The American Democracy Act

Section 1: Summary

This act may be referred to as the American Democracy Act. This act provides for an avenue by which American citizens not holding elective office can participate directly in the legislative process. This participation will be done through digital communication technologies.

Section 2: Purpose

This Bill has the twofold purpose of providing an alternate method by which Congress may pass legislation so as to circumvent Congressional dysfunction and gridlock, as well as increasing the extent of public participation in the American political process by leveraging new technologies.

Section 3: Constitutional Justification

(a)This section is not to be legally binding

(b)The funding provisions in this Act are Constitutional by nature of Congress' Power of the Purse, as enumerated in Article 1 Section 8 of the United States Constitution

(c)The provisions in this Act which require Congress to submit certain Bills to votes of simple majorities, not subject to debate or procedural delay is in keeping with the Congress' right to set its own Parliamentary rules as well as a numerous precedents where the Congress has done this in the past

Section 4: Definitions

(a)For the purposes of this Act, a Bill is any document which has been introduced to the Congress for consideration

(b)For the purposes of this Act, a Proposal is a measure on E-mocracy with the potential of becoming a Bill under the provisions and qualifications of this Act

(c)For the purposes of this Act, the E-mocracy Administration, or EMA, is a federal agency tasked with the implementation of the provisions described herein

(d)For the purposes of this Act, the Director is the Director of the E-mocracy Administration

(e)For the purposes of this Act, E-mocracy refers to the web platform on which Proposals will be created and voted upon

(f)For the purposes of this Act, the Vote Page will refer to a specific section of E-mocracy where US Citizens can register their approval or disapproval of a Proposal

(g)For the purposes of this Act, E-mocracy Email refers to the Email system to be operated by the E-mocracy Administration, and an E-mocracy Email refers to a specific account thereon

(h)For the purposes of this Act, a Wiki is a website where users can collaboratively edit content subject to consensus

(i)For the purposes of this Act, a User is a person who interacts with E-mocracy in some way

(j)For the purposes of this Act, a Moderator is a volunteer who works to moderate discussions on an online forum

Section 5: Budgetary Forecast

(a)This section is not to be legally binding

(b)Revenue Sources

(1)Ad revenue on E-mocracy Email is forecast to generate $150,000,000 in revenue over ten years

(2)Ad revenue on E-mocracy is forecast to generate $350,000,000 in revenue over ten years

(3)Revenue from Fraud prosecutions is expected to generate $5,000,000 over ten years

(c)Expenses

(1)Expenses enumerated in this Act total $500,000,000 over ten years

(d)Net budgetary Impact

(1)This Act will have a net budgetary impact of reducing deficits by $5,000,000 over ten years

Section 6: Legal Provisions

(a)E-mocracy Administration

(1)In order to institute the provisions of this Act, an executive agency called the E-mocracy Administration (EMA) is hereby established.

(2)The E-mocracy Administration shall have a Director appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

  1. The Director shall have the following qualifications:

(a)Experience in the management of schedule and budget constrained technological projects

(3)In addition to other departments for which funding exists and the Director deems necessary, the E-mocracy Administration shall have the following departments:

  1. A department responsible for the development and maintenance of E-mocracy Proposal Development website

(a)This department may contract out to private companies for services and products as necessary for budgetary or scheduling reasons

  1. A department responsible for the development and maintenance of E-mocracy Email

(a)This department may contract out to private companies for services and products as necessary for budgetary or scheduling reasons

  1. A department responsible for the development and maintenance of the E-mocracy Voting System

(a)This department may contract out to private companies for services and products as necessary for budgetary or scheduling reasons

  1. A Cybersecurity department responsible for ensuring the continuing integrity of all of the E-mocracy Administration's systems

(a)This department may contract out to private companies for services and products as necessary for budgetary or scheduling reasons

  1. A Legal Department responsible for declaring the ineligibility of Proposals which are Unconstitutional; For review and edit Proposals to improve the language and prevent issues with the implementation of the Proposal, should it become law; And for officially sending those Proposals which ought to be sent to Congress in accordance with the standards set forth in this Act to Congress in a timely manner
  2. A Compliance Department responsible for ensuring no fraudulent registration or illegal activity is occurring with relation to E-mocracy, gathering evidence of suspected cases of fraud, and turning such information over to the proper authority as necessary to respond to this criminal activity.
  3. A Help Department to help those who for whatever reason are unable to register for an E-mocracy Email through the three specific methods enumerated in this Act, but are US Citizens above the age of 18.

(b)Legislation Generation

(1)The website used to generate legislation will be called E-mocracy and will be located at

(2)The website will take the form of a wiki

  1. A new article on the Wiki is a complete first draft of a Proposal
  2. A talk page associated with each article will be used to discuss provisions of the Proposal

(a)Users will have the option to reference comments to specific sections of text

  1. After its introduction, a Proposal will be subject to a markup and editing period of 21 days

(a)Registered users will be able to follow Proposals, which will result in their being alerted when the Proposal is changed

(b)The website will automatically preserve previous versions of Proposals so that all users can see the history of changes that have been made during the markup and editing period.

  1. The pages on which Proposals will be edited are to come in a standard form, with the following sections:

(a)Summary

(b)Purposes

(c)Constitutional Justification

(a)This section is not to be legally binding

(d)Definitions

(e)Budgetary Forecast

(a)This section is not to be legally binding

(f)Legal Provisions

(g)Funding Provisions

  1. No Proposal on E-mocracy may be longer than 200,000 characters, or about 50 pages

(3)In order to use E-mocracy, a person must be using a computer with an IP address in the United States

  1. This provision is designed to make it more difficult for people in foreign countries to access the E-mocracy site, but not impossible

(4)A person can choose to use E-mocracy anonymously, providing only their IP address, or with a user account, providing only their email and desired password

(5)E-mocracy will have a user rating/reputation system where users can vote other users either up or down based on their contributions

  1. Certain users with very high ratings will be eligible for consideration as officials to moderate discussion

(a)Moderating is to be an unpaid volunteer position

(b)In addition to their moderation duties, these users will be expected to aid other users in writing quality legislation through an above-average knowledge of guidelines produced by the E-mocracy Administration and the E-mocracy community

  1. Certain users with very low ratings who are found to not contribute to discussions but instead to be sabotaging them repeatedly, or who are promoting commercial products, or who are insulting other contributors personally, or other reasons in this same vein, will be eligible for a reduction in their privileges, up to and including a permanent ban from the website.

(a)No person may be punished for constructive political discourse due to their political opinions

(c)Introduction

(1)fter the 21 day markup and editing process to which each proposal will be subjected, editing and commenting will be closed.

(2)Once editing and commenting are closed, the legislation will be listed in a searchable and accessible form on a separate Vote page on E-mocracy, along with other Proposals

  1. All Proposals will be listed on this page for 30 days after the end of the markup and editing period

(3)Users have the option to Support or Oppose any Proposal on the Vote page using a verified E-mocracy email

(4)The Score of a Proposal is determined by subtracting the number of people who have Opposed the Bill from the number of people who have Supported the Bill.

(5)The final Score of the Proposal at the end of the 30 day vote period is the score used to determine which Proposals become Bills

(6)In order to be eligible to become a Bill, the number of supporters of any Proposal must be at least 0.5% of the number of people who voted in the most recent presidential election

(7)At the end of each calendar month, one Proposal will be chosen to become a Bill

  1. Of eligible Proposals, the Proposal which has the highest final Score will become a Bill
  2. Should no Proposals be eligible in any given month, no Proposals will become Bills

(8)Once this Proposal has been chosen to become a Bill, it will be reviewed by legal experts at the E-mocracy Administration who will review and edit it to improve the language and prevent issues with the implementation of the Proposal, should it become law

  1. The E-mocracy Administration may not make any changes which modify the effect or meaning of the provisions of these laws
  2. The E-mocracy Administration will be allowed up to one week after the legislation is selected to provide a completed text of the Bill to Congress

(9)If in the opinion of legal experts under the employ of the E-mocracy Administration a Proposal is Unconstitutional, it may be declared to be ineligible after the Voting period has ended

(10)Once a Proposal has become a Bill, it will be sent to both houses of the Congress to be voted on

  1. Once a Bill has been sent to the Congress, it may be submitted for a budgetary analysis by the Congressional Budget Office

(a)Any Bill with significant fiscal or budgetary implications must be submitted for analysis

  1. If the Bill is not submitted to the Congressional Budget Office for analysis, it must be voted on within one week of being sent to Congress if Congress is in session
  2. If the Bill is submitted to the Congressional Budget Office for analysis, it must be voted on within one week of the Congressional Budget Office issuing its report thereon if Congress is in session
  3. If Congress is not in session, it will be considered to have received the Bill when its next session begins.
  4. Congress may not make any revisions to Bills sent to it from E-mocracy
  5. A simple majority in both houses will be required to send these Bills to the President to enact or to veto
  6. If a Bill is passed by Congress and signed by the President then it will become a a law of the federal government of the United States

(d)Verification

(1)ll US citizens over the age of 18 are eligible to Support or Oppose Proposals on the E-mocracy website.

(2)Eligibility will be determined by the possession of a personal email address issued by the E-mocracy Administration

  1. These emails will be of the form: <Chosen Name>@Emocracy.gov

(a)Should this be unworkable for any reason, the director of the E-mocracy Administration will submit notice to Congress and the President of the change

(b)No email address may be issued twice for any reason

  1. This email will be kept secure through regular updates of security systems in keeping with current best practices
  2. Before the issuance of an E-mocracy email, the identity and eligibility of the citizen applying (Hereafter, “applicant”) must be verified. Verification can happen in any one of the following ways:

(a)The applicant can contact the entity in her or his State which maintains records of registered voters. She or he can request that this entity verify her or his identity to the E-mocracy Administration as well as a list of desired email addresses listed in order of preference.

(a)The E-mocracy Administration will provide a standard online and paper form through which the state level entity will be able to submit this verification to them.

(b)The applicant can provide a Social Security Number, Address, Name, and Birth Date to the E-mocracy Administration through an online or mailed form. The E-mocracy Administration will then use this information to verify their identity.

(c)The citizen can go to any US Postal Service Office and, after presenting any valid, government-issued identification, that Post Office will submit an Identity Verification form online.

(a)The E-mocracy Administration will provide a standard online and paper form through which the Post Office will be able to submit this verification to them.

(b)The Postal Service will be permitted to charge a processing fee of up to $2.00 for identity verification

(d)Should any eligible citizen be unable to verify their identity through any of these means, the E-mocracy Administration will provide a method of working with eligible citizens to verify their identity outside of these means.

  1. Any person or entity found to be knowingly submitting false information for the verification of identity or use of an E-mocracy Administration issued email, including the use of another person's email to Support or Oppose a Proposal will be guilty of a crime punishable by a fine of up to $5,000 and up to 3 months in prison per occurrence.

(e)Reauthorization

(1)Once the permanent Director of the E-mocracy Administration is confirmed by the Senate, the E-mocracy Administration will have up to 18 months to build the E-mocracy website and email server and other required infrastructure

  1. The system will open to the general public on a launch date which will be specified by the Director of the E-mocracy Administration

(2)This Act will require reauthorization three and eight full calendar years after this launch date

  1. Should Congress choose not to reauthorize this Act, it will be considered to have been repealed
  2. This Act will be considered to be reauthorized if Congress passes a Bill with the stipulation that “The American Democracy Act is hereby Reauthorized” or any other language with a similar intent
  3. Should this Act receive both Reauthorizations it will be considered to be permanently the law of the United States

(f)Excluded Classes

(1)In general, any Act which could be passed by Congress and signed into law by the President of the United States can also become a Bill through E-mocracy.

  1. Any limits on the Bills that can be passed by Congress also apply to Emocracy

(a)Any Proposals which entail violations of the US Constitution are ineligible for consideration as Bills

(b)Pursuant to Article X Section Y of the United States Constitution which states that annual budgets must originate in the US House of Representatives, annual budgets may not originate on E-mocracy

(2)There are several classes of Bills which the Congress may pass but are ineligible for conversion from Proposals to Bills from E-mocracy. These are as follows:

  1. Constitutional Amendments
  2. Proposals which increase the federal debt or deficit
  3. Proposals which repeal or modify parts of Federal Law with direct application to Civil Rights
  4. Proposals which declare war on another nation

(g)Administration

(1)In order to institute the provisions of this Act, a federal agency called the E-mocracy Administration (EMA) is hereby created

(2)The E-mocracy Administration will have a Director appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate

  1. The Director will have the following qualifications:

(a)Experience in the management of schedule and budget constrained technological projects

(3)In addition to other departments for which funding exists and the Director deems necessary, the E-mocracy Administration will have the following departments

  1. A department responsible for the development and maintenance of E-mocracy Proposal Development website

(a)This department may contract out to private companies for services and products as necessary for budgetary or scheduling reasons

  1. A department responsible for the development and maintenance of the E-mocracy Email Server

(a)This department may contract out to private companies for services and products as necessary for budgetary or scheduling reasons

  1. A department responsible for the development and maintenance of the E-mocracy Voting System

(a)This department may contract out to private companies for services and products as necessary for budgetary or scheduling reasons

  1. A Cybersecurity department responsible for ensuring the continuing integrity of all of the E-mocracy Administration's systems

(a)This department may contract out to private companies for services and products as necessary for budgetary or scheduling reasons

  1. A Legal Department responsible for declaring the ineligibility of Proposals which are Unconstitutional; For review and edit Proposals to improve the language and prevent issues with the implementation of the Proposal, should it become law; And for officially sending those Proposals which ought to be sent to Congress in accordance with the standards set forth in this Act to Congress in a timely manner
  2. A Compliance Department responsible for ensuring no fraudulent registration or illegal activity is occurring with relation to E-mocracy, gathering evidence of suspected cases of fraud, and turning such information over to the proper authority as necessary to respond to this criminal activity.

(h)A Help Department to help those who for whatever reason are unable to register for an E-mocracy Email through the three specific methods enumerated in this Act, but are US Citizens above the age of 18.

Section 7: Funding Provisions

(a)This Act authorizes the following funding outlays in relation to the setup of systems described herein:

(1)$15,000,000 to be spent in the development and procurement of the E-mocracy Proposal Generation System

(2)$5,000,000 to be spent in the development and procurement of the E-mocracy Vote Page

(3)$80,000,000 to be spent in the development and procurement of high capacity, secure email servers to be used for the E-mocracy emails to be issued

(4)$60,000,000 to be spent on an advertizing campaign to increase awareness of the system, to teach citizens about its purpose and function, and to provide technological support to those who need it

(5)$40,000,000 for other administrative and start-up costs related to instituting these functions as well as other requirements of this Act