Presidential Legislation

Every year, we seem to go through the same song and dance. The president proposes legislation. Then the leadership decides that they can't risk a vote, so the leaders of congress block a vote on the president's proposal. I believe that a president deserves an up or down vote on their proposals.

Ground Rules

1) The vote of every member of congress is assumed to be no

2) Each congress member may change their vote by making a statement in public, as recorded and broadcast by the national news media or by posting a video on CSPAN's website. Holding up a copy of the day's newspaper to establish the date is encouraged.

3) At noon, the next business day based on the Atlantic time zone, the sergeant at arms will announce the vote count for the previous day based on publicly available information.

4) The proposed bill will have to pass both houses of congress simultaneously to be approved

5) To prevent a surprise passage of a bill nobody took seriously, the bill will have to be approved three business day in a row in order to become law

6) To limit the president's power, the president will be limited to one proposal at a time

I know this isn't the year for me to propose this, but this proposal is something that should apply to every president

PS This should also apply to presidential nominations