Electoral Reform

• Standardized national paper ballot and vote by mail
• Working elections is considered a civic duty like jury duty
• Everybody is allowed to watch the votes be counted
• Approval voting is instituted (choose the candidate or candidates of which you approve, may select more than one candidate in the same race)
• Nationalized ballot access laws for national offices (Congressional offices and President)
• Presidential elections based on popular vote
• Allow foreign-born residents to become president (eliminates a two classes of citizenship.)
• Guaranteed right to vote (no denials to those previously convicted of a felony.)
• Independent group handles the scheduling and rules of debates (allows 3rd party candidates to enter the debates and for debates to be more than just a joint press conference, i.e. real debates)

Governmental Reform

• Supreme Court allowed to review laws without having a case brought before them about the law.
• Prohibition against office holders from becoming lobbyists (possibly indefinitely; there currently exists a 2 year prohibition.)
• Independent investigators required for ethics and corruption charges
• Corporate influence shall be reigned in (TODO: expand on this later)
• Open data (weather forecasts by National Weather Service, Open GIS files, standardized file formats, etc.)
• Minimal national security document classification
• Review of classified status by judges
• Pork for intrastate projects goes to state legislature for allocation, specific in-state use may not be designated by Congress, only the amount given to the state.

Corporate Reform

• One vote per shareholder (No added influence based on who has more money)
• Strict environmental laws
• Clean up your own mess (Possible government assistance for necessary services, e.g. power, electric, sewage, etc.)
• Windfall profits taxation (Increased tax rate on profits exceeding a to-be-determined margin)

Patent Reforms

• Right to reverse engineer trumps patent protections
• No software methods patents (even in the case of chip design)
• No business method patents
• 5-year patent length on medicines
• 10-year patent length on non-medical patents
• No extensions
• Government may take patents using Takings Laws (eminent domain)
• No transfer of patents from one entity to another (the reward of a patent is only for the inventor, there shall be no companies whose sole purpose is to license patents which they have bought.)
• An existing implementation is required for patent approval
• First to create gets the patent grant (3-year grace period to challenge a granted patent with no reimbursement of license fees paid to initial holder of the patent.)
• Public review of patent applications before approval
• No "life" patents: including for artificial life. No patenting of genes, whether artificial or existing

Copyright Reforms

• Fair-use includes all not-for-profit copying without redistribution
• government works must all be in the public domain (and open-source where applicable)
• Right to access purchased media
• right to copy for personal use (covered by fair use descriiption above)
• 4-year copyright terms, $10 initial registration fee, 1-year grace period for renewal and with each renewal, the registration fee doubles from the previous renewal/registration
• During grace period, work is still considered copyrighted
• Unlimited renewals (though, renewals will be effectively limited by money)
• No encrypted work shall be considered copyrighted (encryption of a copyrighted work violates the limited terms clause in constitution)
• Databases may not be copyrighted. Only creative works may be copyrighted. Presentations of a database may be considered a creative work and thus copyrightable. (Example: a phone book is a database of names and phone numbers, the content of the book would not be copyrighted, but the specific representation of the names and numbers on their respective pages would be.)

Trademark Reform

• Trademarks shall be narrowly applied to specific uses.
• Trademarks filed after the registration of a domain name shall not be cause for transferral of the domain to the trademark owner.

Healthcare Reform

• Probably use the model proposed by Physicians for a National Health Program
• Universal access regardless of job or citizenship
• government requires no payment for prescriptions (people should not be punished for a doctor's prescribed treatment)
• Effectively free (payroll tax for government insurance)
• Guaranteed payments for doctors
• For-profit health insurance does not exempt a person from payroll tax
• For-profit health insurance must compete with government insurance
• One cannot opt out of the government insurance (since it is universal)
• Education is improved to such a point where there is at least one general practitioner in every town of 200+ population.
• All ailments resulting from legal actions must be covered by national insurance
• Government shall have no place dictating what procedures a doctor may prescribe for a patient
• A doctor's personal beliefs do not trump the legality of certain drugs and procedures. Those beliefs should be considered before becoming a doctor. The same holds true for pharmacists. This is specifically meant to address contraceptives.

Education Reform

• Universal education (headstart through post-grad)
• Non-profit work required after graduate degree or second bachelors as a reimbursement to the government and society
• Non-profit work could be in research and unrelated to the degrees earned
• Non-profit workers recieve stipend for work
• Year-round schooling with 2-week breaks
• For all but two fot the 2-week breaks, teachers recieve free updated training, paid
• Replace NCLB (ask Kristen for recommendations)

Internet Policy Reform

• Continued moratorium on Internet Sales Tax
• ICANN gets placed under UN control
• Net-neutrality is preserved
• Steep fines for spammers

UN Policy

• US ambassador to UN abstains from voting on matters dealing with Israel
• 3/4ths vote needed to pass resolution in UN Security Council
• UN General Assembly becomes tricameral
  • 1 House represented proportionally by member countries' populations
  • 1 House where One-vote-per-country
  • 1 House represented proportionally by ability to enforce international law
• UN General Assembly resolutions must pass by 60% + 1 in all 3 houses for resolution to be considered adopted.
• No permanent members on the UN Security Council

Israel Policy

• Since Israel is self-sustaining, stop foreign aid
• Aim towards nuclear disarmament
• Palestinian statehood in West Bank and Gaza Strip
• Golan Heights given to Lebanon
• Removal of all checkpoints except on the 1967 cease-fire line (recognized border between Israeli and Palestinian states)
• Settlements must be abandoned or considered a colony inside a sovereign state and treated as such (colonies are against international law, prohibited by the Geneva Conventions)
• Wall will probably get torn down since most of it exists within land that would become part of a Palestinian state
• Road blocks must be removed
• Refugee returns must be allowed
• Segregation in all its forms must be stopped (no dual-highway system as currently exists, no separate license plates for palestinians and Israelis, etc.)

Iran policy

• Nuclear power may be allowed (Iran is a sovereign nation)
• Offer safe nuclear reactors designed to prevent enrichment for weapons and protect against another Chernobyl
• Push for abandonment of nuclear arms pursuit in exchange for Israeli nuclear disarmament.
• Apologize for installment of Shah regime

Iraq policy

• Adopt Rep. John Murtha's plan for phased redeployment

Darfur Policy

• Send in trtoops to stop genocide with approval of the UN Security Council

Trade policy

• End trade embargo with Cuba
• Fair, bilateral trade agreements replace free-trade agreements
• Push for abolishment of WTO
• eliminate all debts to World Bank for developing nations
• Possibly outlaw foreign ownership of domestic means of production and distribution (including corporations)

Labor policy

• Minimum wage should be increased so that a 35-hour work-week at minimum wage guarantees a minimum income at the boundary considered for poverty-level
• Require a "wage equivalent" pay for all workers (i.e. salaried workers can opt for a wage equivalent if they work overtime and shall be used in determining max. wages)
• Institute a maximum wage as a factor of the minimum wage in an organization (e.g. the highest paid worker may not be paid more than 50 times that of the lowest paid worker based on the "wage equivalent" pay)
• Firing of workers for forming a union or planning to form a union shall be illegal with a 1-year salary compensation to the fired worker and reinstatement of job if the worker wants
• Adopt German unemployment laws
• No permanent replacement workers for strikers
• Replacement workers can only be used for the first 3 weeks of a strike
• TODO: Review further ideas in John Edwards' diary on DailyKos entitled "Hello, DailyKos!"

Taxation

• Adopt progressive tax system based on poverty line and an obscenely-wealthy line. Tax would be a function of these two parameters.
• Shift school funding off of property tax and onto income tax
• Abolition arcane inheritance tax and replace with income tax. Treat gifts and inheritance as unearned income
• Set higher tax on unearned income (inheritance, stock dividends, stuff that does not require work)
• Remove cap on social security payroll tax

Defense Policy

• Reduce defense spending to levels needed to defend against the top 2 strongest countries.
• Use army for humanitarian projects throughout the world (non-violent) to build goodwill.
• Push for world-wide nuclear disarmament.
• Abolish use of uranium and plutonium in weapons (e.g. depleted uranium bombs, and bunker buster bombs)
• Only offense justified through UN Security Council as a defense of international peace
• Follow all Geneva Conventions in the most humanitarian interpretations.
• Militarization of space is made illegal by domestic and international law.
• Guiding principle 1: If we would not tolerate certain actions on our soil or against our citizenry, we should not commit such actions on foreign soil or against foreign citizens.
• Guiding principle 2: The army exists solely to maintain peace.

Domestic Security

• Gun laws should be handled locally
• A single-parent living stipend should be issued to single-parents who fail to receive child-support (by cause of dead-beat parent, unknown father, single-parent adoption, deceased partner, etc.). This would be a supplemental income to the parent's work. A parent would stop receiving the stipend if the parent has received unemployment benefits for longer than 12 months.
• The prison system shall be retooled such that its chief responsibility is rehabilitation instead of punishment. When a person leaves prison, that person should be fit to re-enter society.
• The death penalty should be abolished.
• Marijuana shall be legalized (with certain exceptions listed under smoking proposal...)
• Smoking shall be prohibited
  • in public
  • in public buildings
  • in businesses catering to the general public
  • in the presence of children (will be considered a form of child abuse)
• Drinking age shall be lowered to 16.
• Driving age shall be raised to 18.
• Premeditated murderers and rapists shall be considered "mentally ill" and treated as such (institutionalized for rehabilitation, or permanent institutionalization if rehabilitation is impossible).
• Privacy rights are paramount in determining how the law shall be enforced
• Evidence gained improperly is thrown out, cases in which evidence is gained improperly shall not be dismissed unless all evidence is thrown out
• Poverty level shall be drastrically reduced by tax, wage and unemployment policies
• Establish the Cabinet-level Department of Peace
• Investigations continue in cases where evidence is obtained illegally but reveals and clear and present danger to society / an individual

Abortion

• Right to privacy with respect to one's own body should be enshrined in the constitution. There should be a constitutional amendment making such a right explicit, rather than just implied by the combination of the 9th and 14th amendments.
• No legal restrictions may be placed upon any abortion prior to the third trimester. 3rd trimester protections for life and health of the mother must be preserved
• Adoption should be encouraged and made easier for fit parents. This should offer woman an alternative to abortion. However, this as implied from above, would not be a mandatory route for those seeking an abortion.
• Other societal causes for abortions should be reduced or eliminated (if possible) including: poverty and single-parent worries.

Family Matters

• Homosexual families shall not be discriminated against.
  • Adoption allowed
  • civil unions allowed
  • equal benefits and visitation rights
  • 5th amendment protection against testifying against one's spouse shall include the spouse in a homosexual relationship
• All legal immigrants' and natural born citizens' immediate families granted citizenship and undocumented resident extended family granted citizenship.
• Extended parental leave for both parent's (with unemployment based compensation so as not to burden small businesses)
• Government subsidized childcare services provided to working parents

Marriage

• All legal marriages are to be civil unions
• Civil unions shall be treated as social contracts and not necessarily solely for couples. (For instance, three people sharing responsibilities, could be considered in a 3-person civil union.)
• Churches and civic groups shall decide what are the non-legal marriages.

Church-State relation

• Marriage reinterpreted as above
• Women's health handled as previous stated
• Following a strong principle of separation in the form of a secular government (distinct from an atheist government)
• Major world religions having an impact in world politics and in world history are to be discussed in school. Guidelines shall be set to determine what constitutes advocacy and what constitutes educating.
• Citizenry must be informed of the religions of others to better understand other cultures. This shall help spread peace, understanding, and tolerance.

Science Policy

• Intelligent Design is not science and does not get taught as such.
• Pure research receives bulk of government funding for research
• Applied research gets small funding, but receives most funding from private groups.
• Medical research is an exception to the applied funding limit
• NASA shall receive increased funding for the research towards the exploration of space and the technologies required for such.
• Astronomy shall be considered pure research
• Guiding principle: Government funding should be given for research that better helps expand the scope of human knowledge of the physical world.

Local policies

• Home Rule to return more government to local control (As per the 10th Amendment)
• Local planning boards create community environments (towns within a city) with stores within walking distance of homes
• Municipal internet access as a utility (though not ruling out private ventures)
• Cities would have multiple town squares to facilitate the "towns within a city" environment
• Free public transportation
• Lower property taxes on homes by increasing a progressive income tax
• School funding through state income tax
• Create a "Homeowner's Bill of Rights" as a limit to the power of Homeowners Associations to deny homeowner activities in a neighborhood.
• Municipal spending in area improvements should be inversely related to an area's property values. In other words, spend where the property values are lowest.
• Basic utilities (water, electric, trash, phone, etc.) should be locally or state-owned non-profits
• Bike paths away from roads and sidewalks should be constructed to provide alternate and safe routes for bike travel and recreation

Long-term Goals

• Maximize citizen free-time, while maintaining productivity through technological advances
• Ultimately establish free-trade internationally by making the need for fair-trade deals obsolete. Raise the world to a just standard, rather than decrease our standards
• Be a pioneer technologically
• Be a bringer of world peace
• Be a world leader based on merit, rather than might (military or economic)