Letters: November 21, 2019

I wish we could have some way to put an initiative on the ballots in all states so all voters could decide on eliminating the problem we now have with Democrats and Republicans. An initiative on a federal election for all states to vote on similar to what we have for our state.

We could then rather require our federal legislatures to enact a law that could prevent the deadlock we have now between the Democrats and Republicans where the federal government is no longer functioning and does nothing but fighting like a couple of kids.

The problem seems to get worse each year.

A proposal to put an end to this constant fighting between parties would be to limit the number of members from both Democrat and Republican parties, or any party, so that no party would ever have the majority, and the majority would be independent legislators having no party affiliation.

This could be done by requiring the majority of congressional candidates from each state to run as independent candidates with no more than one of the two senatorial candidates from each state being from any party.

For congress, each state would have to select at least 67 percent of their representatives from independent candidates. A candidate to be considered as an independent would not be allowed to accept campaign funds from any party, corporation, organization and or special interest group.

The voters in their district would be the only ones who could supply funds for their campaign. The amount any individual could give would also need to be limited to what the average citizen could afford to prevent any wealthy citizens from buying a candidate. This would ensure that these representatives would be more likely to be true representatives of the voters in their district.

No party, no special interest group, corporation or organization could interfere much in the election.

We would be more like a true democracy as we claim to be. We could prevent the parties from selecting all candidates we now get to vote for. The majority of our congressmen and senators would no longer be obligated to vote as directed by the party leaders. It should help to reduce the outrageous cost for a candidate to run for an office.

This is my idea on how to get our government back in operation again. I am sure there are many others who have good ideas that can work too.

Ray Schug,

St. John