Paul, thanks for pushing me to better refine my Section 3. You are nearly a co-author, as are many others. When ratified, you will have a part.

Chaveen, your ignorance of the Constitution, case law, and the law in general is obvious to me. You do understand the problem, money and its control of politics. Your amendment is pissing in the wind. It has no effect or way to provide any solution at all in our system. Paul was right to question the lack of any means to implement the equal speech you advocate. Your amendment adds nothing to freedom of speech. It does nothing to take money out of political campaigns. The problem. Follow the money to see what needs correction. What do you do about the money? What do you do to give EVERYONE an EQUAL voice? Sorry for yelling, but you provide no answers.

Millions of people want money out of politics. They understand the problem. Money, not equal speech, is the problem. Research “corporate personhood.” You have much to learn. This is my last response to Naveen on the 28th we need. I have other efforts to make on the reform of our corrupt political system. Politics is the art of the possible. IMHO, Your amendment is impossible. We need to fire the two-party system, a much deeper problem. http://cs2pr.us/hamco/usaiva/MeetTheIVA.html .

Paul,
If 100 people expressly want to be heard on a particular broadcast, and there is only room for 3 people, then those 3 people must be chosen at pure random from the 100. That is the maximally-representative cross-section. Is this not clear by the Equal Voice Amendment as currently worded? I thought it would be. If it is not, would you suggest a different wording to make it so?

Rich,
Money has always controlled political discourse in America, even with the old FCC rules. Money also has a large influence on the internet. The 1st amendment in the constitution has been cited to permit this & so can be cited in future. So fair participation can only be achieved via the constitution itself by either superseding or re-calibrating “the freedom of the press” so that such an interpretation cannot be sustained, which can instead articulate the need for fair participation, to get the best answers. The supreme court never argued that a corporation is a person, only that it is an association of natural individuals, so a law which ends the notion of “corporate personhood” will have no legal effect since it never actually existed. Allowing voters to use money to affect campaigns still breaches the principle that all arguments must have the equal opportunity to be tested in debate (to gauge which are the most provable/disprovable) since the richer voters will have an artificial headstart (due to more people having heard their arguments than have heard any of the opposing arguments).

This conversation seems to involve three people. Small audience. It does give us a chance to engage in a conversation about subjects very important to each of us. Thanks.

Naveen, the race is a marathon. Problem is the special interests have a 26.2 mile head start. The race was over long ago under an FCC controlled by special interests. Corrupt money in campaigns. Everyone knows we have no voice. Not everyone knows why.

Naveen, you are 100% right in saying we do not have an equal voice under the current FCC regulations. The regulators honor the principle of corporate personhood. The public interests are not met. Corporate interests are met by FCC regulations. We need to have all of the arguments heard just as you advocate. We need to take the influence of special interests away from the FCC. Get money out of political campaigns. Again simple, but extremely difficult in the form of a Constitutional Amendment.

Paul, media empires are a result of FCC regulation, not the constitution or legislation. Take money out of campaigns and money would not buy the FCC regulations that allow media empires. I am old, give me the FCCof the 1950s and Murdock would not be an empire. Give us 50 watt and 100 watt radio and TV licenses and we would have a level media playing field created by multiple media outlets with individual expressions in the media. With today’s cheap HD video production in hand held cameras we could have a renaissance of creative broadcasting. Section 1, MTA, do away with corporate personhood. Section 2 do away with money as speech under the 1st Amendment. Section 3, exclusive Voter rights to influence elections with money.

Implementation is clearly laid out already. Remove corporate influence and control of the FCC. Open clean elections will enable natural persons to control the FCC.

Rich, as you claim, you do have a voice, but not an EQUAL voice, because people with more money can use their money to propagate their point of view over the points of view of those with less money. It’s done all the time, and it makes for an unlevel playing field, and it’s undemocratic. You said on this blog recently that you do have “a voice in public policy”, as you put it. But your voice is not equally as loud as the voice of someone who can spend more money than you making his/her voice heard. Naveen’s proposal will level that disparity, and I don’t see how yours will do that.

I agree with Naveen’s premise entirely. My only problem with it is that I cannot yet see how his Equal Voice Amendment will be implemented, as a practical matter. The text of the amendment leaves this challenge to Congress. and given the frame of mind of the current Congress, I’m skeptical that they will have a clue how to implement this! Naveen has hinted on this blog as to some possibilities, but a clear path to its implementation remains to be laid out by someone.

I can see how the internet, for as long as it remains equally accessible to all at no more than a nominal cost-of-access to each voter, might become a solution, but how that would play out remains to be seen.

Rich, think of it like a 100m sprint race. Unless every player is in line with the starting pistol when it fires, it is impossible to gauge how fast any given runner is.

In the same way, unless everyone’s arguments are exposed equally & representatively, it’s impossible to gauge how provable/disprovable any given argument is.

As such, arguments that are ARTIFICIALLY given extra exposure (via the use of money) may only SEEM to be the more valid even though the number of people who heard those arguments artificially exceeded the number who heard any of the opposing arguments.

Thus, equal voice in law is necessary to maximize the propagation of the most provably necessary solutions,

It’s not a stupid question, Rich. It’s exactly the point! The Equal Voice Amendment will prevent an individual with money from having a louder voice than one without, which is not the case today.

To your previous comment 10 hours ago in which you declare that we have an “equal voice” amendment today, it’s the first amendment. If the first amendment “freedom of the press” language were truly giving every person an equal voice in the political discourse, then it would be illegal for Rupert Murdock to own his media empire at all. So, whatever the “freedom of the press” language in the First Amendment may mean, it’s clearly not working, and more is needed.

Paul, what kind of stupid question is that? No, but in this country I do have a voice. Will the Equal Voice Amendment give everyone who wants to speak a billion dollars to spend so we all have an equal voice? No law or amendment will make that happen. Our conversations can get consensus of a majority of voters who can elect public servants who represent everyone. And then, yes, we will have an equal voice with Rupert Murdock and anyone else you can name. The Equal Political Speech Amendment. A big ask, but it will give me the change I want. A voice in public policy.

Rich, do you truly think your voice has the same weight as Rupert Murdock’s? Or any tycoon who owns a media empire?

It occurred to me just now. We have that Equal Voice Amendment. The 1st Amendment, Freedom of the Press. I can not see what more is gained by the Equal Voice Amendment. I or anyone can publish online, in a newspaper I publish in hard copy. I can blog and win support on social media, my words, if supported can go viral and influence public opinion. We have an equal voice, with the need to find agreement with a majority to gain consensus. 1st Amendment has it covered.

Yes, Paul it is me. Campaign Page: http://cs2pr.us/Rich/28th_Amendment.html#Voice .
Common Sense Section 3: http://cs2pr.us/Rich/28th_Amendment.html#Three .
Occupy 99%: http://cs2pr.us/Rich/28th_Amendment.html#CS28th .
World History First: http://cs2pr.us/Rich/28th_Amendment.html#MTA28th .
Joint Resolution PDF: http://cs2pr.us/Rich/CitizensUSHouseJointRes.pdf .
Page on Common Sense II Political Reforms: http://cs2pr.us/28th_Amendment.html .

Amendments take a huge effort. Seven years to ratify built in. We need to get money out of political campaigns. Huge benefit to our people.

The Equal Voice amendment when everyone has the opportunity to blog and express themselves on social media, or on their own web pages, seems to me to be unnecessary. The result can be all talk and little action. How does all the talk get put into good public policy. We elect people to make public policy. The best easiest way to change policy is to kick incumbents our of public office. Do not elect Ds and Rs. They are bought by special interests that finance their campaigns. Really quite simple.

Naveen, I understand and agree with your position that the Equal Voice Amendment as you propose it is the most correct solution to the problem of achieving fair and reasoned political discourse.

The problem with it that it is such a radical shift in the political process from what exists today that very few people (including everyone one who has appeared here, and including I imagine many congress-people, who would be required to implement the amendment), understands how to implement it in a practical, effective manner. People just cannot yet visualize what the process would be like.

Despite this obstacle, I also understand and accept your argument that a Constitutional Amendment defining a basic democratic right such as political speech must articulate the highest possible position, and let the people strive to achieve that as far as possible. It’s akin to the 13th amendment, abolishing slavery in a country full of slaves. Many must have thought it impossible to achieve at the time.

Rich Stevenson, in this column 5 days ago expressed his difficulty with envisioning how this amendment would play out. And this may be the same Rich Stevenson who just recently ran for congress in Ohio, but I’m not sure. Rich, is that you?

Paul, you are absolutely right but I would go a little further than that. The most correct solution humanity can come up with is one which would be provable to the satisfaction of all in exhaustive reasoned discussion between everyone, if such discussion could ever and did take place. Regardless of whether or not this is realistic, it should be aimed for via both maximally inclusive & maximally exhaustive (satisfactory) discussions.

It’s also how a criminal rationalizes his or her crime, Naveen. Morals (judgments of right and wrong action) are formed by social consensus, not the rationalization of one individual.

That said, one could view the separation of powers as conceived in the constitution as a morally righteous governmental structure because it will result in good governance.

Paul, the separation of powers is a moral position too. Every action of every conscious being is based on what that conscious being believes to be right at that time. That’s morality. Law is no different, be it any part of the constitution or regular statute.

Rich, in your last reply to me you seem to be confusing the body of the constitution with the constitutional amendments. IMHO the body of the constitution is indeed about the separation of powers, but I disagree with you that the amendments, at least most of them, are about separation of powers at all. Several amendments articulate moral imperatives as expressed by their use of the word, “rights”.

The last sentence probably should be “Congress shall pass all legislation necessary to enforce this article.” instead.