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 whembly wrote:

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
What about the future implications of these instead of just for the ACA exemptions?

What could this amendment do for the people in the future? What kind of laws could get passed that this would be useful to have?

What do you mean?

Like... different retirement plans? Oh wait... they their own.

Um... like what?

Not sure, was hoping someone would be able to come up with something that I couldn't

Perhaps something like a new tax that affects everyone, or a new draft, not really sure

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
How is passing an amendment that says Congress should be held to the same laws as we are a bad thing?

There's two reasons. The first is that people in congress aren't really like the rest of us, because they've been given a tremendous level of responsibility. This means it is often necessary to pass laws that apply just to congress. For instance, you might feel the need to write a law saying that all meetings between members of foreign governments and congresspeople or their staffers must be recorded and stated to the public. That'd be a special law that applied only to congress, and apparently made unconstitutional by this amendment.

The second reason is that this achieves absolutely nothing. If you're in congress and want to extort extra money out of the system and they only way you can think of is to write laws giving you more stuff... well then you're pretty bad at your job. There's never been anyone arguing for this before, honestly believing that it would stop any of the problems in congress. Rather, this proposed amendment only exists because of stupid nonsense in which a special clause applying only to people working for congress removed their health insurance coverage, and then another special clause let congress continue covering them. Republicans can't sustain the pretend outrage over just that second bit for very long because its so obviously contrived and stupid, so instead they're trying to expand the whole out in to a vague 'boo congress' thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
What do you mean?

Like... different retirement plans? Oh wait... they their own.

Um... like what?

There's more to the law than just what benefits congress gets paid. Many countries, for instance, have a requirement for politicians and major bureaucrats to state all their major financial assets, and a requirement that they excuse themselves from voting or giving advice on any issue that directly benefits their own financial interests.

 whembly wrote:

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
What about the future implications of these instead of just for the ACA exemptions?

What could this amendment do for the people in the future? What kind of laws could get passed that this would be useful to have?

What do you mean?

Like... different retirement plans? Oh wait... they their own.

Um... like what?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Haight wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Haight wrote:
I'd support this for sure, and i'm just about left as you come. I think it's a good idea, and fair, and would force congress to live with the same decisions they make on behalf of their constituency.

It has the same chance of passing as I have of successfully backstroking to Neptune, but that doesn't make it any less a good idea.

But... it would be... wait for it... mean to do so.

Left wing does not always mean bleeding heart. I know you know your political history enough to know that, i've seen your threads and comments in OT

I was being cheeky.

I know dude, so was I.

Interesting paper on the history/application of the Nobility Clause.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2335822

Restoring Nobility to the Constitution: A Modern Approach to a Founding Principle

Abstract:
It is common lore in the United States that our federal government was structured with a number of checks and balances that ensure, at a minimum, the equal application of law among all citizens. While there are indeed such structural mechanisms embedded in the Constitution, they don’t always work as intended and, in fact, at times they fail utterly to prevent blatant abuses of the rule of law by the political class in America.

Our political office holders can, and do, pick and choose which laws apply to them and, more importantly, which laws they are exempt from. This has led to increasing outrage focused on the nation’s inequitable political and legal framework, with many calling for, among other things, new amendments to the Constitution to remediate the infirmities of the system.

The solution, however, is already in the Constitution.

The “Nobility Clauses” are among the least understood, and least invoked, provisions of the Constitution relating to the use, limits and distribution of political and legal power in the United States. Many believe that the purpose of the Nobility Clauses is specifically limited to forbidding grants of noble titles by the federal and state governments of the United States and are thus of narrow constitutional importance.

This paper will show that the Nobility Clauses were never intended to be limited solely to prohibiting titles and were, in fact, intended to prevent the political class from granting themselves and their favored affiliates privileges and immunities not available to the general public.