Bill Ideas
Youth and
Government page
Here are some ideas for bills. Perhaps they will spark in
you an idea. If not, read some local papers, especially the
opinion/editorial pages. They might actually say
something like, "there ought to be a law for...".
Letters that people write to the editor are sometimes a good source of
ideas too.
Offering tax incentives for making your house more energy-efficient,
perhaps by increasing the R-value.
Allowing the option of physician-assisted suicide for recipients of the
death penalty/life sentence in prison.
Making any bicycle expenses tax-deductible, as long as the bike is used
for commutes to work?
Ceasing any state funding for any institution that bears the name of a
Conquistador? Or bears the name of a Native American?
To provide incentive for recycling, and buying items with less
packaging, make the cost of trash collection dependent on the weight of
each resident's trash.
Raise minimum wage state-wide. Currently, the governor is pushing
for an increase to $7.50/hr by 2009. You could write a bill that
implements the change more quickly, or slowly. You could also
change the amount, higher or lower as you see
appropriate. Some have suggested that a company might be
allowed to have a smaller increase in minimum wage if they also offered
benefits to accompany the lower wage.
Make physician-assisted suicide legal or illegal.
Oregon passed a law making it legal, and the legitimacy of the law was
just upheld by the supreme court.
Making illegal any interpretation of the state science standards to
include so-called "intelligent design". (or on the
other side of the argument: requiring the mention of
"intelligent design" in the public schools.)
RAISE taxes on gasoline. Yep, raise ‘em! This would
use economic disincentives to help Americans wean themselves from
dependence on foreign oil.
Along those lines: a memorial (like a memo to the United States
congress) insisting that congress legislatively raise CAFE
(Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards, which would mandate
that auto manufacturers must increase the average fuel efficiency of
the fleet of automobiles they make each year.
Making it illegal to own, for private purposes, a gasoline-powered
vehicle that gets less than 12 mpg. (Good bye Hummers!)
Add soda to the list of controlled substances, placing it as a peer of
alcohol. Perhaps a minimum age (16? 18?) for drinking soda?
(obesity in America costs us WAY more than illicit drug
use). Controversial!
Law providing consequences to students for not passing Standards Based
Assessments.
Eliminating advertising in public schools, including Channel 1, and
soda machines.
Setting a limit on the number of properties that may be bought by
non-residents of New Mexico. (to prevent a cause of
hyper-inflated
housing costs)
State-subsidized parental leave (ie “maternity” and “paternity”
leave). Perhaps only for first child? or limit.....
Change voting system to IRV - Instant Runoff Voting.
Candidates are ranked during a single vote by each taxpayer. If
no candidate wins a majority of first choice votes, the last-place
candidate is eliminated. Second choice votes for the losing
candidate are distributed to the remaining candidates to determine a
new majority. This process continues until someone has a
majority. This would allow you to vote for a smaller third party,
and know that your vote will not be "thrown away", because if your
candidate doesn't win, you have a second-place vote that goes to
someone else.
no-interest loans or outright subsidation of New Mexico farmers
installing drip-irrigation systems. (these systems deliver about
95 percent of pumped water to the plants. Conventional irrigation
methods deliver 50 to 70 percent. Yields with drip irrigation
typically increase yield from 20 to 90 percent.)
50% sales tax (or another absurdly high value) on any GMO product so as
to provide economic disincentive to purchase genetically modified food
and products. http://www.greenpeace.org/~geneng/
memorial: do not open arctic national wildlife refuge for oil
drilling.
tax incentives for conversion to domestic solar power.
mandatory labeling of all food products from NM indicating which
pesticides and which herbicides were used in growing.
A memorial -- Asking the federal government to
increase the amount of financial aide provided to impoverished
nations.
A memorial -- Asking the federal government to eradicate
or ease the debt that many third world countries owe the U.S..
A memorial -- Asking the federal government to
increase the HIV/AIDS assistance to African countries without
any restrictions based upon religion or abstinence only propaganda
(ie. more lives would be saved with the distribution of condoms as well
as teaching safe practices).
A law -- Banning the use of cell phones completely while
operating a motor vehicle.
Farmer subsidies
for organic farming (or increase them if they already exist).
A memorial -- Do
not open ANY national wild life refuge, national park, etc to oil
drilling.
State law -- Do
not open any state parks or wild life refuges to oil drilling or
natural gas drilling.
Cap limits on the
percentage of money New Mexico school districts spend on bureaucracy
and administration.
Limit the class
size in an elementary school to no more than 12 per teacher for k-3, 15
per teacher 4th and 5th. Funding provided by idea above.