The Congress of the United States has become an overpaid, overstaffed, self-serving institution. It confiscates taxpayer funds to finance exorbitant and unconstitutionally determined salaries, pensions, and perks. Most members of Congress have become more accountable to the Washington establishment than to the people in their home districts. Both houses of Congress are all too often unresponsive and irresponsible, arrogantly placing themselves above the very laws they enact, and beyond the control of the citizens they have sworn to represent and serve.
We seek to abolish Congressional pensions.
It is time for the American people to renew effective supervision of their public servants, to restore right standards and to take back the government. Congress must once again be accountable to the people and obedient to the Constitution, repealing all laws that delegate legislative powers to regulatory agencies, bureaucracies, private organizations, the Federal Reserve Board, international agencies, the President, and the judiciary.
The U.S. Constitution, as originally framed in Article I, Section 3, provided for U.S. Senators to be elected by state legislators. This provided the states direct representation in the legislative branch so as to deter the usurpation of powers that are Constitutionally reserved to the states or to the people.
The Seventeenth Amendment (providing for direct, popular election of U.S. Senators) took away from state governments their Constitutional role of indirect participation in the federal legislative process.
If we are to see a return to the states those powers, programs, and sources of revenue that the federal government has unconstitutionally taken away, then it is also vital that we repeal the Seventeenth Amendment and return to state legislatures the function of electing the U.S. Senate. In so doing, this would return the U.S. Senate to being a body that represents the legislatures of the several states on the federal level and, thus, a tremendously vital part of the designed checks and balances of power that our Constitution originally provided.
We support legislation to prohibit the attachment of unrelated riders to bills. Any amendments must fit within the scope and object of the original bill.
We support legislation to require that the Congressional Record contain an accurate record of proceedings. Members of Congress are not to be permitted to rewrite the speeches delivered during the course of debates, or other remarks offered from the floors of their respective houses; nor may any additional materials be inserted in the Record, except those referred to in the speaker’s presentation and for which space is reserved.
The Constitution Party Platform can viewed in it’s entirety here.
I’d never sat down and read the entire platform — thanks for placing this in small, easy-to-read bits for the lazy (that’s me). I LOVE the idea to repeal the 17th amendment! I have always thought that was a horrible idea, veering far away from the founder’s intent. Want to limit money in politics? That’s one good way to do it. I absolutely aplaud that idea, and just about all the other ideas I see from the Constitution Party.