If you were "king/queen for a day" and could get just one thing passed through congress...

[DanTex]

what would it be? And no cheating and wishing for more wishes...

For me it would probably be strict limits on carbon emissions. I think climate change is the most serious looming problem we have, although growing income inequality is up there.

[el_bryanto]

1. That's a pretty good choice

because that's fundamental - but i think i would go with complete public funding of all elections - which is also fundamental - it would still be problematic because it doesn't deal with gerrymandering, but it would be a big positive step.

Bryant

[aikoaiko]

2. Major tax reform with limits on defense spending

Once social programs are funded properly a lot of other problems lessen.

[DCBob]

3. yes, my thoughts exactly... something on climate change that has teeth.

Global warming/climate change will render all else moot if we dont get a handle on it.

[hfojvt]

4. I'd throw away the cars and the bars

and the wars, and I'd ...

But that's only if I was the king for a night


A 3 dog night.

[Douglas Carpenter]

5. an absolute ban on money being used to influence politics and government

[Pelican]

6. I would require all future laws to pass both houses with 3/4 majority...

... and require that they have a sunset date.

Really filter the process down so only the important stuff goes through.

[sinkingfeeling]

7. Amendment to end Citizens United.

[stevenleser]

49. Yes, an amendment to end ability for corporations to contribute to political advertising and

campaigns, along with other soft money groups. The Amendment would say that the only entities which can contribute to campaigns or political advertising are individual people who are limited to $50 per campaign.

On Edit: Once we had that in place, we could get everything else done eventually.

[OneGrassRoot]

64. +1 n/t

[JudyM]

8. Strict conflict of interest rules for members of Congress and the Supreme Court

Votes should be in the public interest with no taint of personal interest whether for association/cronyism or donations.

This would twist off the spigot of $, congressfolk would put more hours into actually working on legislating rather than fundraising, Supreme Court justices would have to recuse themselves from deciding on cases where they had any personal interest, etc etc.

[graham4anything]

9. 100% ban of guns/bullets from individual private hands. Law enforcement only.

no one is safe with one bullet left in one gun.

[cynatnite]

10. Medicare for all...

I was torn between raising the minimum wage to $15 and this.

I opted for this because a healthy society would likely have a positive impact on the rest of society, IMO.

[femmocrat]

11. Repeal the second amendment.

Comprehensive gun control if that is too much for them.

[midnight]

12. A jobs bill that correctly access minimum wage to current

levels of inflation. And since this is earth day.... I would stipulate that jobs that create alternative energy jobs get tax benefits that make any instillation of energy saving devices a write off...

[Apophis]

13. I like your choice.

For the long term.

Short term, I'd get rid of the outdated Second Amendment.

[Demo_Chris]

14. Eliminate ALL "Free Trade" agreements, impose pro-American worker trade policies.nt

[randome]

15. Disband the House of Representatives.

We don't need hundreds of legislators all trying to make a name for themselves.

[LittleBlue]

16. The end of the War Department

I'd make it true to its name: a defense department. Cut it down to the bare essentials required for self-defense, no more global empire or 100+ bases.

Then we could fund alternative energy, health care, and environmental protection.

[tularetom]

17. The end of lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court

[Rex]

18. Passed? Kings and Queens make unanimous proclamations

they don't need a body of Congress.

[hack89]

19. Single payer healthcare that includes mental health and dental. nt

[justabob]

20. campaign finance reform/money in politics, hands down

Fix the bribery/corruption via money and everything else becomes possible.

[hughee99]

27. +1 million.

This one issue is at the root of all the others.

[Arugula Latte]

31. Me too. That's the root of all our evils.

[Fumesucker]

21. Total public funding of campaigns for office

That's the root of most of our current political difficulties really.

[RKP5637]

22. Elimination of ALL influential money in politics. If, that were done, the rest would fall in line

IMO.

[tkmorris]

48. Yep, that's the right answer

We'd still have all major media controlled by a few wealthy elite, which is a problem that should not be underestimated, but taking back control of the politicians would be a major step in the right direction.

[Canuckistanian]

57. I agree

It's the MONEY in politics that is the root cause of nearly everything bad that happens.

Prime example is the Senate vote on background checks. But this was only the most obvious case so far.

It's endemic and permanently embedded in the system now.

[Ichingcarpenter]

23. I'd pass a mandatory

lobotomy procedure for each member and start over.

Its good to be king.

[marlakay]

24. Universal healthcare

Lots of choices but care for all is first and paid for with your taxes like Canada so you are free to have any job or not.

This would give some power back to the employees and stop a lot of death and bankruptcies.

[tabbycat31]

25. 10 year waiting period

For former members of congress to become lobbyists. 5 years for staffers.

And I would pass a law that says that any member of Congress who has immediate family (spouse, children, parents, siblings) who works in the industry that's being affected by the bill must recuse himself/herself and abstain from voting on that bill. This would prevent the Joe Lieberman killing the public option situation (his wife is on the board of health insurance companies).

[Drale]

26. A politician lying or misleading the public for any reason

would be punishable by life doing penal work to better the country.

It would fix so many problems, people would not believe that the Founding Fathers wanted a christian nation, we would have a universal health care system because the Repukes would not have scared everyone into thinking "DEATH PANELS", global warming would be getting fixed because people would actually believe its happening and want to do something about it, and plenty of other things that the right has mislead the public on in the past and caused us not to move forward.

[Lex]

28. Universal Health Care. nt

[Broken_Hero]

29. Universal Healthcare,

without our health we have nothing.

[The Second Stone]

30. That big corporations (like GE) actually pay income tax

with the same rates as human beings waiting tables.

[hedgehog]

32. An end to de facto and de jure gerrymandering; even if all congressional districts were designed

fairly, the disparity in state populations gives a minority of people an overwhelming voice in the Senate.

[Recursion]

33. Statewide House races with preferential balloting

That solves most of our problems in the House right there.

[Zorra]

34. I would nationalize all of our natural resources. nt

[avebury]

35. Let's cut to the chase:

I would make myself supreme ruler for a period of ten years and then start to work myself through all of the legislation that should have been passed:

1. No more Citizen's United
2. Single Payer Health Care
3. Pare down the Military to a reasonable defense level
4. Use money freed from Military Spending to for fixing the Infrastructure
5. Guarantee the right of every American citizen 18 years and older the absolute permanent right to vote
6. Tax Reform and go after anybody who moved their wealth and assets out of the US in order to avoid being taxed as well as huge Corporations that don't pay a dime in tax
7. Creation of a living wage - A person who works full time should be able to support his/her family.
8. Create legislation that recognizes financial terrorism and go after the people who ruined the US economy
9. Reasonable gun legislation including making people legally responsible for any actions or inactions that result in the death or injury of innocent people.
19. Strengthen the EPA and regulatory agencies. Work on eliminating or minimizing carbon emissions
20. Take away the ability of Texas to have any say on how school books are written. Let content experts have more say in textbooks.

And I could on and on. I would be very busy for my 10 years in office.

Hey I can dream can't I?

[Shrek]

36. Only 1 term in any given elected federal office

Applied to both the executive and legislative branches.

If they're unconcerned about re-election maybe they can focus on governing instead.

[Fawke Em]

37. Single Payer Healthcare

That would help a lot with income inequality, too.

[RevStPatrick]

38. Major campaign finance reform.

Like... no more private money in elections.
Publicly funded elections only.

That would probably lead to fixing all the other problems.

[GliderGuider]

39. Ban the use of coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power as energy sources.

OK, so that's a bit big for a first wish, but that's what it would take to keep global industrial civilization from ruining the world for countless future generations of humans and countless other species. Oh, and the only way to stop income inequity from growing would be to ban the use of money.

This is just by way of pointing out that when we're in a situation where measures like those are required to restore balance to the world (and they are), we have arrived at the gates of hell, no matter how many good intentions paved the road we took to get here.

[pampango]

40. Higher more progressive taxes. Thought about getting rid of corporate money in politics

but thought the Supreme Court would overrule me. Was tempted to go with strict limits on carbon emissions. If we a more equitable distribution of income, I am hoping that a little sacrifice to deal with climate change will be more doable.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

41. Does "Congressional redistricting" count as wishing for more wishes?

I think it would probably make more long-term difference than most single pieces of legislation.

[DanTex]

52. Electoral reform, more generally, is a good one.

Really, I think what we need is an overall overhaul of the democracy.
1) Public financing of elections, and no corporate contributions whatsoever
2) Drastically alter both houses of congress. The Senate is grossly undemocratic in that low-population states (which tend to be rural and conservative) are hugely overrepresented. The House has problems with redistricting.
Fixing this, of course, would require changing the constitution, but as long as we're fantasizing.
3) Get rid of the electoral college
4) Institute some kind of instant-runoff or other voting scheme so that third parties can participate without only being spoilers.

Yes, I agree, in the long run this would be more effective than any other single issue.

[kestrel91316]

42. Campaign finance reform so that corporations cannot give a DIME to politicians,

strict limits on how much citizens can give, full disclosure of all donors, no anonymous political ads, and candidates cannot personally pocket leftover campaign funds. Better yet, public financing of campaigns.

Without this, our entire democracy is a farce.

[ananda]

43. Campaign finance

..

[AgingAmerican]

44. Transition to a pure clean energy economy

n/t

[Sinistrous]

45. Significant restrictions on the fillibuster and congressional "holds".

That should enable passage of many good pieces of legislation.

[redStateBlueHeart]

46. Single payer n/t

[zipplewrath]

47. Major changes to the war powers act.

Basically making the US declare wars or stop fighting them.

[JVS]

50. Single payer healthcare

[s-cubed]

51. Get rid of money through public financing and total disclosure requirements.

[hifiguy]

53. An end to corporate immortality/personhood.

Definitely #1 on my list.

[LaydeeBug]

54. For me, it'd be to federally fund all elections so that people can campaign on IDEAS, not $$$$ nt

[closeupready]

55. Strict campaign finance reform.

[Lizzie Poppet]

56. Nationalize the banking and finance industries.

Think big, people...think big.

[Initech]

58. Complete nation wide end of marijuana prohibition.

I'd also nationalize the Corrections Corporation Of America while I'm at it.

[DarkLink]

59. Hand Counted Ballots, Counted and Posted at the Precinct level before they go through tabulators

Everything else we hope to accomplish depends on this.

[cantbeserious]

60. Constitutional Amendment That Declares Corporations Are Not People And Do Not Have Rights Of People

eom

[Doremus]

61. Election reform -- absolutely no private money allowed.

Money is the root of all political evil.

Remove it, kill the corporatocracy and see instant results across-the-board.

[boston bean]

62. Single payer healthcare. nt

[1-Old-Man]

63. Complete revision of the tax code

that included elimination of all exemptions and with a progressive rate applied to gross income.

[El Fuego]

65. Death penalty for animal cruelty

[xiamiam]

66. repeal patriot act and all appendages like ndaa

no more corporate funding for elections..just real people with a cap set
I know you said one but since we're dreaming..i'm going for these two