Mark & Juanita (in ) said:

| On Mon, 8 Aug 2005 15:00:59 -0500, "Morris Dovey"
| wrote:
|
|| Another idea that I like is limiting the number of laws that can
|| be on the books at any time (I'd go for fewer than 100) so that,
|| once the limit is reached, no new law can be added without
|| repealing a less valued existing law.
||
|| I think that I might also like to see a process by which laws
|| could be repealed by popular referendum once they're considered no
|| longer useful.
|
| Perhaps more in keeping with the ideals of our Republic rather
| than a democracy would be the addition of a third body to congress.
| This third body would only be charged with repealing laws passed by
| the other two bodies. In the case of repeal, a simple majority
| would be required from this house and no presidential veto would be
| applicable, the law would need to be re-proposed through the
| standard process. Inefficient? Yep, by design, it means that those
| who wanted certain laws in effect would have to both lobby for the
| passage of the law and against repeal of said law. The original
| bodies of congress would be spending some significant amount of
| time re-considering legislation that had been previously passed
| (sometimes second and third revisions of anything are better
| models), and finally, only laws that had overwhelming support would
| be kept --- not a bad thing.
|
| One other possible job for this body -- it would also be
| authorized with the authority to set aside Supreme Court decisions
| -- for this function, a 2/3 majority would be required and
| presidential veto with veto over-ride of some larger majority (say
| 75%) would be authorized. This would perhaps add the balance that
| appears to be missing in our time, and do away with the social
| engineering and legislating from the bench that seems to be the
| penchant of the courts these days.

This third chamber approach has considerable appeal. I first
encountered this suggestion in a RAH novel and think the model is
extremely worthy of serious consideration.

Much of our system of government was designed to overcome the
obstacles presented by geography. Travel was slow and frequently
hazardous and only face-to-face communication could be conducted at
speed. Electing a representative and sending that representative to a
gathering of representatives to speak for their constituancy was an
intelligent solution to the problem.

Let's take notice of a breakthrough change - the Internet - that
effectively overcomes and removes the geographical obstacles. At this
point one begins to wonder whether there is still a *need* to send
someone to a remote meeting to exercise the will of a constituancy.

Some interesting thoughts for an on-line (direct) democracy:

[1] Could the primary value of an elected representative be noise
reduction?
[2] Would it make sense to elect representatives on a "per issue"
basis?
[3] How can we avoid precipitous mob response to events like those of
9/11?

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/solar.html