Idiot-Proofing Democracy

The United States government has been warped by unlimited greed, brittle egos, and partisan justices. The existing system is too broken to fix piecemeal, so rewrite and restructure the Constitution. There are many special interest goals: End Citizen's United (corporate personhood). Protect women's healthcare rights. The Equal Rights Amendment. Protect the right to bear arms. Separation of church and state. LGBT rights. End the Electoral College. Marriage rights. Universal healthcare. Worker's rights to unionize. Fight voter suppression. Racial inequality and the death penalty. And many more. What if WE FIX THEM ALL AT ONCE? That's the goal here. Keep the three Branch structure. Force people to prove they are minimally qualified to serve in the position to which they have been elected or nominated, called "Fitness for Duty Assessments." Clarify critical human rights (legal personhood, bodily autonomy, etc.). Force simple Electoral District boundaries to limit gerrymandering. Ban automatic National Security clearances. Add term limits for Congress and the Supreme Court. It is time to push for unapologetic support for human rights and a democratic government that tolerates capitalism but moderates unabashed greed. Capitalism needs State intervention because capitalism has no moral center. Critical assumptions about fundamental human rights, core legal principles, and the role of the country in the world need to be stated explicitly to prevent corruption by antidemocratic forces. Here is a summary of the major changes: Term limits of 12 years for House, Senate, and Supreme Court. Require all high level Executive, Legislative, and Judicial candidates to meet basic mental and physical health standards, financial disclosure, and demonstrate a sound understanding of their role in government. Require earned National Security clearances for all Executive and Legislative candidates. No more automatic clearances. Constitutional right to bodily autonomy. Fix extreme gerrymandering by applying the six-boundary rule. Make House and Senate more fairly representative by having one House Representative per 800,000 people in a state, and one Senator for each 4 million people in a state. Change House term to three years, with half elected every three years. Keep senate at six-year term, also with half elected every three years. Ban corporate and special interest donations to Federal and State campaigns. No more PACs or dark money. Eliminate the electoral college. Ban laws based on marital status. Ban the death penalty and torture. Explicitly clarify separation of church and state, gun rights, presumption of innocence, and other critical legal concepts. Jennifer M. Booker, BS, MS, Ph.D., BSN, RN, is not a lawyer. She regards this as a bonus for rewriting the Constitution so it can be better understood by people who are also not lawyers. She has earned three engineering degrees (BS, MS, Ph.D.), worked extensively in the defense and aviation industries, was a professor of computing for two decades, and earned a nursing degree (BSN) and Registered Nurse license. She has done extensive studies of social sciences, including political science, psychology, and gender studies. Her website is jenbooker.com. This is Dr. Booker's second book. Her first book was The New Normal: Coming out as Transgender in Midlife (2019), also from The Unbound Press.