Confessions
of a congressman
9
secrets from the inside
by A
Member of Congress February 5, 2015
I am a member of Congress. I'm not going to
tell you from where, or from which party. But I serve, and I am honored to
serve. I serve with good people (and some less good ones), and we try to do our
best.
It's a frustrating, even disillusioning job.
The public pretty much hates us. Congress polls lower than Richard Nixon
during Watergate, traffic jams, or the Canadian alt-rock band Nickelback. So
the public knows something is wrong. But they often don't know exactly
what is wrong. And sometimes, the things they think will fix Congress — like
making us come home every weekend — actually break it further.
So here are some things I wish the voters
knew about the people elected to represent them.
1)
Congress is not out of touch with folks back home
Congress is only a part-time job in
2)
Congress listens best to money
It is more lucrative to pander to big
donors than to regular citizens. Campaigns are so expensive that the average
member needs a million-dollar war chest every two years and spends 50
percent to 75 percent of their term in office raising money. Think about that.
You're paying us to do a job, and we're spending that time you're paying us
asking rich people and corporations to give us money so we can run ads
convincing you to keep paying us to do this job. Now that the Supreme Court has
ruled that money is speech and corporations are people, the mega-rich
have been handed free loudspeakers. Their voices, even out-of-state voices, are
drowning out the desperate whispers of ordinary Americans.
3)
Almost everyone in Congress loves gerrymandering
Without crooked districts, most members
of Congress probably would not have been elected. According to the Cook
Political Report, only about 90 of the 435 seats in Congress are "swing"
seats that can be won by either political party. In other words, 345 seats are
safe Republican or Democratic seats. Both parties like it that way. So that's
what elections are like today: rather than the voters choosing us, we choose
the voters. The only threat a lot of us incumbents face is in the primaries,
where someone even more extreme than we are can turn out the vote among an even
smaller, more self-selected group of partisans.
4)
You have no secret ballot anymore
The only way political parties can
successfully gerrymander is by knowing how you vote. Both parties have
destroyed your privacy at the polling booth. Thanks to election rolls, we
don't know exactly whom you voted for, but we get pretty damn close. We know
exactly which primaries and general elections you have voted in, and since
there are so few realistic candidates in most elections, down or up ballot, we
might as well know exactly who you voted for. Marry that data with magazine
subscriptions, the kind of car you drive, and all sorts of other easily
available consumer information that we've figured out how to use to map your
political preferences, and we can gerrymander and target subdivisions, houses —
even double beds. Republicans want the male vote; Democrats the female vote.
5)
We don't have a Congress but a parliament
Over the last several decades, party loyalty
has increased to near-unanimity. If a member of Congress doesn't vote with his
or her party 99 percent of the time, he's considered unreliable and excluded
from party decision-making. Gone are the days when you were expected to vote
your conscience and your district, the true job of a congressperson.
Parliaments only work because they have a prime minister who can get things
done. We have a parliament without any ability to take executive action. We
should not be surprised we are gridlocked.
6)
Congressional committees are a waste of time
With parliamentary voting, control is centralized in each party's leadership. Almost every major decision is made by the Speaker or Minority Leader, not by committees. They feel it is vital to party success to have a national "message" that is usually poll-driven, not substantive. So why develop any expertise as a committee member if your decisions will only be overridden by party leadership? Why try to get on a good committee if you have already ceded authority to your unelected, unaccountable party leaders? The result is members routinely don't show up at committee hearings, or if they do show up, it's only to ask a few questions and leave. A lot of members fight for committees that will help them raise money or get a sweet lobbying job later (more on that in a minute). The result is that the engine for informed lawmaking is broken.
Scary
Reality Editors' note: I am inserting a warning issued by President Washington
concerning the dangers that can be inflicted by political parties and political
potentates.
George
Washington’s
Farewell Address
To the People of the United States
September 17, 1796
Source: The Independent Chronicle
September 26, 1796.
This warning was over 220 years ago, is anyone paying attention, does anyone care?
Paragraph 17 & 18 of President Washington's Farewell Address
All obstructions to the execution of the
Laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character,
with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular
deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this
fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction,
to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the
delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and
enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate
triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of
the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of
consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by
mutual interests.
However combinations or associations of the
above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the
course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning,
ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the
people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying
afterwards the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
Wake-up, that warning was given over 220 years ago and is as applicable
today as it was when first given, if not more so! To many times instead
of covering our backs elected officials have embraced the cunning,
ambitious and unprincipled crowd and have helped stick a knife in our
backs.
7)
Congress is a stepping-stone to lobbying
Congress is no longer a destination but a
journey. Committee assignments are mainly valuable as part of the interview
process for a far more lucrative job as a K Street Lobbyist. You are considered
naïve if you are not currying favor with wealthy corporations under your
jurisdiction. It's become routine to see members of Congress drop their
seat in Congress like a hot rock when a particularly lush vacancy opens up. The
revolving door is spinning every day. Special interests deplete Congress of its
best talent.
8) The
best people don't run for Congress
Smart people figured this out years ago and
decided to pursue careers other than running for Congress. The thought of
living in a fishbowl with 30-second attack ads has made Congress repulsive to
spouses and families. The idea of spending half your life begging rich people
you don't know for money turns off all reasonable, self-respecting people.
That, plus lower pay than a first-year graduate of a top law school, means that
Congress, like most federal agencies, is not attracting the best and the
brightest in America.
9)
Congress is still necessary to save
Discouragement is for wimps. We aren't going
to change the Constitution, so we need to make the system we have work. We are
still, despite our shortcomings, the most successful experiment in
self-government in history. Our greatest strength is our ability to bounce back
from mistakes like we are making today. Get over your nostalgia: Congress has
never been more than a sausage factory. The point here isn't to make us
something we're not. The point is to get us to make sausage again. But for that
to happen, the people have to rise up and demand better.