Constitution Changes

The first of my changes would be the one I see the least need for, presidential pardons.  When researching this, I realized Presidents have pardoned far more people than I thought.  The number is in the thousands.  When only hearing about he high profile ones on the news, it can be easy to write off the whole concept as faulty.  But, I do see how it can be acceptable for the president to step in for certain cases.  While judges are supposed to ruling on the basis of the constitution, obviously bias can creep into their rulings.  This could be the case in conservative areas, where the judges might see certain social topics and slant their ruling to reflect the values of the judge or the area they are representing.
Now, on the flip side is the ugly face of pardoning.  These include the high-profile pardons, controversial pardons such as Scooter Libby and Mark Rich.  I feel that there have been enough cases over the course of history to determine that this effect of presidential pardoning is detrimental and should make us re-evaluate the constitution.  I propose giving pardoning powers to a larger group of people such as the senate or house of representatives.  This would hopefully negate the pardoning of friends, yet still allow for the pardoning in flawed sentences.  Of course, both parties will try to pardon different kinds of sentences and this might create a log jam of congressional hearings.  To prevent this, I propose that the president is the one who is able to bring forth a possible pardon to the ruling group.

Also, I believe the presidents appointment power should be diminished in the case of secretaries.  Congressional sub-committees are comprised of knowledgeable politicians on their given topic.  Multiple governmental agencies are related to a given sub-committee. The sub-committees are also led by members of the majority party, meaning most of the laws enacted during that term will be ones that the majority party favors.  Does it really make sense to have the leader of a department possibly at odds with the new laws it must regulate?  This would allow for the new laws and regulations that congress approves to be put into action more seamlessly.  I believe that congress would do just as good of a job as the president of picking a good leader for each department as the president.

My Final change would be giving the power of appointing supreme court justices to congress.  This is a very partisan practice by the presidents and I do not believe that is appropriate.  I understand the majority party in congress has to vote the justices into court.  But, it would be a less partisan practice if it simply needed a majority vote and the president had veto power.