What follows is quoted directly from Wikipedia:
Term limits, or rotation in office, date back to the American Revolution, and prior to that to the democracies and republics of antiquity. The council of 500 in ancient Athens rotated its entire membership annually, as did the ephorate in ancient Sparta. The ancient Roman Republic featured a system of elected magistrates—tribunes of the plebs, aediles, quaestors, praetors, and consuls—who served a single term of one year, with reelection to the same magistracy forbidden for ten years. Many of the founders of the United States were educated in the classics, and quite familiar with rotation in office during antiquity. The debates of that day reveal a desire to study and profit from the object lessons offered by ancient democracy.
In 1783, rotation experiments were taking place at the state level. The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 set maximum service in the Pennsylvania General Assembly at "four years in seven." Benjamin Franklin's influence is seen not only in that he chaired the constitutional convention which drafted the Pennsylvania constitution, but also because it included, virtually unchanged, Franklin's earlier proposals on executive rotation. Pennsylvania's plural executive was composed of twelve citizens elected for the term of three years, followed by a mandatory vacation of four years.
On October 2, 1789, the Continental Congress appointed a committee of thirteen to examine forms of government for the impending union of the states. Among the proposals was that from the State of Virginia, written by Thomas Jefferson, urging a limitation of tenure, "to prevent every danger which might arise to American freedom by continuing too long in office the members of the Continental Congress. The committee made recommendations, which as regards congressional term-limits were incorporated unchanged into the Articles of Confederation. The fifth Article stated that "no person shall be capable of being a delegate [to the continental congress] for more than three years in any term of six years."
In contrast to the Articles of Confederation, the federal constitution convention at Philadelphia omitted mandatory term-limits from the second national frame of government, i.e. the U.S. Constitution of 1787 to the present. Nonetheless, due largely to grass roots support for the principle of rotation, rapid turnover in Congress prevailed by extra-constitutional means. Also George Washington set the precedent for a two-term tradition that prevailed (with the exception of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's four terms) until the 22nd Amendment of 1951.
However, when the states ratified the Constitution (1787-88), several leading statesmen regarded the lack of mandatory limits to tenure as a dangerous defect, especially, they thought, as regards the Presidency and the Senate. Richard Henry Lee viewed the absence of legal limits to tenure, together with certain other features of the Constitution, as "most highly and dangerously oligarchic." Both Jefferson and George Mason advised limits on reelection to the Senate and to the Presidency, because said Mason, "nothing is so essential to the preservation of a Republican government as a periodic rotation." The historian Mercy Otis Warren, warned that "there is no provision for a rotation, nor anything to prevent the perpetuity of office in the same hands for life; which by a little well timed bribery, will probably be done...."
The fact that "perpetuity in office" was not approached until the 20th century is due in part to the influence of rotation in office as a popular 19th century concept. "Ideas are, in truth, forces," and rotation in office enjoyed such normative support, especially at the local level, that it altered political reality.
James Fennimore Cooper, the novelist, described the common view that "contact with the affairs of state is one of the most corrupting of the influences to which men are exposed." An article in the Richmond Enquirer (1822) noted that the "long cherished" principle of rotation in office had been impressed on the republican mind "by a kind of intuitive impulse, unassailable to argument or authority."
Beginning about the 1830s, Jacksonian democracy introduced a less idealistic twist to the practice of limiting terms. Rotation in office came to mean taking turns in the distribution of political prizes. Rotation of nominations to the U.S. House of Representatives – the prizes – became a key element of payoffs to the party faithful. The leading lights in the local party machinery came to regard a nomination for the House as "salary" for political services rendered. A new code of political ethics evolved, based on the proposition that "turnabout is fair play." In short, rotation of nominations was intertwined with the spoils system.
In district nominating conventions local leaders could negotiate and enforce agreements to pass the nominations around among themselves. Abraham Lincoln was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1846 under such a bargain, and he returned home to Springfield after a single congressional term because, he wrote, "to enter myself as a competitor of another, or to authorize anyone so to enter me, is what my word and honor forbid."
During the Civil War, the Confederate States constitution limited its president to a single six-year term.
The practice of nomination rotation for the House of Representatives began to decline after the Civil War. It took a generation or so before the direct primary system, civil service reforms, and the ethic of professionalism worked to eliminate rotation in office as a common political practice. By the turn of the 20th century the era of incumbency was coming into full swing.
A total of 8 presidents served two full terms and declined a third and three presidents served one full term and refused a second. After World War II, however, an officeholder class had developed to the point that congressional tenure rivaled that of the U.S. Supreme Court, where tenure is for life. "Homesteading" in Congress, made possible by reelection rates that approached 100% by the end of the 20th century, brought about a popular insurgency known as the "term-limits movement"
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
NO MORE WHITE FOLKS
There’s a message going around on the Internet that is causing quite a stir.
It predicts that in about 30 years Western Europe will be comprised of Muslim countries. Omar Kadhafi, the Lybian dictator, has chortled that the conquest of Europe will be achieved without firing a shot.
Anthropologists agree with him.
Birth rates as low as 1.1 in Spain and 1.3 in Italy are far below the 2.1 average needed to sustain the current population. Statistics demonstrate that birth rates below 1.8 constitute irreversible trends.
The same Internet essay tells us that around 1970 there were 100,000 Muslims in the United States. Today there are over 9,000,000.
The birth rate among Caucasians in our country is about the same as France or Great Britain, 1.7. The influx of immigrants from Mexico, mostly illegal, adds enough babies to bring our rate up to a sustainable level of around 2.2.
Which sort of gives us a Hobson’s choice. Our great grandchildren can either learn to speak Spanish or they can adjust to life under Shiria Law.
I suppose all good things have to come to an end.
Looking back, I have to say we were a great race of people.
We were philosophers, theologians, scientists, artists, engineers. We harnessed the atom and went to the moon.
We built great cities and universities, invented computers and established a global communication network we called the world wide web.
Our man Thomas Edison gave us electricity, and Henry Ford gave us wheels.
A white man named Alexander Cartwright invented baseball. Another, James Naismith, put a basket on the side of a barn and started throwing balls at it, launching a sport now played around the world. Papa Halas and a few other brave souls organized a football league.
We called it Western Civilization. We taught it in our schools and colleges. Its roots were in the Jewish and Christian religions which revealed to us that there is a single omnipotent Creator who is responsible for our existence and who continues to sustain us on this planet.
From those religious traditions we learned that we were unique and special creatures, entitled to be free, destined for greatness, charged with the care and protection of our earthly home.
From their basic tenets we structured systems of governance in which the people elected representatives to make decisions for the common good, and we wrote constitutions to specify their powers and define the unalienable rights of the people.
Our Western Civilization was a success. We became rich, powerful, comfortable and secure. We invented medicines and built hospitals and we lived longer and longer.
And we had fun. Boy, did we have fun. Every day was Disneyland. Entertainment became ubiquitous and incessant. We ate until we were fat, then dieted to be beautiful.
Sex became recreation. Babies, like pets, were optional possessions. About 25 percent of new white people are destroyed in their mother’s wombs, and never see the light of day.
And so we are not replacing ourselves. We are being destroyed from within, corrupted by our own success and gratification.
What a pity.
It predicts that in about 30 years Western Europe will be comprised of Muslim countries. Omar Kadhafi, the Lybian dictator, has chortled that the conquest of Europe will be achieved without firing a shot.
Anthropologists agree with him.
Birth rates as low as 1.1 in Spain and 1.3 in Italy are far below the 2.1 average needed to sustain the current population. Statistics demonstrate that birth rates below 1.8 constitute irreversible trends.
The same Internet essay tells us that around 1970 there were 100,000 Muslims in the United States. Today there are over 9,000,000.
The birth rate among Caucasians in our country is about the same as France or Great Britain, 1.7. The influx of immigrants from Mexico, mostly illegal, adds enough babies to bring our rate up to a sustainable level of around 2.2.
Which sort of gives us a Hobson’s choice. Our great grandchildren can either learn to speak Spanish or they can adjust to life under Shiria Law.
I suppose all good things have to come to an end.
Looking back, I have to say we were a great race of people.
We were philosophers, theologians, scientists, artists, engineers. We harnessed the atom and went to the moon.
We built great cities and universities, invented computers and established a global communication network we called the world wide web.
Our man Thomas Edison gave us electricity, and Henry Ford gave us wheels.
A white man named Alexander Cartwright invented baseball. Another, James Naismith, put a basket on the side of a barn and started throwing balls at it, launching a sport now played around the world. Papa Halas and a few other brave souls organized a football league.
We called it Western Civilization. We taught it in our schools and colleges. Its roots were in the Jewish and Christian religions which revealed to us that there is a single omnipotent Creator who is responsible for our existence and who continues to sustain us on this planet.
From those religious traditions we learned that we were unique and special creatures, entitled to be free, destined for greatness, charged with the care and protection of our earthly home.
From their basic tenets we structured systems of governance in which the people elected representatives to make decisions for the common good, and we wrote constitutions to specify their powers and define the unalienable rights of the people.
Our Western Civilization was a success. We became rich, powerful, comfortable and secure. We invented medicines and built hospitals and we lived longer and longer.
And we had fun. Boy, did we have fun. Every day was Disneyland. Entertainment became ubiquitous and incessant. We ate until we were fat, then dieted to be beautiful.
Sex became recreation. Babies, like pets, were optional possessions. About 25 percent of new white people are destroyed in their mother’s wombs, and never see the light of day.
And so we are not replacing ourselves. We are being destroyed from within, corrupted by our own success and gratification.
What a pity.
Monday, July 19, 2010
WE'RE NOT CELEBRITIES
But you know us. We are your friends and neighbors. The folks who live next door and down the street.
A builder from Colorado, a grandmother from Florida, a sheriff from Washington, a retired judge from Michigan, a writer from California, a grad student from Louisiana.
Computer guys, teachers, lawyers, doctors, businessmen, economists and actors.
People you never met and never heard about, but people just like you who care about America, who love our country, its history, its Constitution, and its promise of liberty and opportunity.
We have come together because we care about the United States.
We’re worried about our beloved nation.
We don’t think the government in Washington D.C. is working the way Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and George Washington intended it to work.
It was supposed to be a federal government, comprised of sovereign states, exercising limited powers. It was not supposed to be in charge of everything. It was not supposed to be dictating every aspect of our lives from the cradle to the grave.
The government created in Philadelphia in 1789 was not a socialist dictatorship, it did not create a ruling class oligarchy or authorize politicians to feather their own nests with the earnings of the people.
The Founders knew that self interest and partisanship are the enemies of liberty.
They recognized that the government they designed could become corrupted by the very individuals who were elected to run it, and they provided a way for the people to react, to come together and to fix it.
They gave use a remedy, and we, the people, intend to use it.
It’s called an Article V Convention. It’s an amendatory convention. A way for the people to draft, refine, and propose individual amendments to strengthen the Constitution we already have.
It’s not empowered to write a new constitution.
The Founders expected the Constitution they gave us to be a living document. They expected us to adopt amendments that would keep America the land of the free.
That’s why We The People have come together in Convention USA.
We want you to come and join us. We need your common sense, your loyalty to American principles and traditions, your faith in our ability to protect our Constitution.
When the Philadelphia Convention was finished, a lady asked Benjamin Franklin what sort of government had been created. His answer echoes down through the years to each and every one of us:
“It is a Republic, madam, if you can keep it.”
We invite you to visit www.ConventionUSA.org. Do it now. And please forward this message to every concerned citizen you know.
We are the people. And we are all in this together.
A builder from Colorado, a grandmother from Florida, a sheriff from Washington, a retired judge from Michigan, a writer from California, a grad student from Louisiana.
Computer guys, teachers, lawyers, doctors, businessmen, economists and actors.
People you never met and never heard about, but people just like you who care about America, who love our country, its history, its Constitution, and its promise of liberty and opportunity.
We have come together because we care about the United States.
We’re worried about our beloved nation.
We don’t think the government in Washington D.C. is working the way Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and George Washington intended it to work.
It was supposed to be a federal government, comprised of sovereign states, exercising limited powers. It was not supposed to be in charge of everything. It was not supposed to be dictating every aspect of our lives from the cradle to the grave.
The government created in Philadelphia in 1789 was not a socialist dictatorship, it did not create a ruling class oligarchy or authorize politicians to feather their own nests with the earnings of the people.
The Founders knew that self interest and partisanship are the enemies of liberty.
They recognized that the government they designed could become corrupted by the very individuals who were elected to run it, and they provided a way for the people to react, to come together and to fix it.
They gave use a remedy, and we, the people, intend to use it.
It’s called an Article V Convention. It’s an amendatory convention. A way for the people to draft, refine, and propose individual amendments to strengthen the Constitution we already have.
It’s not empowered to write a new constitution.
The Founders expected the Constitution they gave us to be a living document. They expected us to adopt amendments that would keep America the land of the free.
That’s why We The People have come together in Convention USA.
We want you to come and join us. We need your common sense, your loyalty to American principles and traditions, your faith in our ability to protect our Constitution.
When the Philadelphia Convention was finished, a lady asked Benjamin Franklin what sort of government had been created. His answer echoes down through the years to each and every one of us:
“It is a Republic, madam, if you can keep it.”
We invite you to visit www.ConventionUSA.org. Do it now. And please forward this message to every concerned citizen you know.
We are the people. And we are all in this together.
Monday, June 28, 2010
IT'S HELL TO BE NOBODY
Way back in 1970, when I was Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, my secretary announced one day that my uncle, Jim Brennan was on the phone.
I don’t think he had ever called me before, or ever did thereafter.
I picked up the phone and said “Hello” expecting to have a cordial family chat with my Dad’s younger brother.
It didn’t work out that way. He immediately launched into a diatribe about Who did I think I was, big deal Chief Justice, that you don’t return people’s phone calls, and your sainted father, God Rest His Soul, would be ashamed of you being so stuck up like some kinda big shot.
I got him calmed down and found out that a member of a poor family in Lansing to whom my grandmother and my aunts and uncles had been sending clothes and canned goods for many years, had called my office a few days before. I wasn’t in. He left his name and phone number.
My secretary asked me if I knew who he was or what he might be calling about. I said “No” on both points, and told her to ignore the call.
The dressing down from Uncle Jim left an impression.
From that day on, I return phone calls. It’s annoying and inconvenient some times, but it’s better than living with the guilt.
I thought of Uncle Jim today as I reflected on a recent exchange of email with the columnist George Will.
Mr. Will did an interesting column on Sunday about the Kagan appointment. I thought his views on appointing Justices of the Supreme Court might be of interest to delegates to Convention USA, and I wrote to ask if he would consider accepting appointment to the convention’s Advisory Board.
Assuming that he must receive voluminous email, I lead with a subject line that I hoped would get his attention. Under the heading “From a Former Chief Justice,” this is what I wrote:
Mr. Will:
I am certain that you cannot read all your email. I just hope that the subject line will induce you to give me three minutes of your time.
I want to call your attention to www.ConventionUSA.org, an interactive, virtual Article V amendatory convention on the Internet. It is operated by a non profit corporation supported by the dues of the delegates. Any citizen can be a delegate.
We are recruiting a distinguished panel of constitutional scholars and experts to serve as an advisory board. I invite you to join them. There is no cost or obligation other than to render such advice to the delegates as you may get the urge to render, when as and if the urge should strike you.
Your op ed piece today is the kind of realistic thinking I would want all of our delegates to read.
Please look at our web site, at the names already on the Board of Advisors, and accept my invitation.
Thomas E. Brennan
Former Chief Justice of Michigan
Founder, Thomas Cooley Law School
President, Convention USA, Inc.
I sent that email at 6:13:31 PM on June 27.
At exactly 6:14:06 PM on June 27, I received the following reply:
Thank you for your interest in George Will's column.
Due to the high volume of correspondence it is difficult for Mr. Will to reply, but your readership is deeply appreciated.
Doubting that anyone could have read my email, typed that answer and pushed the send button in 35 seconds flat, I sent Mr. Will the following:
While I appreciate the prompt reply to my email, I have the uneasy feeling that it was generated digitally and that no human being has in fact ever seen or read what I wrote to Mr. Will.
Again, I am sympathetic to the demands caused by a high volume of emails, but I had supposed that there are some clerical personnel whose responsibility it is to read or at least skim over, the emails that come in, and make some preliminary decision about whether an email is sufficiently substantive to, at least, merit the attention of a second, slightly higher level of gatekeeper who might have been endowed by his or her Creator with a higher capacity for exercising judgment.
I am therefore requesting that your acknowledgement of this email be accompanied by the name of a real human being who has seen it at your end.
Thanking you in advance for this courtesy, I remain,
Thomas E. Brennan
Former Chief Justice of Michigan
Founder, Thomas Cooley Law School
President, Convention USA, Inc.
I haven’t heard from George. Maybe I should ask my Uncle Jim, God rest his soul, to give him a nudge.
I don’t think he had ever called me before, or ever did thereafter.
I picked up the phone and said “Hello” expecting to have a cordial family chat with my Dad’s younger brother.
It didn’t work out that way. He immediately launched into a diatribe about Who did I think I was, big deal Chief Justice, that you don’t return people’s phone calls, and your sainted father, God Rest His Soul, would be ashamed of you being so stuck up like some kinda big shot.
I got him calmed down and found out that a member of a poor family in Lansing to whom my grandmother and my aunts and uncles had been sending clothes and canned goods for many years, had called my office a few days before. I wasn’t in. He left his name and phone number.
My secretary asked me if I knew who he was or what he might be calling about. I said “No” on both points, and told her to ignore the call.
The dressing down from Uncle Jim left an impression.
From that day on, I return phone calls. It’s annoying and inconvenient some times, but it’s better than living with the guilt.
I thought of Uncle Jim today as I reflected on a recent exchange of email with the columnist George Will.
Mr. Will did an interesting column on Sunday about the Kagan appointment. I thought his views on appointing Justices of the Supreme Court might be of interest to delegates to Convention USA, and I wrote to ask if he would consider accepting appointment to the convention’s Advisory Board.
Assuming that he must receive voluminous email, I lead with a subject line that I hoped would get his attention. Under the heading “From a Former Chief Justice,” this is what I wrote:
Mr. Will:
I am certain that you cannot read all your email. I just hope that the subject line will induce you to give me three minutes of your time.
I want to call your attention to www.ConventionUSA.org, an interactive, virtual Article V amendatory convention on the Internet. It is operated by a non profit corporation supported by the dues of the delegates. Any citizen can be a delegate.
We are recruiting a distinguished panel of constitutional scholars and experts to serve as an advisory board. I invite you to join them. There is no cost or obligation other than to render such advice to the delegates as you may get the urge to render, when as and if the urge should strike you.
Your op ed piece today is the kind of realistic thinking I would want all of our delegates to read.
Please look at our web site, at the names already on the Board of Advisors, and accept my invitation.
Thomas E. Brennan
Former Chief Justice of Michigan
Founder, Thomas Cooley Law School
President, Convention USA, Inc.
I sent that email at 6:13:31 PM on June 27.
At exactly 6:14:06 PM on June 27, I received the following reply:
Thank you for your interest in George Will's column.
Due to the high volume of correspondence it is difficult for Mr. Will to reply, but your readership is deeply appreciated.
Doubting that anyone could have read my email, typed that answer and pushed the send button in 35 seconds flat, I sent Mr. Will the following:
While I appreciate the prompt reply to my email, I have the uneasy feeling that it was generated digitally and that no human being has in fact ever seen or read what I wrote to Mr. Will.
Again, I am sympathetic to the demands caused by a high volume of emails, but I had supposed that there are some clerical personnel whose responsibility it is to read or at least skim over, the emails that come in, and make some preliminary decision about whether an email is sufficiently substantive to, at least, merit the attention of a second, slightly higher level of gatekeeper who might have been endowed by his or her Creator with a higher capacity for exercising judgment.
I am therefore requesting that your acknowledgement of this email be accompanied by the name of a real human being who has seen it at your end.
Thanking you in advance for this courtesy, I remain,
Thomas E. Brennan
Former Chief Justice of Michigan
Founder, Thomas Cooley Law School
President, Convention USA, Inc.
I haven’t heard from George. Maybe I should ask my Uncle Jim, God rest his soul, to give him a nudge.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
MY AGENDA
In my efforts to focus the American people on the need to consider amendments to the Constitution, I have stumbled on a number of patriotic folks who have their own agendas for saving the nation.
Many, perhaps most, of these have a decided tilt to the left or the right. That’s in the nature of politics, I guess.
But I have always believed that there are a number of common sense ideas that straddle the gulch between liberal and conservative; ideas that would have the kind of broad based appeal needed to win approval by a super majority of the states and of our fellow citizens.
I have been thinking outside the box for so long, I don’t even know where the box is. So, at the risk of finding out that nobody agrees with me, here are some of the constitutional amendments I have scribbled on foolscap over the years:
SUPREME COURT REFORM
The Supreme Court of the United States shall consist of the nine current members and their successors who shall be appointed for terms of eighteen years, by the President, without Senate confirmation, from a list of five nominees selected for their learning, experience and temperament by the unanimous agreement of the Justices of the Supreme Court, no two of which nominees shall be residents of the same State or graduates of the same law school.
If the Court does not deliver its list of nominees to the President within seven days of the occurrence of a vacancy, the sitting Court shall be dissolved and replaced by Judges of the United States Circuit Courts of Appeals chosen by lot.
FINANCIAL REFORM
Any State shall have standing to challenge the constitutionality of a law, appropriation, or expenditure of the United States, and the courts of the United States shall have jurisdiction in such cases.
CONGRESSIONAL REFORM
Members of Congress shall receive an annual salary only during their terms of office equal to one half of the annual salary paid to the President of the United States, and no other compensation, benefit or retirement. The Congress shall pass no law exempting Members of Congress from the payment of a tax.
LEGISLATIVE REFORM
All bills in Congress shall be written in the English language, shall consist of no more than 4,000 words and shall address only one subject matter, which must be clearly stated in the title. No affirmative vote for any bill shall be cast or counted unless the Member shall have certified under oath that he or she has read the bill and understands it.
ENTERPRISE REFORM
The Congress shall make no law, nor authorize any expenditure of public funds to invest in, loan to, or subsidize any private corporation or enterprise by reason if its insolvency.
TERM LIMITS
No person shall be eligible for election to the House of Representatives more than six times, nor to the Senate more than twice.
IMMIGRATION REFORM
No person, not a legal resident of the United States, shall be eligible to receive any health, education or welfare benefit from the United States or from any State.
EXECUTIVE REFORM
The Congress shall make no law delegating its authority to declare war, impose taxes, borrow money or regulate interstate commerce to the President or to any branch of the Executive Department.
May not cure everything, but it’s a start.
Many, perhaps most, of these have a decided tilt to the left or the right. That’s in the nature of politics, I guess.
But I have always believed that there are a number of common sense ideas that straddle the gulch between liberal and conservative; ideas that would have the kind of broad based appeal needed to win approval by a super majority of the states and of our fellow citizens.
I have been thinking outside the box for so long, I don’t even know where the box is. So, at the risk of finding out that nobody agrees with me, here are some of the constitutional amendments I have scribbled on foolscap over the years:
SUPREME COURT REFORM
The Supreme Court of the United States shall consist of the nine current members and their successors who shall be appointed for terms of eighteen years, by the President, without Senate confirmation, from a list of five nominees selected for their learning, experience and temperament by the unanimous agreement of the Justices of the Supreme Court, no two of which nominees shall be residents of the same State or graduates of the same law school.
If the Court does not deliver its list of nominees to the President within seven days of the occurrence of a vacancy, the sitting Court shall be dissolved and replaced by Judges of the United States Circuit Courts of Appeals chosen by lot.
FINANCIAL REFORM
Any State shall have standing to challenge the constitutionality of a law, appropriation, or expenditure of the United States, and the courts of the United States shall have jurisdiction in such cases.
CONGRESSIONAL REFORM
Members of Congress shall receive an annual salary only during their terms of office equal to one half of the annual salary paid to the President of the United States, and no other compensation, benefit or retirement. The Congress shall pass no law exempting Members of Congress from the payment of a tax.
LEGISLATIVE REFORM
All bills in Congress shall be written in the English language, shall consist of no more than 4,000 words and shall address only one subject matter, which must be clearly stated in the title. No affirmative vote for any bill shall be cast or counted unless the Member shall have certified under oath that he or she has read the bill and understands it.
ENTERPRISE REFORM
The Congress shall make no law, nor authorize any expenditure of public funds to invest in, loan to, or subsidize any private corporation or enterprise by reason if its insolvency.
TERM LIMITS
No person shall be eligible for election to the House of Representatives more than six times, nor to the Senate more than twice.
IMMIGRATION REFORM
No person, not a legal resident of the United States, shall be eligible to receive any health, education or welfare benefit from the United States or from any State.
EXECUTIVE REFORM
The Congress shall make no law delegating its authority to declare war, impose taxes, borrow money or regulate interstate commerce to the President or to any branch of the Executive Department.
May not cure everything, but it’s a start.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
OPEN LETTER TO CLINTON AND BUSH
Dear Presidents Clinton and Bush:
We are your fellow Americans and we write to ask for your blessing. We think that our plea deserves your personal attention and response.
We, the people, were pleased to see you come together for the earthquake victims in Haiti. As the leading Republican and Democrat making common cause for humanity, you representred the best of what America is all about.
You both enjoy enormous public respect and affection and you are both still of an age when you can be, and should be, making a contribution of statecraft. America needs you. Needs your experience, your point of view, your expertise.
And we need your leadership. We, the people, are troubled. We sense that our government is broken, that our nation is crumbling, that our future is in doubt.
The pain in our hearts is not just an annoying discomfort with the perennial mess in Washington. No, it's a real, hard pain. Eight or nine on a scale of ten.
We see our two hundred and twenty year old constitution straining to keep up with modern civilization, and falling further and further behind every year.
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison would not recognize the human race if they came back from the dead today. Automobiles? Airplanes? Computers? Satellites? Ipods, for Heaven's sake? What manner of creatures are we?
And that precious document they authored in Philadelphia 221 years ago, where is it?
Entombed in special thermopane cases with helium and water vapor, shielded from ulta violet rays, and lowered electronically into a steel and concrete vault 20 feet below the Exhibition Hall of the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
Is it a living document as the Founders intended, or is it a mummified relic of another day, another time, when patriots pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for liberty, and wrote words on paper that they intended to be the Supreme Law of the Land?
They sought to form a more perfect union. They knew that perfection is not possible in human affairs. But they wanted to create a process of deliberate constitution making, a process that would permit each new generation of citizens to own their government.
Because they knew that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.
We're trying, Misters President.
We're trying to do what Madison and Jefferson and Hamilton and Washington wanted us to do.
We're trying to use the tools they gave us in Article V to propose amendments. Useful amendments. Amendments that the experience of two hundred years of republican government have taught us are needed.
We can't get the Congress to help. Congress is a large part of our pain. We need a convention. We need delegates from all fifty states to come together and put their heads together and act together, just the way you did to help the people of Haiti.
A few of us have taken the initiative to form a non profit corporation and launch an interactive, virtual Article V convention on the Internet. We have done so not in a spirit of rebellion, but as patriotic Americans, trying to do what needs to be done for our nation.
I write to invite you to join us in this historic and necessary endeavor. Become our senior advisors, our guardian angels. Give us your support and encouragement. Indeed, we would welcome you to register as actual delegates from your home states.
Most Americans agree that "something needs to be done about our government." We believe that the Article V convention is that 'something.'
Your blessing will mark our efforts as a civic activity in the mainstream of democracy.
Our web site is www.ConventionUSA.org.
Respectfully,
Thomas E. Brennan
Former Chief Justice of Michigan
Founder, Thomas M.Cooley Law School
We are your fellow Americans and we write to ask for your blessing. We think that our plea deserves your personal attention and response.
We, the people, were pleased to see you come together for the earthquake victims in Haiti. As the leading Republican and Democrat making common cause for humanity, you representred the best of what America is all about.
You both enjoy enormous public respect and affection and you are both still of an age when you can be, and should be, making a contribution of statecraft. America needs you. Needs your experience, your point of view, your expertise.
And we need your leadership. We, the people, are troubled. We sense that our government is broken, that our nation is crumbling, that our future is in doubt.
The pain in our hearts is not just an annoying discomfort with the perennial mess in Washington. No, it's a real, hard pain. Eight or nine on a scale of ten.
We see our two hundred and twenty year old constitution straining to keep up with modern civilization, and falling further and further behind every year.
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison would not recognize the human race if they came back from the dead today. Automobiles? Airplanes? Computers? Satellites? Ipods, for Heaven's sake? What manner of creatures are we?
And that precious document they authored in Philadelphia 221 years ago, where is it?
Entombed in special thermopane cases with helium and water vapor, shielded from ulta violet rays, and lowered electronically into a steel and concrete vault 20 feet below the Exhibition Hall of the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
Is it a living document as the Founders intended, or is it a mummified relic of another day, another time, when patriots pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for liberty, and wrote words on paper that they intended to be the Supreme Law of the Land?
They sought to form a more perfect union. They knew that perfection is not possible in human affairs. But they wanted to create a process of deliberate constitution making, a process that would permit each new generation of citizens to own their government.
Because they knew that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.
We're trying, Misters President.
We're trying to do what Madison and Jefferson and Hamilton and Washington wanted us to do.
We're trying to use the tools they gave us in Article V to propose amendments. Useful amendments. Amendments that the experience of two hundred years of republican government have taught us are needed.
We can't get the Congress to help. Congress is a large part of our pain. We need a convention. We need delegates from all fifty states to come together and put their heads together and act together, just the way you did to help the people of Haiti.
A few of us have taken the initiative to form a non profit corporation and launch an interactive, virtual Article V convention on the Internet. We have done so not in a spirit of rebellion, but as patriotic Americans, trying to do what needs to be done for our nation.
I write to invite you to join us in this historic and necessary endeavor. Become our senior advisors, our guardian angels. Give us your support and encouragement. Indeed, we would welcome you to register as actual delegates from your home states.
Most Americans agree that "something needs to be done about our government." We believe that the Article V convention is that 'something.'
Your blessing will mark our efforts as a civic activity in the mainstream of democracy.
Our web site is www.ConventionUSA.org.
Respectfully,
Thomas E. Brennan
Former Chief Justice of Michigan
Founder, Thomas M.Cooley Law School
Thursday, June 10, 2010
MY FRIEND JIM
Just got home from a quiet dinner celebrating the 60th wedding anniversary of my friend Jim and his wife, Mary Ellen.
Our wives attended the same girls’ Catholic high school in Detroit in the waning years of World War II. Later, Jim and I were classmates at the University of Detroit Law School, and when we discovered that our wives were sorority sisters, we reluctantly assumed the role of sorority brothers in law.
A few years later, we found ourselves colleagues on the Wayne County Circuit Court, ambitious young bucks, full of ideals and ideas, dreams and schemes, and a shared determination to make a difference in the public arena. We quit smoking and took up playing squash at noon with a half a grapefruit for sustenance.
He taught me to play squash. I got to where I could give him all the game he wanted. I shall never forget the day we played to see which of us would run for presiding judge. I won, though to this day he denies it. Neither of us got the job that year, although later he was elevated to the position.
Jim was just a tad older than I, and better situated. He belonged to a golf and country club. Was the president for a while. He gave me my first set of golf clubs, a nifty bag full of Haig Ultras. I hacked around with them for more than a decade.
I was often his guest at the club. A hale fellow well met and a man’s kind of man with a booming stentorian voice, his presence in the locker room or the grill was always welcome and obvious.
Six decades is a long time; a life time. A lot of things can happen and did. Jim left the bench after he had been the presiding judge and went back to the practice of law. Bright , hard working and well connected, he prospered in the practice, trained up and ran in some marathons, then somehow stumbled into some troubled times.
The details are unimportant now, after so many years. What matters to me, to his family and his many friends and I’m sure to the final judge who awaits us all, is the way he has coped, the way he has survived, the way he has kept on keeping on day in and day out.
He retired from the law, but not from life. He has become a fixture in our little north Michigan town, a welcome friend, a tireless worker, a dependable neighbor, a leader and volunteer at the club, a raconteur at banquets, a chairman and organizer of tournaments, a gardener, book club regular, Catholic parishioner, faithful dog walker, a devoted husband, a loving father and a doting grandfather.
Jim and I have joked for many years that we don’t really like each other. I tell people that I bought a house in his neighborhood and joined his country club so I wouldn’t have to be his guest at the annual member guest tournament.
That’s mostly true. We have been partners in golf, tennis, gin rummy, you name it. We never win. We are much better at competing than cooperating.
In sixty years I never said anything he agreed with, never did anything he approved of. He always drives the golf cart and if I pick him up in my car, he tells me when to turn and where to park.
Jim has been wrong many times, but he has never been in doubt. His knowledge of people and events is encyclopedic and his recitations are exhausting.
Even now.
Even since his by-pass surgery. Even as his heart has slowed, his voice softened, his walk slowed, his weight down by fifty pounds.
Even now his gregarious, cheerful crotchetiness makes for great dinner table company.
My friend Jim is a lovable old curmudgeon. He may yet outlive us all.
When he was a young stud he used to say that in life the one with the most toys at the end wins. He would say it again today with a wink and a smile.
That’s just the way he is.
Our wives attended the same girls’ Catholic high school in Detroit in the waning years of World War II. Later, Jim and I were classmates at the University of Detroit Law School, and when we discovered that our wives were sorority sisters, we reluctantly assumed the role of sorority brothers in law.
A few years later, we found ourselves colleagues on the Wayne County Circuit Court, ambitious young bucks, full of ideals and ideas, dreams and schemes, and a shared determination to make a difference in the public arena. We quit smoking and took up playing squash at noon with a half a grapefruit for sustenance.
He taught me to play squash. I got to where I could give him all the game he wanted. I shall never forget the day we played to see which of us would run for presiding judge. I won, though to this day he denies it. Neither of us got the job that year, although later he was elevated to the position.
Jim was just a tad older than I, and better situated. He belonged to a golf and country club. Was the president for a while. He gave me my first set of golf clubs, a nifty bag full of Haig Ultras. I hacked around with them for more than a decade.
I was often his guest at the club. A hale fellow well met and a man’s kind of man with a booming stentorian voice, his presence in the locker room or the grill was always welcome and obvious.
Six decades is a long time; a life time. A lot of things can happen and did. Jim left the bench after he had been the presiding judge and went back to the practice of law. Bright , hard working and well connected, he prospered in the practice, trained up and ran in some marathons, then somehow stumbled into some troubled times.
The details are unimportant now, after so many years. What matters to me, to his family and his many friends and I’m sure to the final judge who awaits us all, is the way he has coped, the way he has survived, the way he has kept on keeping on day in and day out.
He retired from the law, but not from life. He has become a fixture in our little north Michigan town, a welcome friend, a tireless worker, a dependable neighbor, a leader and volunteer at the club, a raconteur at banquets, a chairman and organizer of tournaments, a gardener, book club regular, Catholic parishioner, faithful dog walker, a devoted husband, a loving father and a doting grandfather.
Jim and I have joked for many years that we don’t really like each other. I tell people that I bought a house in his neighborhood and joined his country club so I wouldn’t have to be his guest at the annual member guest tournament.
That’s mostly true. We have been partners in golf, tennis, gin rummy, you name it. We never win. We are much better at competing than cooperating.
In sixty years I never said anything he agreed with, never did anything he approved of. He always drives the golf cart and if I pick him up in my car, he tells me when to turn and where to park.
Jim has been wrong many times, but he has never been in doubt. His knowledge of people and events is encyclopedic and his recitations are exhausting.
Even now.
Even since his by-pass surgery. Even as his heart has slowed, his voice softened, his walk slowed, his weight down by fifty pounds.
Even now his gregarious, cheerful crotchetiness makes for great dinner table company.
My friend Jim is a lovable old curmudgeon. He may yet outlive us all.
When he was a young stud he used to say that in life the one with the most toys at the end wins. He would say it again today with a wink and a smile.
That’s just the way he is.
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