Changing the election system.

Some thoughts on changing the system. Candidates for federal office, Senate and House.

1) State Legislature set and pay salaries and determine benefits of their own representatives and senators in DC. Congress, cannot set its own pay.

2) Federal government does not pay any elected officials other than President and Vice President, salary set by Congress and not changed to benefit currently serving administration.

3) Campaign Contributions and Funding.

• No contribution in excess of $3,000 per candidate ( up to $1,000 primary and $2,000 general election )
• Contributions go to Party account earmarked for the candidate. Party disburses the money to candidate's committee.
• Identity of contributor withheld by law until 30 days after elections and any recounts are over.
• Anyone who contributes may do so only if they are registered AND voted in the last election unless they are newly registered voters or recently moved into the state.
• Ban "committee" or any "accumulation" of donations from any source other than individual tax payers.
• Make illegal, any kind of corporate kick backs or bonus to employees for their donations.
• Contributers must reside withing the candidates state.
• State legislatures may elect to match contributions, but by no more than an equal amount.

4) Term limits. Congressional seats shall have consecutive term limits. 2 terms for Senate and 3 terms for House. Non-consecutive terms shall be permitted.

5) Same campaign contribution limits and conditions above to apply for candidates for President except for geographical limitations.

6) Voters disenfranchised for criminal convictions in their home states shall be permitted to register, donate to and vote for Presidential candidates. ( Ideally there should be no such disenfranchisement. )

7) All elections shall be by popular vote. Disband electoral college system.

8) Recount shall be mandatory and automatic if there is a difference of less than 5 percentage points between apparent winner and next runner up and in all cases where there is reasonable cause shown to believe there is any instance of fraud, uncounted ballots or vote tampering. Recount may be restricted to precincts where discrepancies exists.

9) As part of rule making, FCC require broadcast licensees to provide at equal and discount cost, equal access to any certified candidate in equivalent time slots. PLUS each certified candidate shall receive free air time of up to ____ minutes per week in the final 5 days prior to election.

10) Candidate qualifications ( certification ) shall be set by Congress and be uniform across all states with regard to eligibility and number of signatures required to be placed on ballot. There shall be no discrimination based on political affiliation, race, gender, national origin etc.

11) All districts to be drawn by the state legislatures and shall be contiguous and as compact and simple in configuration and shall be based entirely on population without regard to political, racial, tax base or economic demographics of their residents.

12) Candidate qualifications shall stipulate that a candidate must be a US Citizen, and if naturalized, must have been a citizen for not less than five years prior to seeking federal office.