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People feel that government is remote and unresponsive; feel shut out of the decision-making that affects their lives – when this happens, people feel less motivated to engage with the political process in a responsible, productive way: Voter participation drops, ‘discouraged citizens’ become less informed about the candidate and issues, etc. Those who do vote are more inclined to support candidates whose only qualification is that they are perceived as being ‘outsiders’ – and less inclined to look realistically at whether or not a candidate represents their values, and has a track record consistent with their own vision of what would be good for the country. All of which in turn results in governments that are less responsive and responsible, generating a vicious cycle.

One of the main objectives of the Covenant Constitution is to address this alientation, and make government responsive and participatory. In many areas, the Covenant Constitution will establish only broad guidelines for policy, and will leave great leeway for Congress and the state and local governments to work out the details within those guidelines – but will be highly specific with regards to the integrity of our democratic process and the accountability of government to the public – as well as the responsibility of citizens to engage constructively as co-creators of their government. In particular:

  • Representation in Congress should be proportionate to population. In the Senate, where a state with a population of over 39,000,000 million has the same representation as a state with a population under 600,000 (giving the low-population state 67 times the representation of the high)1, will be changed to address this.
  • Representation in Congress should reflect the values of the electorate. The Covenant Constitution proposes that Senators be elected based on positions and principles, rather than on state of residence. All Senators would be elected at large, representing their stated positions for those who wish to see those positions advanced in government. They would be held accountable to vote in a way consistent with those positions – or to justify to the electorate any changes in position.
  • Citizens should have easy access to their elected officials. The framers of the existing Constitution believed that each member of the House of Representatives should have no more than 30,000 constituents; the current proportion is in the ballpark of 600,000. However, it would be impractical for the House to operate with a much lower proportion, given our current population – there would be too many Representatives to be able to effectively meet and discuss legislation. The Covenant Constitution would establish a tiered system where each elected representative would head a team of Citizen Liaisons who would meet directly with the public, giving each citizen ready access to someone who spoke directly to their Representative. The entire team would be elected along with the Representative who actually went to Congress in Washington DC – and all members would be equally accountable to uphold the responsibilities of their office, equally answerable to the public whose trust they held.
  • All elected officials – and holders of judicial positions appointed by those officials – should be worthy of the trust placed in them by voters. The bar will be raised significantly to be eligible for national positions of any kind – executive, legistlative, or judicial. It will require, at the very least, that the candidate show the same knowledge of the United States government, and understanding of the principles of democracy, now required of immigrants who seek to become U.S. citizens2 – In addition, all candidates would need to show a track record of public service – elected or otherwise – consistent with upholding the principles of democracy. Any possible financial or political conflict of interest would need to be resolved before someone could enroll as a candidate for public office.
  • The public should be able to trust in the honor and integrity of their officials, and feel they have recourse if an official seems to no longer live up to that trust (other than waiting for the next election). The Covenant Constitution will provide for votes of confidence to be held, when called for by a significant number of an official’s constituents. Officials would be required to vacate their office after failing such a vote – with safeguards in place to ensure the smooth, continuous functioning of government throughout such a process, and to avoid disruption by confidence votes without sufficient justification.

Footnotes

  1. As of July 2016, the estimated population of California was 39,250,017; of Wyoming, 585,501. Each state is represented by two Senators. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population
  2. Candidates for citizenship are required to pass an examination that many elected office-holders would fail. *** NEED SOURCES ***