Each type of issue limited to one council

Currently, in addition to the duplication of effort and bills by the House and the Senate, there is substantial overlap between the work performed by different legislative committees and their associated executive departments. With the establishment of our Collaborative Democracy, clear boundaries would be determined so that each type of issue would be solved by the people through only one Federal Council website. As the people would be the governing decision makers, listing issues of the same type on multiple Citizen Governance Websites would be redundant, confusing, and counterproductive.

For example, currently the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands in the House of Representatives oversees national parks and the federal agencies tasked with their protection. If this subcommittee and the National Park Service both existed as Federal Councils, two Citizen Governance Websites would exist allowing the people to create potentially overlapping or redundant governing solutions for national parks. Therefore, all decisions affecting parks would be made on the Citizen Governance Website for the National Park Service. The Subcommittee on National Parks would not be needed and would be eliminated. By the same logic, some of the other committees and subcommittees in the Legislature would not be needed as well.

As part of determining a solution includes deciding on the budget and funding for the solution, the most effective place to list issues would be on the Citizen Governance Website of the department that manages the associated operations and budgets and that would administer the solution. Therefore, most of the issues would be solved by the people through the Citizen Governance Websites of the related departments in the executive branch and not by the Legislature.

Currently, there are about 50 committees and 175 subcommittees in Congress. Committee members are chosen by the political parties. [4] By removing the duplicate committees and subcommittees for each chamber and by eliminating those sharing the same areas of responsibility as the Federal Councils in the executive branch, many current congressional committees and subcommittees would not be needed in our Collaborative Democracy.

New departments and committees

The Presidential Council (or the citizens themselves) could propose the creation of new departments or the elimination of current departments as needed through entering issues on its Citizen Governance Website. Each new department would be managed by a Federal Council and governed by the people through its Citizen Governance Website.

Likewise, the Legislative Council (or the people) could propose the creation of new committees in the Legislature or the removal of current committees as needed through entering issues on its Citizen Governance Website. Therefore, the people would decide which departments and committees were needed. This would allow the people to eliminate redundancy if it was not resolved by the associated Federal Council.

One or more Federal Councils would be created by the Legislative Council to perform administrative duties such as printing government documents or administering the Library of Congress. Additional special Federal Councils could be created by and report to the Legislative Council as needed. They would operate independently as the committees do.

Recall Council

The recall process would replace impeachment by the Legislature and its impeachment committees. It would report to the Legislative Council. A new Recall Council would have 5 members or the number determined by the Legislative Council. Committing a crime would not be required to remove an individual from a Federal Council by the people through the recall process. The people would decide on the recall using the solution process facilitated by the Recall Council. The Citizen Governance Website of the Recall Council would be used instead of that of the council of the member being recalled to avoid internal interference with the request.

Amending the Constitution

Proposals for amendments to the Constitution would be submitted and decided on through the democratic solution process on the Citizen Governance Website of the Legislative Council. A simple majority vote would not be used as the democratic solution process guides citizens to develop solutions collaboratively with consensus. Once a solution was developed collaboratively by the citizens, a 66% (two-thirds) super majority approval would be required to pass.

Originally designed to be difficult

The intent of the framers of the Constitution was to make amending the Constitution very difficult to maintain the elite status quo as designed. However, with the people ruling the country, amending the Constitution should be easier to allow for rapid growth and innovation that could not have been fathomed in 1787.

Further checks and balances such as ratification by the states would not be needed and would be abolished, as the people would develop the solution together. Undoubtedly, a high percentage of the people would choose to participate in solving a constitutional amendment issue.