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Government Actions Text |
Comments |
1. The President, Using the President’s Executive
Power, Shall Arrange To:
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1.1. Convene the initial United States Citizens'
Initiatives Assembly within one year of this Amendment's ratification. |
The primary responsibility must fall on the executive
branch, which has the resources and the ability to take prompt actions. |
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1.2.
Hire a suitable company to conduct the
random selection of Assembly Members
necessary for the
initial Assembly convocation and subsequent monthly replacements. |
There are many private polling and statistical
analysis companies with this capability. |
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1.3. Provide Assembly facilities for the
first year after convocation. |
The basic requirements are defined in the Assembly
rules. |
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1.4. Hire a suitable management company to provide overall direction
for the
Assembly convocation and for the following three months with options for the Assembly
to continue the service. |
There are many private convention companies with this
capability. Their contract should be turned over to the Assembly to
ensure continuity and assist it to become fully established. |
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1.5.
Hire organizations to provide a short course on
the deliberative process and the operations of an Assembly to the Members
preparatory to the first Assembly meeting. |
There are several business and university
organizations with experience in deliberative assembly training. |
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1.6. Provide continuing security.
Protection shall be of quality superior to that provided to a Federal Grand
Jury and U.S. institutional symbols. |
It should be assumed that the Assembly could become a
terrorist target as is Congress, and it should be guarded accordingly. |
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1.7. Establish a Citizens' Assembly bank account
and ensure deposit of the Citizens' Assembly annual budgets at least one month in advance of its
initial Assembly convocation and its anniversaries. |
The government must have no financial influence over
the Assembly. |
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1.8.
Ensure that law enforcement
Agencies detect and gather evidence of violations
of the gag order and of attempts to tamper with the Citizens' Initiatives
Assembly, Assembly Members or their families. Exploit all legal means
including periodic sting traps. |
Layered
protection against tampering will make even an attempt unlikely. |
2. The Congress Shall Enact Legislation:
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2.1
The employer of a Citizens' Assembly
Member shall provide time away from their work in order to attend Citizens'
Assembly Sessions (or care for children under six years old or disabled
while the spouse who normally performs this function must attend the
Assembly). The employer (or an employer of the spouse of a Member if they have children under six
years old and not in primary school, or disabled) shall continue their
employment benefits during their term on the Assembly. In computing
benefits, time spent on
Assembly business shall be regular working time. The employee
must return to work for any reasonable time the Assembly releases them.
Employers shall take no
adverse employment action against employees due to service as an Assembly Member. If
their job function changes by mutual consent to accommodate Assembly duty, the
Employer shall reinstate the original job function and remuneration at the end of their term as
an Assembly Member.
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The objective
is to minimize a Member's personal disruption caused by Assembly
attendance. |
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2.2 Fund the Citizens' Assembly as an
entitlement of the People. Appropriate the annual budget for the Citizens'
Initiatives Assembly. The
budget for the first year is $90 million, for the second year it is $75 million including startup costs,
and for subsequent years $60 million (unless the Citizens' Initiatives
Assembly gets approval
for a different
annual budget by Direct Initiatives.) |
The U.S.
Government can be given no economic control over the Assembly;
otherwise, it could leverage the economic control into political
control. The threat is real since it is used extensively between
Congress and the President. |
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2.3
Punishment: |
The punishments are substantial. The objective is to discourage
violators before they start. For comparison, refer to the laws on DVD
copyright infringement, where the crime is a federal felony investigated
by the FBI. Citizens face a maximum $250,000 fine plus five years in
federal penitentiary. |
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2.3.1
The laws shall punish violations of the Citizens' Assembly gag orders or tampering with the
Citizens' Assembly or Assembly Members or their families. A violation shall be a felony under the
jurisdiction of the Federal Courts. Officers and directors of any
organization shall be personally and corporately liable for failure to
safeguard against violations by reasonable due diligence. The minimum
penalty for each offence is ten days and the maximum is ten years in federal
penitentiary plus a maximum fine of ten percent of net individual and/or
organization assets. |
The Members
must be vigorously protected from tampering and media interference.
Special interests and other potential violators will often hide behind
corporate shields, which must be penetrated for effective enforcement.
Violators may be very wealthy and many organizations carry Officers and
Directors insurance. Consequently, a fine based on simple fixed maximum
amount is not a significant deterrent. Mandatory goal time, against
which insurance cannot protect, and fines based on net worth are
appropriate and efficacious. |
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2.3.2 Citizens or organizations who abuse
their right to propose initiatives,
especially where their abuse attempts to clog or confuse the system with
publication of an excess of proposed initiatives or comments on proposed
initiatives initiated by themselves or through their surrogates. The maximum
penalty is one year in federal penitentiary plus a maximum fine of five
percent of net individual and/or organization assets. |
If
unconstrained, a malicious group of wealthy persons could arrange to
propose many trivial or offensive initiatives. The punishment has to be sufficient to forestall
this type of abuse. |
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2.3.3
The laws shall punish Citizens who
the lottery has
selected to serve in the Assembly and who a Federal Court has not excused, who fail to perform,
who refuse or hide from their citizen's duty, or whom the Assembly
dishonorably discharge.
The penalty is a maximum of three months in federal penitentiary plus a maximum fine
of five percent of net assets. |
Service is a
duty of citizenship in the same manner as conscription for military
service— however, there is no injury or loss-of-life threat and service
is only part time for one year. Failure to perform
distorts the membership and makes a less perfect transcript of the whole
society. They cannot be permitted to do so without sufficient penalty to
make it a very rare event. |
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2.4
The laws shall ensure that no copyright
of any proposed Initiative is enforceable against the Citizens' Assembly, Assembly Members, the
United States
Electorate or the United States Government once the Initiative authors
publish the Initiative or cause it to come to the attention
of the Citizens' Assembly. |
This simply
avoids potential claims of copyright. |
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3.1
Resolve any
jurisdictional issues to implement a gag order and secrecy order to protect the
confidentiality of the Assembly's deliberations, each Member's privacy, and
their
family's privacy. These orders shall extend to protect ex-Members while the Electorate has still
to vote on the ex-Member's Initiative efforts for a minimum of two years and
a maximum of five years. The orders shall not limit
Assembly and Assembly Members' access to published materials. The orders shall
exclude Materials published by the Assembly. Where applicable, the orders
shall use the Federal Grand Jury system and Federal Rules of Criminal
Procedure as minimum standards. Coordinate the penalties with those for tampering
with the Assembly, Members or family. |
Inter-governmental jurisdictional
disputes might stall convocation or harm the formation of the Citizens'
Assembly. |
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3.2 Enact such rules, laws and
decisions necessary to implement the requisite duty of the Citizens' Initiatives
Assembly and Assembly Members. |
Once selected,
a Citizen's duty to participate in the Assembly must not be undermined
by federal, state or local government. |
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4.3 Excuse an Assembly Member from
duty only in case of excessive hardship proven before an expedited hearing in
a United States Federal Court nearest the citizen's residence. Failure to
fulfill the duty shall be contempt of that court. The Courts shall consider
excuse guidelines prepared by the Assembly. |
Excessive
hardship excuse should only be given in genuine cases. The current ease
of avoiding jury duty cannot carry over to Assembly Members. |
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3.4
Provide the Assembly
with prompt free equal access to
their libraries, collections, information and data, both hard copy and
electronic, unless for valid non-trivial reasons of secret classification.
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Access to all
necessary information is essential to the Assembly's function. |
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3.5 Include all Initiatives on the election ballots and
fund the costs from existing sources including the cost of printing a
pamphlet describing the Initiatives and distributing the pamphlet with other
voter information. Voters shall cast their votes and election official shall
count the votes in a manner similar to those used for
candidates for the United States House of Representatives. |
Lest anyone
try to subvert the nationwide Initiative process by omitting Initiatives
from the ballot, the process must be defined to occur with other ballot
processes. |
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3.6
Promptly inform the Citizens'
Initiatives Assembly if
they decide not to process a request for advice or opinion, otherwise the
advice or opinion shall be in writing, freely given, and provided in a
timely manner. The Senate, the House of Representatives, the President and
the Supreme Court shall each send to the Assembly brief timely written opinion
on Candidates Initiatives. The Assembly will include these opinions
with each Candidate Initiative for the Electorate's guidance. |
The Assembly
should seek advice and opinion from government. If it will not be
forthcoming, the Assembly must be informed so it can proceed without it. |
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3.7 Cooperate with one another and with the Assembly to
avoid delay so that the people may vote on Initiatives at the earliest date. |
Government
agencies are responsible for cooperating with each other so that issues
are not ignored and agencies do not pass the blame from one to another. |
