18 Comments
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Peter Burkard's avatar

Nothing is more important than this. The corruption we have now is so fundamental to blocking good governance and also destroys the public's respect for elected officials and even people's willingness to vote. While it won't pass now, the Dems should run on this as the foundation of their agenda.

Janet Robinson's avatar

It sounds like a great bill, but even if Democrats swept the midterms and became the majority in Congress, Trump would still have to sign it, and he wouldn't cut off his gravy train. Few in Congress would either. It's nice to know there are still people in Congress that care about America.

Brandy Vicera's avatar

I love this. It gives me hope. One things for sure: Nothing will change if we don't at least Try. We have to start somewhere and sometime. Here and now.

Charles G. Masi's avatar

The Landsman-Riley bill provides a good starting laundry list. Some items might be debatable, but none are even close to being nonsense, unlike most national legislation efforts.

One general comment, however, like most legislative proposals these days it is what used to be called an "omnibus bill." According to Google's AI, "An omnibus bill is a single, massive piece of legislation that packages together multiple diverse measures, policy changes, or appropriations into one massive document that is accepted or rejected in a single vote." With so many working parts chasing so many different goals affecting so many diverse interests, omnibus bills are practically guaranteed to contain something objectionable to just about everybody. With everybody objecting to one or another part of the thing, it's no wonder such bills are so hard to pass.

It would be much better to break such junk into small, single-issue bills that most people could either support or not. Then, go on to the next single-issue bill. For example, there could be a bill that bars felons convicted of multiple frauds from becoming President. Most voters would encourage their elected legislators to vote for that. They would most likely object, however, to legislators voting in favor of a single-issue bill to send armed storm troopers out to patrol city streets looking for black (brown, yellow, whatever) people to kill. An omnibus bill containing both provisions would put legislators in an impossible position, whereas separate bills would encourage legislators to do what their constituents want them to do. Duh!

Heather Wynne-Phillips's avatar

It's at least the start of something and an acknowledgement that there actually IS corruption afoot.

Donna Nehrich's avatar

OR when we retake it all including Presidency we can show them that turnabout is fair play?

Gary Spitzel's avatar

Kudos to Reps Riley and Landsman for this long overdue initiative. Unfortunately most members of current congress won’t get within a thousand miles of this bill. Maybe after the midterms?

JohnNY B. Geezer's avatar

One can hope. One can pray. If there were any sense that donating money to a politician would accomplish anything at all beyond strengthening the corrupting grip of the two-party system, one could do that. One can speak uo

DanielB's avatar

Terrific initiative. What can the larger public do to help the bill become law?

Jane's avatar

love, Love, LOVE this!!! YES!

Radha Bose's avatar

"... and, importantly, who does not."

Exactly!!!

Raven's avatar

Doesn't matter what the list of banned things is (most of these were already not legal) - what's needed is to enumerate the penalties and enforcement methods, and also maybe some sort of consequences for *not doing* those penalties or enforcement, since that's where we are now.

Sounds more like a classic democrat showboating, "look how tough we are on pressing for change when we know we can't actually achieve it, but the second we have a majority we won't try anything like this because it isn't bipartisan enough."

Idamys Lebron's avatar

Suena muy bien pero debería legislar para que aquellos que deseen postularse para un cargo sea cual sea en el gobierno incluyendo la presidencia no tengan delitos o crímenes de cualquier tipo para que no pueda obtener ningún cargo.

Rebecca Cornacoff's avatar

Pass the bill and make him not sign it!!!

Susan's avatar

Yes, make it happen. Use it as a democratic selling point for the mid terms. We all want to know "what next?" This is only the beginning, but a solid one. Please share it with the country.

Tedder130's avatar

I would also ban Congress critters from trading in stocks, and the 'debt limit' is iffy. A properly financed country would never have debt crises and in fact 'debt' doesn't even belong in government vocabulary. The issue is resources and no amount of financing can provide insufficient resources, although theft from other countries can—what does a bit of violating international law matter?