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[Strife26]

This is a thought experiment that I've been considering for a few days. Assume a situation where you temporarily have infinite political capital, such that you may make one, and only one, Ammendment to the Constitution of the United States.

What Ammendment would you select, and why?
Why was a previous poster right or wrong with their proposal?

Rules! General politeness is mandatory. Proposals must be single topic in nature, so bringing up a giant list is not allowed. Changing the wording (or deleting) any section of the Constitution is allowable, provided it's not giant. Giant as used in the previous section may not be defined further.

[Sheb]

This Will Finally Make Sense Amendment of 2016

From now on, Sheb can amend whatever he wants, whenever he wants.

[wierd]

Lobbyists.  I would shackle the lobbyists.

I would make it unlawful, via the constitution, for any person to have ever served in a lobby from ever serve in federal government, and vice versa, and also make it unlawful via the constitution for any lobby group to provide money or favors of any kind to any government official, elected or otherwise. 

Bonus if I can neuter PACs.

See also:

Chris Dodd: Former house member, now MPAA head.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Dodd

I would make this illegal, as it should be.

[inteuniso]

0th Amendment to the Constitution: Freedom to Exist

Everything in existence has the freedom to exist.

[wierd]

0th Amendment to the Constitution: Freedom to Exist

Everything in existence has the freedom to exist.

Congratulations. You just made antibiotics and anti-retroviral medicines illegal, and now made it so humans have to eat synthetic sludge.

[inteuniso]

0th Amendment to the Constitution: Freedom to Exist

Everything in existence has the freedom to exist.

Congratulations. You just made antibiotics and anti-retroviral medicines illegal, and now made it so humans have to eat synthetic sludge.

Didn't say it has the freedom to exist forever.  murica

[Helgoland]

Lobbyists.  I would shackle the lobbyists.

You still need to define what precisely a 'lobbyist' is though. And what constitutes a favor. And you need to make sure that normal social interaction between politicians and lobbyists remains possible - else you'll create situations where a woman can't accept an engagement ring from her beau because one of them is a lobbyist and the other wants to go into politics.

Also you're rather heavily disenfranchising former lobbyists, sort of like former criminals are being disenfranchised today: Never again being allowed to run for office is too harsh. A long-ish wait period would be much less of a problem.

[Sheb]

Or you'd make it illegal to petition your local congressman.

[Strife26]

Yeah, it's so neutral that the actual results would be largely in the Supreme Court's hands. Can a Lobby group send information packets to Congressmen? To the executive agencies that regulate them? Can Nabisco put their rainbow oreoes on Facebook, or is that a form of Gay-rights lobbying?

[wierd]

A lobbyist is defined as a person or legal person representing a political interest, who petitions the government for political action, and or  finance.

Favor is defined as any exchange of material goods, services, or promissory exchange given. This would include such things as paying for a luncheon. Taking the congressman to dinner is fine, he just needs to pay his own bill. While you are talking with him at dinner, you cannot offer him money, material goods, or any promissory arrangement. The job of the lobbyist is to inform the congressman. Not to bribe him.

Granted, this will still have edge cases, where the wife is head of the MPAA and the husband is the Senator. That's for the Judicial to sort out.

[Bauglir]

"In a year in which a Federal financial obligation is not addressed in a passed budget, the previous year's funding toward that obligation will be applied. In no case will this be held to require the Government to overpay on a financial obligation. For each such obligation, Congress may pass a bill to deny that obligation's funding through this Amendment for the coming year. One such bill may apply to multiple obligations.

Federal financial obligations shall include, for the purposes of this Amendment, funding of Federal agencies, funding of any programs or projects established by Federal law, payments on Federal debts or treaty obligations, and any funding paid to State governments, private citizens and corporations, and foreign governments (including foreign aid) in accordance with a legal contract, or, if no contract exists, for the three consecutive prior years.

This list is not exhaustive. It is explicitly within the power of the Judiciary to determine whether other payments qualify as Federal financial obligations for the purposes of this Amendment."

or

"Only persons may benefit from the protections of the First, Third, Fifth, Eighth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty Fourth, and Twenty Sixth Amendments. While the term "person" is not defined in this Amendment and may be defined by other law, no definition of the term shall include entities that, by their nature, cannot be imprisoned, executed, fined, and/or deported from the United States. Notably, legal corporations cannot be considered persons, and so cannot benefit from these protections."

The last one probably needs some tightening up, but I want to do away with some corporate abuse of election law, by altering the perception of corporate personhood by judges, without inadvertently making a preemptive ruling on the nature of AI civil rights (however plausible that is or is not, I want to leave that for a world that's actually prepared for the argument by dint of having AIs - and if no such world will exist then it's not worth passing a law about).

I'm not sure which of these I think would be more important.

EDIT: Clarified some things a bit.

[Helgoland]

A lobbyist is defined as a person or legal person representing a political interest

So members of Greenpeace, ACLU, and pretty much every church out there are no longer allowed to become politicians?

Granted, this will still have edge cases, where the wife is head of the MPAA and the husband is the Senator. That's for the Judicial to sort out.

The way you phrased it, there's nothing to sort out. She's no longer allowed to cook dinner if he's going to be at the table.

[Sheb]

Helgo, I think he put one comma to many and meant: "A lobbyist is defined as a person or legal person representing a political interest who petitions the government for political action, and/or  finance."

So yeah, by his wording anyone working for ACLU and petitioning the government would be ineligible to be elected. You'd still be able to be a member of those groups and then become a candidate as long as you don't interact with politicians during your time with the group.

[wierd]

Why do some political groups get preferential treatment in your eyes?

Weather you champion for civil liberties, or corporate profits, the exclusion is suggested for a very good reason. If there is a chink in the armor, it WILL be exploited.

In the situation of the wife being MPAA head, and the husband being the senator, I guess they will just both have to order daily catering, and keep separate bills, and file taxes separately.

(And yes, I mean the people who actually get chatty with congress people. The real question to ask is "What of the people who write letters to their congressman?!" I dont have a good answer for that.)

[Sheb]

I think the point we're trying to make is that you're way too hard on lobbyists. :p