From an overall reading, some really good ideas. Allow me to elaborate or comment.

I would add in a repeal of the 12th Amendment, which provided for political party-based control of the Executive. While I agree that the method of electing the President was somewhat problematic, the general effect of the 12th Amendment has been to effectively nullify the threat of Impeachment and Conviction of Executive Officers - especially the President. It also strongly encourages a two-party system.

Since you are going to clarify the First Amendment, I'd suggest that a clarification of the Second Amendment be similarly injected to read that the individual right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed nor shall the People be prohibited from forming Militias.

With regards to Term limits and duration of terms, I found your idea of a no-confidence vote intriguing. I'm going to have to think about the ramifications more before commenting, as I can see both positives (greater accountability) and negatives (cost of constant voting, susceptibility to mob rule).

Regarding compensation, I have an alternate proposition: have all representatives and their staffs (and offices) be paid for by their individual States as determined by them. If the State wants to pay their Legislators a million $ each, that's up to them to decide and similarly if they want to make them members of a Healthcare exchange. ;) With the President and Vice President, I'd actually suggest no salary at all, given that their needs are paid for by the taxpayers. (See President Obama's recent vacation tabs for egregious waste.)

Article 7 Section I: I like the idea of having automatic sunset provisions - especially on spending bills - but the randomized nature is not really clicking with me.

Article 8 Section I: YES. This should provide the bases for all legal challenges to any particular enactment. Similarly, Executive Orders are subject to the same and should begin with a clause like "Pursuant to [insert US Code, etc.] ..."

Article 8 Section II: As an alternative, simply insist that all bills must be read in their entirety on the floor before a quorum of members before it may be voted upon. Say goodbye to these 2000+ page boondoggles. In my home State, all bills require three complete readings before final passage. It really forces the Legislature to focus on important matters and keep the legalese to a minimum.

The Fourteenth is the one most commonly used by activist judges to extend rights to illegal immigrants. My purpose would not be to repeal it, but to clarify that America has the right to look out for the welfare of her own first and that foreign visitors were afforded privileges as guests so long as they entered the country legally and did nothing while here to revoke their status as guests.

I certainly would not want to see the return of
Jim Crow.

Oops. My bad.
Both places are a desert to Bama boy.

Oh, YESSSSS!!!!

And did they consider the Tenth Amendment?

Yes, thank you.

Jan

Sounds good, but I doubt that anything taking away any power in any way from any representative would ever make it out of committee. As has been illustrated in this forum many times, the main reason for getting into politics and getting elected is power and money. It has little or nothing to do any more with representing the desires of the people. That's what has given birth to Donald Trump.

Glad to share. It loses a little transcribed through the word processor of the gulch.

We, the People of the United States of America, having created, in 1791, a constitution in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves,and our posterity note that in the ensuing two-hundred and twenty plus years the goals of that constitution have been obscured and obfuscated with a drift toward tyranny, do hereby amend the constitution to re-direct the country to regain the goals therein stated.
Article 1: It is hereby clearly and specifically stated the first Amendment to the Constitution in assuring the Right to freedom of Speech, of Religion and of the Press shall be wholly unfettered and includes any and all means of personal and mass communication currently in existence and any which might be invented in the future. Any challenge regarding issues of “religion” shall be adjudicated with the understanding the first Amendment assures 'Freedom of Religion', NOT Freedom from Religion. Courts shall rule consistent with this interpretation.
Article 2, section 1: In retaining the constitutionally prescribed offices, the following changes and stipulations are hereby imposed:
Serving in any constitutional office is restricted to total term of 18 years -- either serially or with interruptions in service.
Members of the house of Representatives shall serve a term of 3 years, eligible for re-election – either serially or with interruptions in service – five (5) times.
Senators will serve a term of nine years; eligible for one(1) additional nine year term. Each senate seat during each three-year “off-year“ election shall be subject to a vote of confidence. If two-thirds of the electorate vote “no confidence” the serving senator will cease to serve in that office and a replacement Senator shall be selected during the next legislative session within the state.
A President shall be elected/selected via the Electoral College and serve a term of six years; being eligible for re-election -- either serially or with interruption – twice. Each off-year election shall include a vote of confidence. If a two-thirds vote of the electorate shall indicate 'no confidence' the President shall cease service as President and the vice-President shall assume the office of President of the United States to complete the term originally due the President removed by a vote of no-confidence.
Justices of the Supreme Court shall serve from the time they are confirmed by the Senate to the end of the court term in which Eighteen years of service is completed.
Elevation of a sitting Justice to the office of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shall likewise result in serving an Eighteen year term ending at the end of the court term including the eighteenth year of service as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Section 2: Compensation for members of the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Presidency shall be limited to cash payments: No fringe benefits, perquisites or pensions shall be paid or accrue. The amounts of compensation are based on the median cash income of the constituents each office holder represents.
Members of the House of Representatives shall receive one and one-half (1.5) times the median income of the constituents they represent in the year prior to the year in which they are being compensated.
Senators shall receive two (2) times the median income of the constituents of the state they represent. As “President of the Senate” the Vice President of the United States shall also receive 2 times the median income of all American citizens in all states and territories constituting the United States of America.
The President of the United States shall receive three (3) times the median cash income of all American citizens in all states and territories constituting the United States of America.
Supreme Curt Justices shall receive twice the uppermost salary of the most highly paid civil service employees. Health care service for constitutional officers shall be available during the term in office through available government owned/operated healthcare facilities.
Article 3: We hereby repeal the sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Article 4: We hereby repeal the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Article 5: We hereby repeal the twenty-second Amendment to the Constitution.
Article 6: We hereby repeal the twenty-sixth Amendment to the Constitution.
Article 7; Section 1: We hereby stipulate that all laws passed by the Congress of the United States and signed into law by the President of the United State or which became law through constitutional procedures without the President's signature shall become null and void after a period of fifteen years'
Section 2: We hereby stipulate that all laws passed by the Congress of the United States and signed into law by the President of the United States or which became law through constitutional procedures without the President's signature prior to the passage of this document shall be randomly assigned a numerical value from one to fifteen. Beginning in the second year after ratification of this amendment the laws numbered one through fifteen shall, with each subsequent year, become null and void.
Section 3: Excepting Amendments one through ten (the “Bill of Rights”) – and exempting the 16th, 17th, 22nd and 26th Amendments which are hereby immediately repealed – each amendment to the Constitution passed previous to this document and which shall have been in force for 50 or more years shall be submitted to the several States for re-ratification . If the previously ratified amendment is not again ratified by the necessary number of states it shall be considered repealed.
Section 5: Each article of this document and any future ratified Amendment to the Constitution shall likewise by submitted for “re-ratification” after 50 years.
Article 8 ,Section 1: Proposals presented for consideration within either the House of Representatives or the Senate of the United States shall include a preamble statement to include a specific reference to the article and section of the Constitution of the United States, as amended which would empower the Federal Government to take the action proposed. Proposals without such constitutional authority shall not be considered, voted on or passed.
Section 2: Proposals presented for consideration within either the House of Representatives or the Senate of the Unites States shall not exceed 50 pages in length (standard legal paper with at least 12 point font.)
Article 9. No federal facility, building, park or other project shall be named for any individual living, nor shall such be named for any person deceased prior to that person having been dead for at least 50 years.
Article 10. Persons actively engaged as members of the armed services of the United States of America on election day shall have their votes counted twice. Citizens serving in the armed forces of the United States who have not reached the age of 21 and therefore are ineligible to vote, shall be allowed to vote once as a member of the armed forces.
Article 11. When a sitting constitutional officer of the Federal Government is impeached by the House of Representatives a trial shall be held with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presiding. “Jurors” shall be selected by each Governor or each state of the Union. Each State being allotted one Juror; those jurors being legal citizens, but not being elected officials of any public body.

Harry Reid is actually from Nevada, but he surely would complain.

Yes. Very good read from a Constitutional scholar.

Great idea. I too have posited the same thing and even started on a rewrite/clarification of the changes I would see. I think it would be appropriate and beneficial to share your ideas - if you choose. If you would prefer to do so privately, let me know and I'll pm you.

It's an honest question deserving an honest reply. So I'll give you some background:

The original intent of creating multiple bodies in the Legislative Branch was to create representation of two kinds: one House that represented the People at large and held the power of the purse (since taxation had to apply to everyone but in many cases the smaller states would benefit more than they contributed), and another Senate that represented the interests of the various States and especially landowners. The Founders were very leery of a large and controlling Federal Government, because they knew that a concentration of power would inevitably lead to tyranny. To check the rise of a large Federal Government required smaller but more powerful State and local governments and their respective representation and presence in the Legislative and elective procedures. It's another reason for the creation of the Electoral College so that the Executive Branch was responsible for selecting a President rather than public whim (thank in part the 11th Amendment).

The 17th Amendment was a result primarily of one man - a mining baron from Butte, Montana, who effectively paid off the State Legislators in order to get elected - and re-elected. (To give you an idea of how wealthy he really was, he put the Rockefellers to shame. See Wikipedia on William A Clark) Now he wasn't the only case, but the most flamboyant because he bragged about it. Progressives took this as a signal that the system was broken and used it as an excuse to call for the popular election of Senators. The problem is that this removed one of the primary checks and balances inherent in the bi-cameral legislature: the States themselves. It also rendered the Senate redundant in its policies and responsibilities: there were now two bodies beholden to the People, yet none to represent the interests of the States. What this did was give a huge amount of power to the large States with their large population bases. And as we have seen, the larger the population base, the easier it is to encourage that population to vote based on emotions rather than logic or good practice due to media influence.

Does that help at all?

Ok, excellent. I like Mark Levine very much. I will give the book a try. Thanks for the suggestion !

I can just see Utah's Harry Reid complaining, "But it's the law of the land."
Such is how he praised Obamanationcare.

If you would like cogent summation of the logical reasons to return senator election to the state legislatures, read Mark Levin's book " The Freedom Ammendments" It gives an outstanding historical account of what the original constitutional intent and how it was corrupted to enable consolidation of power in the federal government .

Cheers

I am not going to say that it is better to have political bureaucracies choose senators rather than have the people elect their senators directly. However, the 17th Amendment removed any power from the individual states. Consequently, now you get situations like what happened in Arizona when Gov. Jan Brewer was sued by the federal government for patrolling the border when the Obama Administration refused to fulfill its Constitutional obligations. Now states cannot secede, whether they wanted to do so or not, with the possible exception of Texas.

The populace vote went for Mr. Obama...twice. Need I say more? One definition of democracy is "The tyranny of the masses." When we have a mass of people who will vote Obama in twice, I think we could do better.
Also, the original intent was that the House represented the people and the Senate represented the states. Now the states have no direct representation and the Feds have been walking all over state's rights.

Works for me. Though, if I was runnin' sumptin' I would start a 10 year or so process to get the federal government out of most of what they do. If it is not enumerated, it has to go (no DOE, EPA, DOEd, .....) I have a whole series of "amendments" by it is too lengthy to post here I think.

I would propose another solution: require that ongoing spending authorization require individual votes on the individual bills. No more Omnibus bills. Each agency's budget has to be voted on separately.

"And our own Supreme Court said the provision in our own Constitution...was unconstitutional!"

Wow. Didn't anyone bring up the Ninth and Tenth Amendments which specifically state that anything NOT delegated to the Federal Government remains in the hands of the several States? The original intent of the Senate was to have Senators be responsive to the State Legislatures, while the original intent for the House was responsiveness to the People. Control of recall initiation should be from those respective institutions - not Congress itself, I agree.

Ok, at the risk of being barraged by everyone, can someone (gently) help me understand how it is better to take away citizens directly electing their senators and replacing it with the state party political bureaucracies choosing the senators ? State political systems are ( too often) corruption waiting to happen. Why isn't it better for the citizen to have a direct vote ?
( hunkering down, awaiting the replies )