Election in Ecuador
The whole time we’ve been in Ecuador, we’ve been seeing political advertisements for an upcoming election, which just occurred on 30 Sept. We weren’t really sure what it was about until we saw this at CNN.com. It is an election to create a Constitutional Assembly to create a new constitution for Ecuador. Apparently, it is an effort by the current President (Rafael Correa), to try to do something about the fact that they have had 8 Presidents in the last 11 years—most of them having been thrown out by the Congress. So what’s the President going to do once he controls the Assembly (which it seems from early returns that he will)? Why, get rid of the current Congress, of course! (Umm….can we do that too?) And then will begin the work of writing the 19th Ecuadorian Constitution. Let’s hope they get it right this time.
Speaking of constitutional reform, I thought I’d post this in conjunction with this from Larry Sabato, who says that we need to reform the US Constitution as well, and that the easiest way to make the wholesale changes we need is to call a Constitutional Assembly of our own. It makes sense in a lot of ways; instead of having the Supreme Court take sides trying to better guess what the Founding Fathers had in mind 200+ years ago, just add the things you think should should be in there for our current-day society. I don’t necessarily agree with all of his suggestions (adding senators for example), but things like reforming (or getting rid of) the Electoral College, and somehow taking the power to warmonger out of the hands of the Executive are things we could really use. Good luck getting something like this going in the current political climate, however…
So if you could change something about our Constitution, what you you change or add? You can leave your suggestions in the Comments, and I’m sure the bots from Homeland Security that are “protecting our freedoms” will make sure they are delivered to the President.
UPDATE:
I should clarify that when I said I wanted to get rid of our current Congress, I didn’t mean that Bush should then rule forever as dictator…I merely wanted to register my disgust with our current members of Congress (particularly the Democratic ones) for not doing enough to push back against the administration, and suggest that they be replaced by a better Congress.
Posted by Matthew on October 3rd, 2007 | Filed under: Ecuador
I am not sure I would alter the constitution. I think we need to clarify what is a federal and what is a state controlled entity since the lines are becoming heavily blurred and often contradictory in nature as legislature and judicial policy continues to redefine what was the previous concept.