care at least somewhat are the ones who vote.
 
The Trotsky said:
Emotional investment is not equivalent to knowledge. Look at the Tea Party
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What about the Tea Party? They have as much of a right to vote as Code Pink does. Does someone's ideology disqualify them from participating in the government? So much for the First Amendment, then.
 
FreakyLocz14 said:
There are no rights and wrongs in politics, there are only opinions. I take it that those who are so ignorant of our government won't even both to vote in the first place. People who care at least somewhat are the ones who vote.
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Then if that's your belief, why did you state earlier about people making unwise decisions? To me they seem the same. Unwise decisions are a wrong step to take when it comes to the wellbeing decision, which is what I mean when I said "wrong". But if that were the case (people who were ignorant for certain wouldn't vote), I wouldn't mind it as much. I don't hold the comforting thoughts that they'll just not vote. Even people who are ignorant to something would like having the ability to hold a direct opinion on it that actually matters at the end of the day. They'll take the opportunity by the wheel and toss in their uneducated opinion in there. I'd just much rather leave decisions up to people who have a near-crystal clear understanding of the issue at hand.
 
The whole point of our current system is to stop us from having to spend so much time just to make sure our views can be heard.

This is pointless and goes against the point of our government's structure.
 
FreakyLocz14 said:
The problem with Congress is the House of Reps causes unequal representation. The number of members is supposed to to divided by population, and the chamber's size would change if necessary after a census until federal statute set the size of the House to 435 members after the 1910 census. This means that for all the population growth we've had since then, we still have the same number of House Reps as we did in 1910.
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You're right, a chamber that is based on state population does cause unequal representation. The members of the constitutional convention knew this as well. That was the point of the Connectiuct Compromise. By creating a chamber with representation based on population and a chamber with equal representation they allowed for states with higher populations to get the representation that they need, and for states with lower populations to not be overruled.
 
Well the US Bureaucracy is considered by some as the Fourth Branch of the US Gov...so you mean a Fifth Branch made up of citizens? Well I agree with the past statements...it would take weeks to get anything done...also the Populace isn't all that intelligent when it comes to political issues...actually our founding fathers didn't really want to give the right to vote to everyone as the masses of people were illiterate at the time and even now a lot of people don't know enough about our system of government...actually people know more about Jersey Shore than about our constitution...
 
Well people who consider the US Bureaucracy a fourth branch are wrong. They are appointed groups or task forces controlled by the President, Congress, or some mix of the two.
 
Magmaruby and Aquasapphire said:
Well the US Bureaucracy is considered by some as the Fourth Branch of the US Gov...so you mean a Fifth Branch made up of citizens? Well I agree with the past statements...it would take weeks to get anything done...also the Populace isn't all that intelligent when it comes to political issues...actually our founding fathers didn't really want to give the right to vote to everyone as the masses of people were illiterate at the time and even now a lot of people don't know enough about our system of government...actually people know more about Jersey Shore than about our constitution...
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You make very good points, I would like to interject on one thing though. Our government already takes forever to get things done, and it was organized to be that way. The framers of the constitution did not build congress to be efficient, they built it to make sure that whatever laws get passed would be as fair as possible.
 
Midnight Beat said:
You're right, a chamber that is based on state population does cause unequal representation. The members of the constitutional convention knew this as well. That was the point of the Connectiuct Compromise. By creating a chamber with representation based on population and a chamber with equal representation they allowed for states with higher populations to get the representation that they need, and for states with lower populations to not be overruled.
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The fixation of the size of the House took place almost 150 years after the Constitutional Convention. The Senate was not made to represent the people, the House was. The Senate is to represent the states. In fact, the popular election of Senators didn't start taking place until shortly after the size of the House was fixed at 435. Now the purpose of the Senate is to represent the people of those states, but not individual people. While we continue to try and divide the number of House seats each states gets, doing so by the 1910 census in 2011 is unwise and creates unequal representation.
 
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FreakyLocz14 said:
The fixation of the size of the House took place almost 150 years after the Constitutional Convention. The Senate was not made to represent the people, the House was. The Senate is to represent the states. In fact, the popular election of Senators didn't start taking place until shortly after the size of the House was fixed at 435. Now the purpose of the Senate is to represent the people of those states, but not individual people. While we continue to try and divide the number of House seats each states gets, doing so by the 1910 census is 2011 is unwise and creates unequal representation.
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Our entire government is made to represent the people. The states are made up of the people...
 
FreakyLocz14 said:
The fixation of the size of the House took place almost 150 years after the Constitutional Convention. The Senate was not made to represent the people, the House was. The Senate is to represent the states. In fact, the popular election of Senators didn't start taking place until shortly after the size of the House was fixed at 435. Now the purpose of the Senate is to represent the people of those states, but not individual people. While we continue to try and divide the number of House seats each states gets, doing so by the 1910 census is 2011 is unwise and creates unequal representation.
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There is a point where its simply too big to be run effectively. While I personally do think it could get a few more members to be divided up, the cap for that isn't far above, and nowhere near the level needed to fix the problem you've pointed out.
 
I do agree with the intent and purpose of the governmental system our forefathers set forth. In fact I believe it's in need of a bit of an update. Congressmen and Senators need term limits in my opinion, because I feel like some of them get so disconnected from the people while they're mired in politics that they don't always make the best of decisions.

It's either a term limit, or give the people the power to, by popular vote, recall a person from Congress or Senate and elect a replacement.

Personally, I'd rather settle for the term limit...because people are indeed stupid in large numbers. Let the educated continue to run the country yes, but there does need to be some reform so that they have something more than just bad reputation to fear. That and a term limit would let a new person take the seat, and perhaps bring fresh ideas to the table. The term limit doesn't have to be "Serve X terms and then you are done" like the presidency is. It can easily be "You serve 2 terms on Congress/Senate, you sit out 1 term".

I feel this way because I feel like it would optimize our government if we had MORE term limits like that on various governmental offices, to give someone new a chance at office and bring about changes when necessary. This way, if people don't like the new guy, they can have the predecessor run again after sitting out and put him back into office until his term limit expires again or someone actually decides to run against him.
 
How about just better education of the current branches of government you guys have, and a fostering of a more active political culture? (I know, I know... it's already quite active in some areas). Things like encouraging people to contact their Representatives more with problems in their area, or Senators if it's a statewide or even national/international issue. With a whole fourth branch of government composed of potentially the entire electorate, there's the issue of potentially excessive bureaucracy, for one, as well as mobilising people to use their new powers. The same problems that come with all the other branches would just become apparent in this new one as well.

As well as this, while it's understandable - and noble, in some respects - to want quick and decisive action on certain situations e.g. removing people from public office, this certainly has the potential to simply become a populist ordeal with people getting swept up in the moment and not thinking about the other potential consequences of their actions.
 
This is why I favor a term limit over a method allowing a member of Congress/Senate to be removed expediently by popular vote.

Because that would probably be abused by people who don't understand things quite so clearly
 
So, by creating a new branch allowing the people to vote directly everything all the time, you'd obtain two things:

a) Media would decide whether laws pass or not. A regular person does not have time to read every single line in a proposed bill, a representative does because that's his job, after all. Regular people do not care about politics in general, representatives do (because bla bla bla). So, in other words, they'd just watch TV and hear the Fox or the CNN folks saying "Yes!" or "No!" and vote accordingly.

But hey! That's what we have now, don't we? Well, there is a difference. Professional politicians try (or at least should >_>) to find agreements between all the sides to pass on legislation, and can rewrite and discuss it a million times until they are happy with the result. But if people are just given a closed, already written law to say yes or no, they lose the major part of politics: discussion. Unless they vote no for everything and get everything to be rewritten completely until "the people" are happy with it.

b) Laws would take waaay longer to be passed. If they already take a hell of a long time, now add a popular referendum and, of course, the chance of getting a "no", sending everything back to the starting point. A country can't afford that nowadays.

Not to mention that we just can't expect everybody to be interested in politics, and forcing people to take a test to make sure they are up-to-date about politics to let them vote would only create a new elite (so... there goes the plan to let everybody take part in politics), because, as I said, some people... just don't care. And a mobocracy isn't the best choice out there, really.
 
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