Friday, March 26, 2010

A Network of Legislatures

I just dropped a comment on André Bauer's call for a Constitutional Convention.

The problem isn't simply ObamaCare, but the desire of political groups to steal power from other political groups.

Prior to ObamaCare, the 50 states regulated health care. ObamaCare simply grabbed this authority from the state's without even token acknowledgement of the state's existence. This type of power grab is not healthy. The unfunded mandates of Bush's No Child Left Behind Act was the same thing.

The problem is not with one party. It is with the current structure of things.

The Founders of the United States were not seeking to create legislatures that worked in isolation against each other.

They sought to create a network of legislatures that balanced and enhanced each other.

For this reason, the Founders of the United States had the Senate elected by the state legislature.

Yes, this structure created corruption. In seeking to reduce the corruption, the 17 Amendment broke the network, and eliminated the ability of atates to defend their rights and the rights of their citizens as written in the 10th Amendment.

The Founders did not have advanced communication technology.

Communication technology opens the opportunity of creating a direct network of legislatures.

Imagine a network of terminals in each state capitol allowing formalized communication between the state and federal government. This network would allow the states to influence Congress. As communication is two way, the Federal Government would be better equipped to coordinate legislation with the states.

A Constitutional Amendment aimed at creating a network of legislatures would profoundly improve the quality of legislation in our republic. (See An Unconventional Convention for my first post on this topic.)

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