https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_BeCthw3QhNDSLk-byHGkyaHQLBexCMl4jzz64JTN5k/edit?usp=sharing

https://archive.is/

😃

@Kelben where does that come from

I made it

I wanted to have a hard copy of a lot of different ideas that were spinning around in my head, and I figured that if I was going to write them down anyway I might as well write it as if it were a constitutional amendment.

@FroggyC ^^^^^^^^^^^

Thanks

The quorum on referenda will make actually passing a referendum nigh impossible

we have the same system in my country

I also don't really understand why limiting the President's power to define his or her cabinet that much

@Kelben

It's interesting tho

Thanks, the reason I limited the President's ability to create a cabinet is described in the fourth paragraph of section 19. Basically I'm using the Cabinet as a check on the President's ability to use executive orders, and so I need the Cabinet to not be loyal to the President but instead to congress, and by extension the people of the United States.

And as for the referendums, I am curious about which restriction specifically you think will make them impossible to pass?

@FroggyC ^^^^^^

The quorum

Aka needing the vote of 50%+1 of voters

It makes abstention = a no vote

So who's against the referendum will campaign for just not voting

Since a sizeable percentage of the people always not vote, you will end up with the referendum not passing having a significant headstart

About the cabinet. I understand what you're saying but it still needs to be expression of a single political line.
You might need the nominations to have a confirmation by the Senate, but you can't ask the Senate to pick them. It also would break separation of powers, making executive positions dependent on the legislative branch.

Even parliamentary democracies don't have ministers appointed by the upper house. The houses just give confidence

@Kelben ^^^^

What I'm saying is that having a cabinet that doesn't express a single vision might make it impossible to work together at all

I expect the Cabinet will still represent a single vision, it will just be the vision of the leading coalition instead of the vision of the President. Because the new Electoral system would make everyone hyper aware of how fast their political career can end, and therefore it would eventually be considered political suicide to be an obstructionist unless you are absolutely sure that is what your base wants. The idea is that because nobody likes a government that can't get things done people will punish politicians who make that impossible.
And even if they don't this ability to check executive orders is the only power that the Cabinet as a whole has, the rest of the powers belong solely to individual Cabinet members and therefore they will likely get there individual jobs done regardless.
It would interfere with the separation of powers in the sense that the president would have a harder time passing legislation, but passing legislation is the job of the legislature anyway. As far as I see it the separation of powers has already broken down in the executives favor, this would just be correcting for that.
As for your point about the referendums, I agree that that may have been an over correction. The main thing I was worried about was a common occurrence in my state of Texas, here the state has to hold a referendum everytime it wants a constitutional amendment, which is often because of the way the Texas constitution is written, however because so few people vote in state elections they usually pass with only a few percentage points of the population in favor of them. But yeah like I said, in hindsight I may have over corrected for that problem.

@FroggyC ^^^^^

@FroggyC I'm curious what you think a good minimum percentage of voters would be though, cause I still feel like there should be one.

here in the netherlands it was 30% for a advisory referendum. but our goverment doesnt like advisory referendums so they got rid of it

we have(had) 30% and that was on the high side compared to the rest of Europe

How hard was it for an advisory referendum to fail?

well, it mostly got removed because the gov't didn't like the result

but in the netherlands we don't really have a referendum culture. It only was introduced in 2015

Ahhh, so I'm guessing it wasn't part of your constitution then?

nope

OK, well still 25-30% sounds like a fairly good number.

Actually, if we're just talking about the number of people that need to participate, would it maybe be better to set it at something like 50-60%? That way enough people will have to know that it's unlikely that anyone didn't participate due to a lack of knowledge of the referendum.

I'd say between 30% and 40%

@Kelben

No, @Kelben

We have the participation quorum in Italy