alt Hacker NewsI agree with everything, other than the two caveats below:
> Strike pardon power;
I'd go slightly narrower. I think pardons and clemency are a good thing to have in the system. I think we can put reasonable guardrails around it
- Require pardons to be published to a public register to be effective - Allow a 2/3 vote of both chambers of congress to veto a pardon within 90 days - Disallow pardons in the final year of the term - Explicitly affirm that Congress can make bribery and other forms of direct/indirect quid-pro-quos for a pardon illegal
> Congress may create independent agencies with charters of up to 25 years.
I think we should also create room for Congress to create rule-making agencies that exist within the Congressional branch.
Replies
These are all great ideas.
> pardons and clemency are a good thing to have in the system
Congress can do it any time. The fact that it will probably result in a statute change, too, versus a one-off benefit, is a feature of that process.
I debated this for a while, myself. Kept creating carve-outs. But at the end of the day, pardons are a shitty and ineffective check on either the judiciary or criminal statute, and they have been known to be a potential source of corruption since at least the Roman Republic, which denied this power even to their dictators.
> we should also create room for Congress to create rule-making agencies that exist within the Congressional branch
Eh, I prefer independent agencies. If the Congress wants a law it can pass it.
If we keep pardons, no reason to give that power to the executive branch at all.