Accountability
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Hold all high public officials answerable for their actions in the following manner:
Have elected office-holders, including the President, present themselves to be questioned periodically before citizen review panels comprised mostly of questioners who are political non-supporters of the office-holder.
- Arrange the questioning sessions to ensure that the office-holder is challenged to explain his or her decisions in office without using the sessions for propaganda purposes the way congressmembers use their "town-hall meetings" as speech-making opportunities.
- Ensure that the panelists may ask follow-up questions and the office-holder cannot evade difficult questions or control the agenda.
- Have these sessions continue for several hours, perhaps spanning a 2-day period, to ensure adequate time to cover all critical subject matter.
- Ensure that the sessions are completely open and public, and allow total freedom to anyone to record the proceedings and publish them in any manner.
Such review procedures are also appropriate to:
- governors and other state and local elected office-holders;
- the President's cabinet officials and department heads;
- candidates for office -- the Third Party expects candidates seeking its support to engage in similar review procedures during their campaign and also to pledge to undergo them during their term of office if they are elected;
- Federal Reserve Board members, including the Chairman.
Though such review panels might be difficult to mandate legislatively in the near term, still they are to be promoted through pressure on candidates seeking elective office and in other ways until they can eventually be mandated into law.
Follow the example of the British Prime Minister.
Let any candidate for President who expects to receive the Third Party's endorsement pledge to submit to question-and-answer sessions before both Houses of Congress, if elected, similar to the sessions which the British Prime Minister undergoes regularly in the British Parliament to be questioned rigorously by members of the opposition. Let the U.S. President do the same and no longer enjoy the luxury of being shielded from the Administration's critics.