Elective Office

**nhcigarfan** · 08-06-2005, 09:55 PM

Originally Posted by JOEBIALEK

One of the ambitious proposals put forth by former Vice-President Al Gore was the "re-invention" of government. While the Clinton Administration may have made some progress towards promoting greater efficiency, the result was that government actually grew in size mainly because of bureaucratic self-perpetuation. No one in the United States would disagree that the reduction of government waste should be given top priority. However, before tackling such a problem, one must examine the root causes and not merely treat the symptoms.

When our founding fathers wrote the Constitution, they deliberately left out the "structural path" of elective office but were very clear on names of offices, branches of government, duties of elected officials etcetera. However, what they failed to foresee was the need for elective offices to follow a required path. For example, take the leader of the executive branch; if a person wants to be elected president of the United States, they must first serve as mayor of a city, commissioner of a county and then governor of a state. The two-term limit (eight years) should also be extended to include these lower chief executives as well.

The legislative branch should have a similar path. If one wants to be elected United States senator, they must first serve as a U.S. congressperson from that state. Before serving as a congressperson, they must serve as a councilperson of a city, representative of a state and then as a state senator. The two-term limit should apply here as well.

As for the judicial branch, a United States supreme court justice must serve as a municipal court judge of a city, common pleas court judge of a county, circuit court or district court judge of a state, appeals court judge and state supreme court judge. The two-term limit would apply here also.

Furthermore, the education of these candidates to-be should entail the equivalent of earning a bachelors degree, masters degree and a doctorate in philosophy degree. These degrees must be earned prior to running for elective office. Besides providing a focused academic training it will promote a greater maturity in our candidates before they experience the rigors of their first elective office.

Few could doubt that this path would provide good practical training for those seeking higher office while at the same time establishing a track record that voters could more easily analyze and understand. The two-term limit would allow greater participation because the office would be wide open every eight years. This would force the elected official to properly execute his/her duties and not be as influenced by the various special interest groups.

Government today is often seen as part of the problem rather than a solution to the problem. Perhaps if the United States would consider a path of development for its "philosopher kings" public trust would return and something may actually get done.

Sounds good but fore the judicial branch, which is not a political branch. The duty of the Supreme Court is to interpret the constitutionality of of the cases before them. This is far different from what local district courts that deal with in landlord/tenant issues, misdemeanor criminal offenses, violations and small claims. So to is it different from local Superior Courts where they deal with declaratory judgments for contract disputes, felonies, misdemeanors with jury trials, civil issues with jury trials or with damages within the courts jurisdiction, etc. Furthermore the State Supreme Courts have the duty of interpreting State law, not federal. Generally if there is a constitutional challenge there are a number of state and federal counts. If the State Supreme court can dispose of the case under state constitutional law they won't even review the federal claims.

US district courts and the federal appeals circuits get a little closer because they do deal with some federal statutes but they also hear cases based in state law where there is diversity of citizenship. (meaning a suit between citizens or legal entities from different states or other nations)

The US Supreme Court is a non-political body which should be proficient and informed on US constitutional issues. They really don't need the background your talking about here.

Furthermore, a system like this would lead to politically motivated judges who have followed the structure solely to enforce their personal beliefs via the judicial system.

This would cause the judicial process to utterly fail and open the door to legal favoritism for political groups and consequently to judicial lobbying, which in turn would eliminate the balance of power our forefather were shooting for.