Hannity was telling some caller to his talker today that his contacts in Washington were “astounded” and “shocked” by the firestorm backlash they’re getting over the supposedly “done deal” immigration bill. Hannity said even Harry Kari Reed was suddenly feeling nervous.
I wondered: Could this possibly be true? And if it is, how unbelievably out of touch with America are those legislators for life who are purported to be “representing” us?
If they were really shocked, I can think of no better reason for throwing every single one of the “shockees” out of office, Republican and Democrat alike, and starting over. Perhaps with a constitutional amendment imposing term limits. I haven’t liked that solution in the past, but more and more it is beginning to look like the only viable option for cracking this power addiction that sets in with almost every legislator who serves more than two terms.
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I’m on board. However, it does not seem to have changed the fact that all we get for presidents are boobs.
At least we change boobs every so often.
Well, at least the boobs the other boobs are voting for.
Bill, I had a similar experience during last year’s immigration run. Kay Bailey Huthinson, Senator from TX, was on a radio show and was taken aback at the vitriolic responses she was receiving during last years “it’s not amnesty” amnesty attempt.
How can Washington, after the Farmers Branch election where 2/3 voted in favor of measures to curb illegal immigration, still feign ignorance? On the other hand, how can we (read as “my fellow Texans”) re-elect the clueless pol, Ms. Bailey, in 2006? [Note: she voted against last years attempt, but given the right climate she would vote for the amnesty deal; I believe that she has been involved in crafting this current deal.]
Isolation. With an 11-months-a-year Congress, they spend all their time in D.C. The whole time they’re there, they get their news from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the four TV networks. And the only people they talk to are their staffers, other congress-critters, bureaucrats, and lobbyists.
Back before air conditioning, Congress used to take August (and most of July) off. Everybody went back to their districts, and had to live with (and answer to) their constituents for a month or so. Now they only get home for fund-raising, which by its nature limits their contacts to people who already agree with them.
And there’s another factor. Today nearly all Senators and many House members can be described as “very wealthy.” The high percentage of rich people (some very rich) is a significant change from 50 years ago. When “very wealthy” people return home, it’s to the country clubs and gated communities. Even in the red states, the circles Congresspeople move in tend to be internationalist and fuzzy-liberal. And the only “average citizens” they’re likely to encounter are the illegal aliens who do the lawn mowing.
So yes, I can understand the ignorance. Of course they’re ignorant. They spend their whole life in a bubble, and they just don’t f*ckin’ know it.
OG, you make some good observations. I do think that Congress gets plenty of time off the job, but I agree with your assessment of where and with whom they spend that time. Recently I was cycling through one of the wealthiest areas of Houston, and after a little time it dawned on me that the well groomed and dressed folks I was seeing out walking their dogs were not the home owners but the hired help. 80% were of Hispanic descent. Were they illegal? Dunno, but I’ll bet that the contact that the wealthiest folks have with illegals is much different than that of the average American.
Yeah, Kay Bailey is my Senator. Unfortunately I wasn’t a TX resident in time to vote against her in the primary. Heck even a write in would have been better.
Old Grouch up there is spot on. The political caste increasingly is remote from the aspirations of what it sees as a pain-in-the-ass public that just doesn’t get it the way the Inside-the-Beltway clique does. Teddy Kennedy and John McCain have more in common with one another than with John Q. Public back home.
We are due a serious reform in government. Here are my proposals.
1. All elected officials serve five year terms.
2. No elected official may hold any one office more than once.
3. No elected official may hold more than 4 offices in a lifetime.
4. No retirement pay for elected officials, ever.
5. All elections are held in the same year.
6. All political parties are banned. Run on your own merits or fuck off.
7. Congress shall meet exactly one month out of every calendar year, in an old auction house in the middle of the Kansas City feedlots. No climate control will be provided, and any attempted renovation of the facility shall be a capital offense. If the budget is under control, Congress will be allowed to meet in wintertime. Otherwise, Congress shall meet in July, with the windows open.
8. Lobbying shall be a capital offense, for all parties involved. So will accepting bribes, and any other form of corruption.
And finally,
9. All elected officials shall be publicly flogged on the first day of every calendar month.
This. Is. Nothing. New.
Remember how stunned the Dems were when they got thrown out of power in Congress for rushing pell mell to vote for gun control? Nobody was more shocked than Speaker of the House Tom Foley (D-WA).
OG is, unfortunately, right. And don’t forget, all those staffers that he talks about, and who actually run Washington, D.C., are, on average, about 26 years old. They don’t know crap. They haven’t accomplished crap. They don’t own homes. They don’t buy groceries. They don’t cook meals. They don’t have children. Most of them don’t have cars. They don’t even have real jobs. What the hell do they know about real life anywhere?
As a mildly off-topic aside, a lot of people think that the entertainment business is as screwed up, if not more so, than the government. I’ve worked in the Industry, and the 22 year old, Ivy grad “executive vice president” is the rule, not the exception. Coincidence?
I’ve been a sympathizer with the term limits crowd but have tempered my enthusiasm with the understanding that experience from long service does have its benefits. (Not that that’s been showing much lately.)
So, while still clutching that picket now creaking from all my weight, I’ll suggest an alternative to term limits that addresses out-of-touchness directly: Pass laws requiring states’ Congressmen to exclusively use public transportation — buses, trains and aircraft — while in office. The benefits of this are many. Besides the fact that they will be in constant communicative contact with the public, a couple other advantages are that airline revenues will increase, thereby putting downward pressure on subsidies; and their carbon output will drop precipitously in parallel with their hypocrisy.
Of course there are some drawbacks — temporary softness in limo and private aircraft manufacturing, limo driver, and pilot markets until they reorder themselves. There might be some annoying glad-handing for a short time and upticks in it during election periods, but that will lose its novelty and the tolerance for it after about a decade.
One aspect I haven’t fully mulled is how a rule such as this would affect their propensity to move about. On the whole, though, I think it will be a good thing if they move about less often.
One thing I would be adamant about is that no law implementing this should be passed if the verbiage codifing it is less than 1,000 pages and without lots of penalty clauses.
Fred Thompson said that “No matter how much lipstick you put on this…it’s still a pig!” I wonder? Was he refering to the bill or the politico’s??? My bets on the later! I want to thank Hanoi John McCain for his service to the country (actually, just his Military service), now would he pack up his shit and go back to New (Maybe again old) Mexico and shut the hell up!
Term limits is a great idea at first glance, but anyone who is thinking seriously about imposing them should first watch the complete Yes, Minister, and then contemplate the kind of a government we’d get if the only people who knew the ropes were the career bureaucrats.
OG’s Great Plan To Fix Everything would start with term limits for leadership positions: Speaker of the House, membership of various committes, etc. One problem that voters in my state face is that no matter which party holds the majority the top leadership is always the same five or six long-term legislators who occupy safe seats: The only choice is whether it’s the Republican bunch or the Democrat bunch. Limits here might break that logjam and let in some fresh air. It also might cut down on the arrogance of the John Murthas, who would know the’d be on the other end of the stick in a few years.
I do like Randy’s #4:
I’d also add, no lifetime medical care. If you make it attractive to turn politics into a career, don’t be surprised if you get career politicians.
Folks, my job deals with counter-terrorism, ever since 9-11. My office overlooks the Pentagon; I was one of the folks evacuated 3 times from that building on 9-11-01. Now, every single day, I drive past Arlington cemetery, a stark reminder to me of what’s at stake. Of what’s important.
Personally, I lost 51 friends on 9-11. And at this time I still make about one third of the money I made on 9-10-01 in my consulting business.
In some of my little spare time, I do stuff for Walter Reed, and Bethesda.
Every day I deal with what’s going on in the War on Terror, even if that’s not an “acceptable term” amongst some silly people on Capitol Hill.
For the folks who, in the ‘06 elections, were running around bleeting about the necessity of “spanking the Pubbies;” let me clue you in. While a lot of good staffers were unemployed, most are now OK. Every member unelected is doing REALLY WELL, professionally and financially.
Term limits only make unelected staffers more powerfull, because they’re the only folks who know what’s going on. And you’ve made a political consultant’s full employment act. Not what you want? Careful what you wish for.
For the folks who bleeted “Spank the Pubbies!” I’ll point out the only people you’ve spanked are yourselves. Are you feeling spanked enough yet? Don’t like what’s happening in Washington? You helped make it possible.
What I’d ask is, that, eventually, you’ll stop spanking yourselves. Please do so in time to prevent another, but more massive, terrorist attack on the U.S. Personally, I’m not willing to give up a major American population center, because you clowns can’t get your act in gear.
O.G. I’ve often advocated having a limit on the total time anyone can draw a govt paycheck. I would accept your system if you added that no hired or appointed govt worker could spend more than ten years working in any agency and no more than twenty years in total. Also, no retirement benefits at all. Pay them generously but make them fund and watch their own damn retirement plans.
Also, I would offer/support a plan in which each every voters’ vote counted by sending a rep who could vote the total of votes s/he received in their last election. That is, if a Dem got 100,000 votes and a Repub got 95,000 votes, and a Green got 2500 votes, and a Libertarian got 3000 votes, and others got small numbers, all would be allowed to cast that number of votes in representative sessions.
Regarding Bill’s comment, I remember an interview of Carol Burnett, who had a very popular variety show. The show had fairly high ratings when she quit. She was asked why she quit the show and if she would ever get back into television. She specifically mentioned young studio execs, recent college grads with no life experience, coming onto the set and interfering with the production, as the reason she quit, and why she won’t get back into TV.
If you look at the typical congressional staff, you’ll see pretty much the same kind of people, young grads with no life experience, doing what we think we’re paying our congressmen to do. So no, I don’t think it’s a coincidence.
Term limits for hired and appointed government workers warms my fuzzies rather nicely, I must admit.
Pure representation? Have you been reading my L. Neil Smith books again?
OG, I am no fan of experience in government, but that stems more for my extreme dislike of government, rather than any ill will toward experience.
A bottom age limit on congressional aides? As a crusty old fart, I have admit to further fuzzy warming.
Keep it up, and I may have to add a “Get the hell off my lawn!” clause.
“Back before air conditioning, Congress used to take August (and most of July) off. ..”
It would be a shame if there was an accident and something happened to those air conditioners. A real shame.
I always thought the best constitutional limit that could be placed on Congress would be to place a word limit on bills passed. Literally. I’m not joking. If there was a 10000 word limit on every bill that was passed, it would be IMPOSSIBLE for congress to sneak earmarks through. It would give the President the authority to veto individual bills instead of having to swallow or veto omnibus megabills.
It would force Congress to simplify government rather than ever growing the beauracracy in micro-managed insanity.
Can you think of any reason this wouldn’t work?
Yes, the primary reason I have opposed term limits for elected officials is that I think it would give the career legislative staffers even more power. If you want to see a land totally ruled by the career bureaucrat, you simply need to look at France. Does anybody really think Sarcozy will actually be able to rein in the public sector and other unions?
Then let’s limit the careers of bureaucrats.
I say we start by limiting the number of government organizations. How many departments do we really need, anyway?
War.
Justice.
Transportation.
Anything else we really have to have?
Mr. Cuddihy, you have an interesting idea, but ten thousand words? Read the amendments to the Constitution, in order. You’ll notice the increasing imprecision of the language, from Madison’s one or two sentences in the first ten to multiple paragraphs in the most recent. The trend is obvious, and probably irreversible.
Unfortunately, any statute or amendment like that wouldn’t pass in an earlier age, when it was not needed, and wouldn’t get many votes from today’s blowhards, who probably would think it’s too restrictive.
Sometimes I think Congress shouldn’t be elected - it should be drafted at random from the population it supposedly serves, along with the staffers, et al. Something along the lines of jury duty on a large scale; we could keep the perks to prevent people from ducking it the way they duck jury duty.
There’s a thought. Sorta like The Lottery, only without all the stoning.
Course, if the selected officials sucked, stoning could always be an option.
Coffee,
I’m also Texas resident and called both Senators and my Congressman, Sam Johnson (incidentally, he’s also a former POW along with McCain, so his “been there, done that” creds are at least as good as McCain and he doesn’t back down) to register my strong disapproval of the bill.
Cornyn and Johnson’s office staff answered the phone while Hutchinson had voicemail. Today I’ve read where Cornyn and Johnson have come out against the bill.
Kay’s reply is waffling and the smell of syrup is strong. I called back and left another voice mail that I would not vote for her if she supports this bill (yeah, I know, flea kicking an elephant)
Maybe if enough Texans call her she’ll realize how out of touch she is. Look at the Farmers Branch vote. 70% supported the ban. And I think that sentiment is shared by a hell of a lot of Americans.
For a while now, I’ve thought that as our demographics change and we get a larger population of seniors (seniors that tend to vote a lot, no less), that there would be a backlash from some of the younger generations.
There might be a few reasons for this - for example, anger at pork spending pandering to seniors, and the apparent increase in a basic inability to understand the world around them on the part of many seniors.
Reading this post, it struck me that the large number of clueless old farts in congress will not likely help the situation.
Tim, the reason you don’t see a backlash from the younger generations is because they don’t vote. They’re actually more clueless than the older generation that do vote. Public education has deteriorated badly in the last 40-50 years, leaving the youngest generations more indoctrinated than educated.
Seniors today were kids or adolescents during WWII and remember Korea, The Red Army crushing the Hungarian revolt, England, France and Israel trying to seize the Suez canal, sputnik and the space race, the construction of fallout shelters craze and the Cuban missile crisis. The older generation learned early on to keep abreast of world events.
The pork pandering to seniors is actually pandering to voters. If the under 30 crowd voted in significant numbers, reliably, they’d be getting pork too. Politicians are equal opportunity panderers. Even the clueless old farts in Congress,as insulated as they are inside the beltway, notice when their offices are inundated with calls, letters and emails. Those old farts move pretty quick when their re-election is threatened.
I’m with Randy and Jorg–term limits for both legislators and bureaucrats; nobody should be suckling at the government teat for more than a short portion of their careers (Jorg’s ten years sounds reasonable to me). We also need to eliminate the ridiculous perks–make them use whatever health care system we have, etc.
Hear, hear! Let’s do it!
(1) Repeal direct election of senators. If they owe their position to their state legislatures, somehow I think they will find a reason to spend a lot more time back in their home states. It also has the possible advantage of moving control of the senate closer to home.
(2) There is also something to be said for getting rid of the professional civil service and returning to the “spoils system.” When the rascals get thrown out of office, their apparatchik buddies get the boot too.
It’s time to start recall petitions against the illegal alien sellout senators. Recalls are permitted in eighteen states:
Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin.
These senators need to understand that their jobs and their Washington lifestyle is at stake.
Fed Up, the recall probably will work only with state politicians. Given that state-based term limits on Congressmen were held unConstitutional, recalls will probably meet the same fate.
About the only way to get rid of a US Rep or Senator before the end of his term is impeachment. And the odds of that are about nil.
The key term is insulated. They can be responsive enough if they know they’re being watched. The problem is that they operate in almost total secrecy. The voters don’t know, and can’t find out, who they’re talking to and what they are doing.
For this reason they usually don’t hear from voters concerning most subjects because the voters have no idea what they’re up to until it’s too late. Then they get a spate of letters, phone calls and e-mails but they can just ride it out and it goes away
What would really get their attention is making the Freedom-of-Information act applicable to Congress. The Sunlight Foundation has something like that in mind.
There is nothing like the specter of hundreds of pissed off voters watching their every move to concentrate politicians minds.
Unfortunately the only way to implement that is with the consent of the people who we want to keep an eye on. Not too much chance of that, I’m afraid.
How about this: One individual may be elected to national office 5 times in a lifetime, with a mandatory one year period between elected service periods; they get to pick the office or offices. National electees are paid a fixed salary, changes to which must be approved by a 67% majority in a national election. That salary will be substantial, and tax-free - say, $2.5M for Representatives, $3.0M for Senators, $25.0M for president and Vice-President (actual amounts to be determined by debate and referendum) and that is the entire compensation they are allowed to receive, and all other monies must be placed in escrow (blind trust) for the duration of their term in office. ALL expenses - living, staff, travel, retirement, medical, etc. - must be paid from that annual stipend.