Government Procedural Reforms: Part 1

Oooh, sexy title. I can sense your excitement. Get ready for some titillating political discussion.

Right here and right now I will outline the first two (out of an eventual ten) procedural reforms for challenge no. 4, which is to "research and identify 10 procedural reforms that would help move congress and the executive office back to being a government of the people and for the people."

So here they are:

1. ALL POLITICAL DONATIONS ARE TO BE 100% ANONYMOUS TO BOTH THE REPRESENTATIVE AND THE PUBLIC.

There is widespread financial corruption in our government. This is no secret. Currently, our representatives know exactly who is giving them money, and in many cases, that money buys results. It's as simple as that. Well, what if the members had no idea who gave them what? To quote Lawrence Lessig from Republic, Lost:

"If the problem with money in politics is that money will bend politics, this requires that the politicians know something about who their money comes from. Add anonymity, and that essential condition gets removed. Remove that essential condition and it could just not be true that money buys results. If we could make it impossible (or really, really difficult) for a member to know who gave his campaign what, we would make it impossible for the member to give favors in exchange for the gifts that have been given."

This, in theory, is genius. There are obvious drawbacks (it could greatly reduce the overall amount of funding that is contributed), but if we could develop a working system of anonymity (for example, where a lump donation is scattered into different amounts), then our representatives will not be able to act out of promises made.

"Sure, I could tell you that I contributed $10,000 to your campaign, but if you couldn't be sure, there wouldn't be much reason for you to respond. My incentive to give would thus be weakened substantially, at least if the motive of my gift were to buy a particular result. That decline in incentives would thus weaken the market for buying policy."


2. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION BILL QUOTA.

Congress must address a predetermined number of bills that benefit the environment in some way. This one is pretty self explanatory.