Having one, less so.
The Founders intended the legislature to be preeminent, with the President largely an administrator (and the Supreme Court a referee), but over time Congress has ceded far too many of its responsibilities and far too much of its power to the executive, until we have reached the point where what we have is a sort of serial monarch, one chosen -- because of Citizens United and other electoral corruptions -- by the nobles, like a Polish King. And although we still have a more or less (mostly less) functioning legislature, our king has vastly more power than any constitutional monarch among his contemporaries.
How we make our way back to truly representative democracy is the most central political question of our times.
Showing posts with label representative democracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label representative democracy. Show all posts
Striking a balance
A January 2015 survey conducted by agricultural economists at Oklahoma State found that 82% of Americans want their food labeled if it contains GMOs. The same survey found that 80% of Americans want their food labeled if it contains DNA.
Before getting too smug, let's stop and think about this. This is where majoritarianism leads when it is matched with a dumbed-down media and institutionalized ignorance fostered by an education system modeled on industry. De Tocqueville worried that egalitarian democracy harbored the seeds of its own destruction: "Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. It does not tyrannize but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd," the resulting dysfunction revealed most nakedly in ballot initiatives.
Society needs to strike a balance between the romantic notion that everyone's ideas and beliefs are equally valid and respect for knowledge, expertise, and experience. The goal of egalitarianism should be to treat all people equally; the ambition of representative democracy should be to make the best practices and outcomes available to everyone.
Before getting too smug, let's stop and think about this. This is where majoritarianism leads when it is matched with a dumbed-down media and institutionalized ignorance fostered by an education system modeled on industry. De Tocqueville worried that egalitarian democracy harbored the seeds of its own destruction: "Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. It does not tyrannize but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd," the resulting dysfunction revealed most nakedly in ballot initiatives.
Society needs to strike a balance between the romantic notion that everyone's ideas and beliefs are equally valid and respect for knowledge, expertise, and experience. The goal of egalitarianism should be to treat all people equally; the ambition of representative democracy should be to make the best practices and outcomes available to everyone.
Izzy Stone on Earth Day
Thanks to Naomi Klein for unearthing this:
I.F. Stone: “Con Games,” speech delivered at Sylvan Theater, Washington, D.C., April 22, 1970
In the ancient world, the Caesars did it with bread and circuses. And tonight, I’m afraid, is the first time that our Caesars have learned to do it with rock and roll, and idealism, and noninflammatory social issues. In some ways, I’m sorry to say, we here tonight are being conned. This has many of the aspects of a beautiful snow job. The country is slipping into a wider war in southeast Asia, and we’re talking about litterbugs. The secretary of defense, on Monday, made a speech to the Associated Press sabotaging the SALT talks, presenting a completely false picture of the world balance of power, ending what little hope we had of progress in those talks, preparing the way for a bigger, more expensive arms race at the expensive of mankind, and we’re talking as if we needed more wastebaskets.
The divisions of white and black in this country are getting to the point where they threaten our future, and we’re talking about pollution. And it’s not that pollution is not an important subject, but if the Nixon administration feels so deeply about it, why don’t they do something substantial about it?
One important thing about this town is that you can never take very seriously what the officials say. They’re the prisoners of a vast bureaucracy. Much of what they say is merely rationalization of their lack of momentum. But in particular, the president said, and I think quite rightfully and quite truthfully, that in the next ten years it’s now or never for the air we breathe and the water we drink. And then, after making that speech, he put in a budget in which 52 cents out of every general revenue dollar goes to the military, and barely four-tenths of one cent goes to air and water pollution. And that’s a real con game. And that’s a real snow job.
We are spending, on new weapons systems alone, more than ten times as much, in this coming fiscal year, in the Nixon budget, than we’re going to spend on air and water. We’re spending a billion dollars more a year on space than all our expenditure on natural resources. The priorities of this government are lunatic—absolutely lunatic. And we’re not going to save the air we breathe and the water we drink without very many fundamental changes in governmental policy and governmental structure.
Before I came down here tonight, I heard a TV announcer say with great satisfaction that he hadn’t heard a word said about Vietnam all day. Well, I’m going to say a word about Vietnam. We’re not going to be able to save our air and our water, and the resources of our country, for our children and our grandchildren, until we end the militarization of our society, until we bring to an end the effort of American imperialism to rule the world and to waste our resources and our honor and our kids on a futile and murderous and insane task.
The problem of pollution is not going to be solved in isolation. The basic and most important pollution problem that we have to deal with is to prevent the pollution of the atmosphere of free discussion by the Nixon-Agnew-Mitchell administration. A society can only progress and deal with its evils if it is prepared to allow the widest measure of free speech, including free speech for radicals who are completely opposed to the basis of that society. Any society allows you to agree with the government. A free society allows you to disagree fundamentally. And it takes a lot of disagreement, and a lot of hollering and a lot of demonstration, to shake any establishment out of its accustomed ways. And the main menace to the solution of these problems is an administration that thinks they will go away if they just put a few radicals in jail.
The problems are enormous. The source of pollution is man. And man’s technology. And the enormous institutions he has built up that make him a prisoner. And somehow we’ve got to shake loose. And the biggest menace—the institution that ties us down most—that wastes our substance—that threatens to waste more of our youth—is that great big, five-sided building across the Potomac—the Pentagon. They are preparing to do to us at home what they tried to do in Vietnam.
Only this week, General Wheeler, the retiring chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, gave an interview to U.S. News and World Report in which he said that criticism of the military was due to a Communist plot. This is an effort of the military to revive McCarthyism, to preserve its enormous power and privileges in our society. And until its power is broken, until the military is reduced sharply in size, we’re not going to be able to solve these problems.
You know, there is no use talking about Earth Day unless we are prepared to make these fundamental changes. Everybody’s talking about Earth Day, and it comes out of the mouths of so many hypocrites it turns your stomach. What kind of an Earth Day can we celebrate in a country that is spending so much of its money to destroy the Earth? How can we talk of reverence for life when we’re spending so much on our enemy, our genius, our money, and our youth on building up new means of destroying life?
What’s the use of talking about the pollution of air and water when we live under a precarious balance of terror which can, in an hour’s time, make the entire Northern Hemisphere of our planet unlivable? There’s no use talking about Earth Day until we begin to think like Earthmen. Not as Americans and Russians, not as blacks and whites, not as Jews and Arabs, but as fellow travelers on a tiny planet in an infinite universe. All that we can muster of kindness, of compassion, of patience, of thoughtfulness, is necessary if this tiny planet of ours is not to go down to destruction. Until we have a leadership willing to make the enormous changes—psychological, military, and bureaucratic—to end the existing world system, a system of hatred, of anarchy, of murder, of war and pollution, there is no use talking about buying more wastebaskets or spending a couple of hundred million dollars on the Missouri River. If we do not challenge these fundamental causes of peril, we will be conned by the establishment while basic decisions are being made over which we have very little control, though they endanger everything on which our future and the world’s depend.
More at The Website of I.F. Stone.
I.F. Stone: “Con Games,” speech delivered at Sylvan Theater, Washington, D.C., April 22, 1970
In the ancient world, the Caesars did it with bread and circuses. And tonight, I’m afraid, is the first time that our Caesars have learned to do it with rock and roll, and idealism, and noninflammatory social issues. In some ways, I’m sorry to say, we here tonight are being conned. This has many of the aspects of a beautiful snow job. The country is slipping into a wider war in southeast Asia, and we’re talking about litterbugs. The secretary of defense, on Monday, made a speech to the Associated Press sabotaging the SALT talks, presenting a completely false picture of the world balance of power, ending what little hope we had of progress in those talks, preparing the way for a bigger, more expensive arms race at the expensive of mankind, and we’re talking as if we needed more wastebaskets.
The divisions of white and black in this country are getting to the point where they threaten our future, and we’re talking about pollution. And it’s not that pollution is not an important subject, but if the Nixon administration feels so deeply about it, why don’t they do something substantial about it?
One important thing about this town is that you can never take very seriously what the officials say. They’re the prisoners of a vast bureaucracy. Much of what they say is merely rationalization of their lack of momentum. But in particular, the president said, and I think quite rightfully and quite truthfully, that in the next ten years it’s now or never for the air we breathe and the water we drink. And then, after making that speech, he put in a budget in which 52 cents out of every general revenue dollar goes to the military, and barely four-tenths of one cent goes to air and water pollution. And that’s a real con game. And that’s a real snow job.
We are spending, on new weapons systems alone, more than ten times as much, in this coming fiscal year, in the Nixon budget, than we’re going to spend on air and water. We’re spending a billion dollars more a year on space than all our expenditure on natural resources. The priorities of this government are lunatic—absolutely lunatic. And we’re not going to save the air we breathe and the water we drink without very many fundamental changes in governmental policy and governmental structure.
Before I came down here tonight, I heard a TV announcer say with great satisfaction that he hadn’t heard a word said about Vietnam all day. Well, I’m going to say a word about Vietnam. We’re not going to be able to save our air and our water, and the resources of our country, for our children and our grandchildren, until we end the militarization of our society, until we bring to an end the effort of American imperialism to rule the world and to waste our resources and our honor and our kids on a futile and murderous and insane task.
The problem of pollution is not going to be solved in isolation. The basic and most important pollution problem that we have to deal with is to prevent the pollution of the atmosphere of free discussion by the Nixon-Agnew-Mitchell administration. A society can only progress and deal with its evils if it is prepared to allow the widest measure of free speech, including free speech for radicals who are completely opposed to the basis of that society. Any society allows you to agree with the government. A free society allows you to disagree fundamentally. And it takes a lot of disagreement, and a lot of hollering and a lot of demonstration, to shake any establishment out of its accustomed ways. And the main menace to the solution of these problems is an administration that thinks they will go away if they just put a few radicals in jail.
The problems are enormous. The source of pollution is man. And man’s technology. And the enormous institutions he has built up that make him a prisoner. And somehow we’ve got to shake loose. And the biggest menace—the institution that ties us down most—that wastes our substance—that threatens to waste more of our youth—is that great big, five-sided building across the Potomac—the Pentagon. They are preparing to do to us at home what they tried to do in Vietnam.
Only this week, General Wheeler, the retiring chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, gave an interview to U.S. News and World Report in which he said that criticism of the military was due to a Communist plot. This is an effort of the military to revive McCarthyism, to preserve its enormous power and privileges in our society. And until its power is broken, until the military is reduced sharply in size, we’re not going to be able to solve these problems.
You know, there is no use talking about Earth Day unless we are prepared to make these fundamental changes. Everybody’s talking about Earth Day, and it comes out of the mouths of so many hypocrites it turns your stomach. What kind of an Earth Day can we celebrate in a country that is spending so much of its money to destroy the Earth? How can we talk of reverence for life when we’re spending so much on our enemy, our genius, our money, and our youth on building up new means of destroying life?
What’s the use of talking about the pollution of air and water when we live under a precarious balance of terror which can, in an hour’s time, make the entire Northern Hemisphere of our planet unlivable? There’s no use talking about Earth Day until we begin to think like Earthmen. Not as Americans and Russians, not as blacks and whites, not as Jews and Arabs, but as fellow travelers on a tiny planet in an infinite universe. All that we can muster of kindness, of compassion, of patience, of thoughtfulness, is necessary if this tiny planet of ours is not to go down to destruction. Until we have a leadership willing to make the enormous changes—psychological, military, and bureaucratic—to end the existing world system, a system of hatred, of anarchy, of murder, of war and pollution, there is no use talking about buying more wastebaskets or spending a couple of hundred million dollars on the Missouri River. If we do not challenge these fundamental causes of peril, we will be conned by the establishment while basic decisions are being made over which we have very little control, though they endanger everything on which our future and the world’s depend.
More at The Website of I.F. Stone.
They're baaaaack!
Having failed to inflict sufficient damage on Santa Monica's planning process last year with its ill-conceived but successful referendum to hogtie the development of the admirable Hines project (you can see the not-unexpectedly mediocre aftermath of that effort here), nimby-oid Residocracy is back with a
non-binding digital petition designed to short circuit the reasonable, common-sense updating of the city's zoning ordinance, recently advanced by the planning commission after many months of study and debate.
According to the Santa Monica Daily Press, "Residocracy is asking for a 25 percent reduction of all proposed heights and densities under the first and second tier development standards. They want an amendment to another planning document (The Land Use and Circulation Element or LUCE) that eliminates third tier developments. They’d like a second amendment to the LUCE that would eliminate all activity centers, which would allow larger scale development. And finally, they want an ordinance requiring that all development agreements be approved by Santa Monica voters."
This is not how representative democracy works. In fact, representative government was established precisely to prevent the highjacking of the political system by highly motivated minorities. Even the heart of Residocracy's complaint -- that the proposed ordinance and LUCE are complex 500 page documents that took seven years to put together -- points to the inadvisability of deciding complex issues by referendum. The other complaint -- that, despite extensive public input in Santa Monica decision-making, the outcomes seem predetermined by city staff -- has some merit, but the solution is to give elected representatives more sway over city employees (council members need their own staffs, for example, or, shy of that, there should be a full-time independent auditor with his or her own staff).
Residocracy presents itself as the voice of Santa Monica residents. but in actuality it is a single-issue interest group with a very specific and very negative agenda. Using intimidation, sloganeering, over-simplification and scare tactics. it attempts to bully its way to its desired outcomes (go to a public meeting where its members have been turned out in numbers and you'll think you're at a cage fight not a civic event). During the lead up to the Hines ballot initiative, out off curiosity I took a walk around town randomly asking people what they thought of the project. Although it is anecdotal not scientific, what I found is nonetheless instructive: of the people I spoke to who'd heard of Hines. not a one was opposed to it as approved and a number expressed the hope that it would be built.
Maybe this time the city council -- charged with looking out for the general welfare, after all, not the interests of one group, however clamorous -- will not let itself be bullied. And before you allow yourself to be bullied into endorsing Residocracy's abstinence appeal ("just say no" to all development it dislikes, whether useful, necessary, desirable or popular), consider this: what do you know about land use; tax law and revenue generation; infrastructure and utilities; zoning; federal and state regulations affecting development; the influence of local bylaws, ordinances and regulations on our environmental, economic and housing goals and whether such rules are prescriptive or proscriptive; the effects on traffic, air quality and other elements of urban life of concentrating development near transportation hubs; the mix and condition of the city's housing stock; public benefits that can be achieved from easements and development agreements; the possible differences, relationships and sound mix of residential, commercial and industrial uses; the need for public facilities; and how your concerns dovetail with others who have an equal claim on what happens here? That's what a city council is for.
By all means, participate! Go to community workshops, express yourself at planning commission and city council meetings, call and write your elected and appointed representatives. And when Residocracy turns up again, as they will, with a plebiscite on a complex development matter, don't play along. Just say no.
Follow: Santa Monica Mirror; Santa Monica Daily Press; City of Santa Monica.
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| 26th Street as it might have been |
According to the Santa Monica Daily Press, "Residocracy is asking for a 25 percent reduction of all proposed heights and densities under the first and second tier development standards. They want an amendment to another planning document (The Land Use and Circulation Element or LUCE) that eliminates third tier developments. They’d like a second amendment to the LUCE that would eliminate all activity centers, which would allow larger scale development. And finally, they want an ordinance requiring that all development agreements be approved by Santa Monica voters."
This is not how representative democracy works. In fact, representative government was established precisely to prevent the highjacking of the political system by highly motivated minorities. Even the heart of Residocracy's complaint -- that the proposed ordinance and LUCE are complex 500 page documents that took seven years to put together -- points to the inadvisability of deciding complex issues by referendum. The other complaint -- that, despite extensive public input in Santa Monica decision-making, the outcomes seem predetermined by city staff -- has some merit, but the solution is to give elected representatives more sway over city employees (council members need their own staffs, for example, or, shy of that, there should be a full-time independent auditor with his or her own staff).
Residocracy presents itself as the voice of Santa Monica residents. but in actuality it is a single-issue interest group with a very specific and very negative agenda. Using intimidation, sloganeering, over-simplification and scare tactics. it attempts to bully its way to its desired outcomes (go to a public meeting where its members have been turned out in numbers and you'll think you're at a cage fight not a civic event). During the lead up to the Hines ballot initiative, out off curiosity I took a walk around town randomly asking people what they thought of the project. Although it is anecdotal not scientific, what I found is nonetheless instructive: of the people I spoke to who'd heard of Hines. not a one was opposed to it as approved and a number expressed the hope that it would be built.
Maybe this time the city council -- charged with looking out for the general welfare, after all, not the interests of one group, however clamorous -- will not let itself be bullied. And before you allow yourself to be bullied into endorsing Residocracy's abstinence appeal ("just say no" to all development it dislikes, whether useful, necessary, desirable or popular), consider this: what do you know about land use; tax law and revenue generation; infrastructure and utilities; zoning; federal and state regulations affecting development; the influence of local bylaws, ordinances and regulations on our environmental, economic and housing goals and whether such rules are prescriptive or proscriptive; the effects on traffic, air quality and other elements of urban life of concentrating development near transportation hubs; the mix and condition of the city's housing stock; public benefits that can be achieved from easements and development agreements; the possible differences, relationships and sound mix of residential, commercial and industrial uses; the need for public facilities; and how your concerns dovetail with others who have an equal claim on what happens here? That's what a city council is for.
By all means, participate! Go to community workshops, express yourself at planning commission and city council meetings, call and write your elected and appointed representatives. And when Residocracy turns up again, as they will, with a plebiscite on a complex development matter, don't play along. Just say no.
Follow: Santa Monica Mirror; Santa Monica Daily Press; City of Santa Monica.
Background: How the 2012 Presidential Election Demonstrated Why the Electoral College Must Be Reformed...
...and One Way It Can Be Done
"The United States has reached an unprecedented level of inequality in presidential elections. In 2012, only 10 states drew the major party presidential candidates for post-convention campaign events, and those same 10 states attracted 99.6% of all general election television advertising spending by the campaigns and their allies. The remaining 41 spectator states (counting the District of Columbia) included all 38 states that had been similarly overlooked in 2008. This article details these inequalities and their roots in state statutes allocating electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis. It argues that states should end this inequality by enacting the National Popular Vote interstate compact, which would ensure that it is the popular vote in all 50 states and the District of Columbia that determines who becomes the president." -- Robert Richie and Andrea Levien of FairVote.
The rest of the story: The Contemporary Presidency - How the 2012 Presidential Election Has Strengthened the Movement for the National Popular Vote Plan by Robert Richie and Andrea Levien (FairVote).
"The United States has reached an unprecedented level of inequality in presidential elections. In 2012, only 10 states drew the major party presidential candidates for post-convention campaign events, and those same 10 states attracted 99.6% of all general election television advertising spending by the campaigns and their allies. The remaining 41 spectator states (counting the District of Columbia) included all 38 states that had been similarly overlooked in 2008. This article details these inequalities and their roots in state statutes allocating electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis. It argues that states should end this inequality by enacting the National Popular Vote interstate compact, which would ensure that it is the popular vote in all 50 states and the District of Columbia that determines who becomes the president." -- Robert Richie and Andrea Levien of FairVote.
The rest of the story: The Contemporary Presidency - How the 2012 Presidential Election Has Strengthened the Movement for the National Popular Vote Plan by Robert Richie and Andrea Levien (FairVote).
Bailing
The reliably feckless David Brooks has this to say about the domination of the GOP by radicals:
"It's probably futile to try to change current Republicans. It's smarter to build a new wing of the Republican Party, one that can compete in the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic states, in the upper Midwest and along the West Coast. It's smarter to build a new division that is different the way the Westin is different than the Sheraton..."
"Would a coastal and Midwestern G.O.P. sit easily with the Southern and Western one? No, but majority parties are usually coalitions of the incompatible. This is really the only chance Republicans have. The question is: Who's going to build a second G.O.P.?"
Representative democracy would benefit from such a development, but here's an easier way to do it than by trying to recapture the GOP. Stragglers from the moderate wing of the Republicans, if joined by the neoliberals, now a declining and reviled minority among Democrats, would form a new centrist, corporatist, neoliberal party (the New Whigs?). The Republican Party under this scenario would continue to represent fundamentalists, reactionaries and rightist libertarians. The Democratic Party would take on its proper role as the champion of the middle and working classes. And a green party, maybe the Green Party, would carry on with an agenda focused climate change. A House with four or five parties could only function by building coalitions, making it far more likely that rational, practical and more representative political outcomes would prevail.
All parties in the legislature have an interest in reining in the executive branch. The Founders envisioned ours as a legislative democracy, and it would serve us all to return to that model. The assignment of power through winner-take-all contests has proven itself to be dangerous to democracy as well as to wise stewardship.
"It's probably futile to try to change current Republicans. It's smarter to build a new wing of the Republican Party, one that can compete in the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic states, in the upper Midwest and along the West Coast. It's smarter to build a new division that is different the way the Westin is different than the Sheraton..."
"Would a coastal and Midwestern G.O.P. sit easily with the Southern and Western one? No, but majority parties are usually coalitions of the incompatible. This is really the only chance Republicans have. The question is: Who's going to build a second G.O.P.?"
Representative democracy would benefit from such a development, but here's an easier way to do it than by trying to recapture the GOP. Stragglers from the moderate wing of the Republicans, if joined by the neoliberals, now a declining and reviled minority among Democrats, would form a new centrist, corporatist, neoliberal party (the New Whigs?). The Republican Party under this scenario would continue to represent fundamentalists, reactionaries and rightist libertarians. The Democratic Party would take on its proper role as the champion of the middle and working classes. And a green party, maybe the Green Party, would carry on with an agenda focused climate change. A House with four or five parties could only function by building coalitions, making it far more likely that rational, practical and more representative political outcomes would prevail.
All parties in the legislature have an interest in reining in the executive branch. The Founders envisioned ours as a legislative democracy, and it would serve us all to return to that model. The assignment of power through winner-take-all contests has proven itself to be dangerous to democracy as well as to wise stewardship.
2012: Prop 29
I'm of two minds about Prop 29, the tobacco tax initiative.
Here's what's wrong with the ballot initiative process. More cancer research: great idea. Higher taxes: great idea. But: limiting the tax revenue generated by this measure to cancer research, anti-smoking programs and tobacco law enforcement is a bad idea; the money belongs in the general fund.
The whole point of representative government is to assure that tax revenues are allocated fairly across all needs and services and interests. Past initiatives have already made hash of the California budget process; do we want to make it worse?
Cancer research is vitally important, but is relatively well-funded; other diseases that are equally costly to society get far fewer dollars. Even limiting ourselves to a discussion of what to do about the harm caused by tobacco, we have to take account of the fact that Prop 29 does nothing to mitigate the huge medical costs already resulting from past and current smoking, and that's the point: We elect representatives to make those decisions; maybe anti-smoking programs are already well-enough funded -- they certainly appear to be -- but medical costs are under-addressed (they certainly appear to be); an informed legislature should make those choices.
Also: a $1 tax is insufficient, given the costs of tobacco to society; a referendum, if successful, will almost certainly close the door on higher taxes on tobacco products in the future.
Plus, this decision will be made by the tiny percentage of voters that bothers to turn out tomorrow, nothing like a majority.
Explanation of Prop 29 in the official CA state voter guide.
Democracy: Bulk up the House. Dump the Senate.
A number of initiatives and referenda have been cleared for circulation by the California Secretary of State, including,
Democracy is badly in need of reform. What was practicable in the days of horses and buggies may be appropriate no longer. If the Founders were inventing the United States now, Paine would be tweeting, Hamilton, Madison and Jay would have a blog, and Jefferson and Adams would be arguing over at Constitution.Org. The system they would devise today would look nothing like the Rube Goldberg contraption they arrived at by compromise more than two centuries ago. For sure, they'd consider the current constitutional release as beta.
See, also:
The Big House by Sean Wilentz and Micheal Merrill (The New Republic 1992-11-16).
How Can the U.S. House Be Made More Representative? by J.F. Zimmerman and W. Rule (Political Science and Politics Volume 31, Number 1; 1998).
House of Representatives: Setting the Size at 435 by David C. Huckabee (pdf) (CRS Report for Congress 1995-07-11).
Beyond Administrative Apportionment: Rediscovering the Calculus of Representative Government by John A. Kromkowski (pdf) (Polity, Vol. XXIV, No. 3 Spring 1992).
A House of Our Own or A House We’ve Outgrown? An Argument for Increasing the Size of the House of Representatives by Christopher St. John Yates Columbia Journal of Law and Social Problems 1992).
How to build a better House: Why Not Have 1000 Congressmen? by Jeff Jacoby (Boston Globe 2009-11-08).
Political monopoly power by Walter Williams (Creators Syndicate 2008-10-15).
Why not have 1000 Congressman? by George Will (Townhall 2001-01-14).
Want to be more efficient? Increase number of politicians by Jonah Goldberg (Jewish World Review 2001-01-04).
Increasing the size of Congress could limit campaign spending by Andrew W. Cohen (CNN.com Law Center 200-06-30).
Growth in U.S. Population Calls for Larger House of Representatives by Margo Anderson (Population Today 2000-04).
Full Text 0f Legislature Expansion. Legislative Process. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.
Complete list of California Initiatives and Referenda Cleared for Circulation.
1540. (11-0067) Legislature Expansion. Legislative Process. Initiative Constitutional AmendmentI've proposed elsewhere that the federal legislature be reduced to one house and that the resultant unicameral congress be reconstituted with 30,000 members. Research has shown that beyond about 10,000 voters, districts are too big for citizens effectively to know their representatives. Given the reach of digital technology, participants in a 30K-member body would be able to remain in their district most of the time, meeting with other representatives virtually and conducting the people's business within the grasp of their constituents.
Increases size of Legislature almost 100-fold by dividing current Assembly and Senate districts into neighborhood districts such that each Assemblymember represents about 5,000 persons and each Senator represents about 10,000 persons. Provides for neighborhood district representatives to elect working committees the size of the current Assembly and Senate, 80 Assemblymembers and 40 Senators. Gives working committees the legislative power generally, and sole power to amend bills, but requires approval by appropriate vote of the full membership in each house for passage of any non-urgency bill. Reduces legislators' pay and expenditures. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Decreased state spending on the Legislature of over $180 million annually. Increased county election costs, potentially in the range of tens of millions of dollars initially and lower amounts annually thereafter.
Democracy is badly in need of reform. What was practicable in the days of horses and buggies may be appropriate no longer. If the Founders were inventing the United States now, Paine would be tweeting, Hamilton, Madison and Jay would have a blog, and Jefferson and Adams would be arguing over at Constitution.Org. The system they would devise today would look nothing like the Rube Goldberg contraption they arrived at by compromise more than two centuries ago. For sure, they'd consider the current constitutional release as beta.
See, also:
The Big House by Sean Wilentz and Micheal Merrill (The New Republic 1992-11-16).
How Can the U.S. House Be Made More Representative? by J.F. Zimmerman and W. Rule (Political Science and Politics Volume 31, Number 1; 1998).
House of Representatives: Setting the Size at 435 by David C. Huckabee (pdf) (CRS Report for Congress 1995-07-11).
Beyond Administrative Apportionment: Rediscovering the Calculus of Representative Government by John A. Kromkowski (pdf) (Polity, Vol. XXIV, No. 3 Spring 1992).
A House of Our Own or A House We’ve Outgrown? An Argument for Increasing the Size of the House of Representatives by Christopher St. John Yates Columbia Journal of Law and Social Problems 1992).
How to build a better House: Why Not Have 1000 Congressmen? by Jeff Jacoby (Boston Globe 2009-11-08).
Political monopoly power by Walter Williams (Creators Syndicate 2008-10-15).
Why not have 1000 Congressman? by George Will (Townhall 2001-01-14).
Want to be more efficient? Increase number of politicians by Jonah Goldberg (Jewish World Review 2001-01-04).
Increasing the size of Congress could limit campaign spending by Andrew W. Cohen (CNN.com Law Center 200-06-30).
Growth in U.S. Population Calls for Larger House of Representatives by Margo Anderson (Population Today 2000-04).
Full Text 0f Legislature Expansion. Legislative Process. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.
Complete list of California Initiatives and Referenda Cleared for Circulation.
Politics: The End of Democracy?
Since the sixties, one party -- systematically and untiringly -- has sought to delegitimize democracy. Have we reached the tipping point?:
As a result of a twenty-eight-year-long deregulatory spree, we've reached the point where it's painfully difficult for government to undo the damage done to our economic infrastructure by a few thousand millionaires and billionaires playing Monopoly.From Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture (2009) by Thom Hartman.
And the destructive shift of power in this shift in cultural assumptions isn't just limited to the economy. We have reached the point in the United States where corporatism has nearly triumphed over democracy. If events continue on their current trajectory, the ability of our government to respond to the needs and desires of humans -- things like fresh water, clean air, uncontaminated food, independent local media, secure retirement, and accessible medical care -- may vanish forever, effectively ending the world's second experiment with democracy. We will have gone too far down Mussolini's road, and most likely will encounter similar consequences, elements of which we have already experienced: a militarized police state, a government unresponsive to its citizens and obsessed with secrecy, a ruling elite drawn from the senior ranks of the nations largest corporations, and war.
Health Care Reform: Mr. Weiner kicks butt
If health care reform had been left in the hands of Anthony Weiner (and Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers and Alan Grayson and Sheldon Whitehouse and Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders), the bill would deliver real affordable universal care and ass would have been kicked to get it done. Watch how Weiner does it:
Despite lukewarm expressions of support from the president, it was never intended by the White House that a public option would be part of the final plan. Now, however, a majority of senators is on record in support of a public option to create competition for the private insurers and thus lower costs. When the dust settles and the Senate bill has been passed and amended, will a public option survive, or did the senators who indicated support for competition -- the 43 who signed the pledge and the eight others who said they were "open" to it -- do so only because it seemed a safe bet at the time that they'd never have to make good on it?
Despite lukewarm expressions of support from the president, it was never intended by the White House that a public option would be part of the final plan. Now, however, a majority of senators is on record in support of a public option to create competition for the private insurers and thus lower costs. When the dust settles and the Senate bill has been passed and amended, will a public option survive, or did the senators who indicated support for competition -- the 43 who signed the pledge and the eight others who said they were "open" to it -- do so only because it seemed a safe bet at the time that they'd never have to make good on it?
Health Care Reform: Where it's at
"Is health care reform dead, clinging to life, or simply pining for the fjords? Brian Beutler and Peter Suderman explain how the undead bill could rise again through the mindboggling process of pre-amendment. Bill Scher and Conn Carroll debate whether liberals are too divided to pass a bill. Jonathan Cohn and Timothy Noah examine how abortion could throw a wrench into any House-Senate compromise. Taking a larger view, Mark Schmitt and Brink Lindsey wonder whether Washington can still accomplish big things:
."
-- From bloggingheads.tv
."
-- From bloggingheads.tv
AfPak: Congress will debate war policy in January
It is the job of the legislature, not the chief executive, to decide questions of war and peace. In January, the Congress will debate whether the war in Afghanistan and military operations in Pakistan will continue and, if so, with what degree of intensity. In this video, Rep. Dennis Kucinich makes the case for the legislature's constitutional responsibilities.
Actions:
Call Afghanistan - A Petition to Take Action Against the War
Contact your representatives in Congress
Actions:
Call Afghanistan - A Petition to Take Action Against the War
Contact your representatives in Congress
Accountability: Congress should take back its constitutionally mandated role in making military policy
Despite Newsweek's silly cover story this week on The Post-Imperial Presidency (for starters, Newsweek might look at plans for military expansion in Africa, the takeover of air facilities in Columbia, the exponential growth of our military presence on Guam, Obama's increase by many multiples in the use of pilotless aircraft in the undeclared invasion of Pakistan, the grotesque $680 billion 2010 DOD budget, the tens of billions of dollars in war funding Congress is poised to pass quickly this session, and the additional supplemental spending bill that will arrive early next year to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...), there really was some hope last year that, if he became president, Barack Obama would rein in the abuses of power that get tarted up in the rhetoric of unitary executive theory.
On the more limited matter of war making, in this video The Nation's political correspondent John Nichols "sheds light on the American founding principle that presidents cannot define the debate about wars -- and reminds us that it is up to Congress, not the Commander-in-Chief, to set the debate and the terms of war." As the White House pursues its escalation of the war in Afghanistan, Nichols points out, Congress can still do its duty, starting with support for a sensible "war surtax" that will make the wealthiest Americans pay more so that the cost of the war is covered by concurrent revenues.
See, also: Grijalva Pushes to Block War Funding (AfterDowningStreet.Org 2009-12-08, reprinted from Roll Call)
On the more limited matter of war making, in this video The Nation's political correspondent John Nichols "sheds light on the American founding principle that presidents cannot define the debate about wars -- and reminds us that it is up to Congress, not the Commander-in-Chief, to set the debate and the terms of war." As the White House pursues its escalation of the war in Afghanistan, Nichols points out, Congress can still do its duty, starting with support for a sensible "war surtax" that will make the wealthiest Americans pay more so that the cost of the war is covered by concurrent revenues.
See, also: Grijalva Pushes to Block War Funding (AfterDowningStreet.Org 2009-12-08, reprinted from Roll Call)
quote unquote: Eisenhower on corporate power
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." -- Pres. Dwight David Eisenhower
Does Belief in God Hurt America?
According to a new study, prosperity is highest in countries that practice religion the least.
In a paper posted recently on the online journal Evolutionary Psychology, independent
researcher Gregory S. Paul reports a strong correlation within First World democracies between socioeconomic well-being and secularity. In short, prosperity is highest in societies where religion is practiced least.
The rest of the story: Is Belief in God Hurting America? by David Villano, Miller-McCune.com (Alternet 2009-11-25)
In a paper posted recently on the online journal Evolutionary Psychology, independent
researcher Gregory S. Paul reports a strong correlation within First World democracies between socioeconomic well-being and secularity. In short, prosperity is highest in societies where religion is practiced least.The rest of the story: Is Belief in God Hurting America? by David Villano, Miller-McCune.com (Alternet 2009-11-25)
Resource: Filibusted takes aim at GOP obstructionism in the Senate
Part of the reason that Republicans can get away with their destructive and antidemocratic reliance on the filibuster to interrupt the functioning of the legislative branch, aside from the reluctance of the Democrats to fight back unless 
they are certain they have 60 safe votes, is that so much Senate business happens in the dark. Filibusted aims to change that by using data from from GovTrack and Sunlight Labs to shine a light on legislative piracy as it happens. Most news stories about Congress don’t mention filibusters or cloture votes, but if you follow @filibusted on Twitter, you'll find out about them as they happen. No more will the Jim DeMints, Jim Bunnings, Tom Coburns, Jim Inhofes and their reactionary allies be able to cripple the legislature behind the people's back. Go to Filibusted.
they are certain they have 60 safe votes, is that so much Senate business happens in the dark. Filibusted aims to change that by using data from from GovTrack and Sunlight Labs to shine a light on legislative piracy as it happens. Most news stories about Congress don’t mention filibusters or cloture votes, but if you follow @filibusted on Twitter, you'll find out about them as they happen. No more will the Jim DeMints, Jim Bunnings, Tom Coburns, Jim Inhofes and their reactionary allies be able to cripple the legislature behind the people's back. Go to Filibusted.
Democracy: 23 Proposals to Revitalize the US Constitution
I find myself unpersuaded by many of Larry Sabato's 23 Proposals to Revitalize the US Constitution. Drawn from his book, A More Perfect Constitution, where they are well-argued, they are certainly worthy of consideration. To my mind, though, he gives too little emphasis to rebuilding accountable institutions (labor unions, political parties, community groups), and it strikes me that some of the ideas he embraces where adopted have turned out to have unintended consequences: term limts, for example, meant to encourage frequent rotation of office (the political value of that goal escapes me, but never mind) has in practice tended to increase the power of bureaucracies and lobbies, not an outcome Sabato desires, I think. I have no disagreement, however, with his basic premise that our political system is seriously in need of reform. Here's the list:
Congress:
In making his case, Sabato, who is founder of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, is a good deal more subtle, cogent and persuasive than he comes across in outline. The reforms he suggests reflect the values he believes are already present in the Constitution: pragmatism, flexibility, fairness, the quest for equality and for justice. Whether his particular suggestions are the best ones to achieve a more perfect constitution, they are commendably thoughtful and well articulated.
Maybe, eventually, a constitutional convention will be needed to get the American experiment back on course. In the meantime, there are more limited actions -- serious campaign finance reform, an amendment to retire the electoral college, weekend voting, instant run-offs, proportional representation -- that will tend to make the system more responsive and accountable. The struggle for reform has just begun. The debate will continue. The road to go is long. A More Perfect Constitution makes a good start.
Source: "23 Proposals to Revitalize the US Constitution," from A More Perfect Constitution: Ideas to Inspire a New Generation by Larry J. Sabato.
Congress:
1. Expand the Senate to 136 members to be more representative: Grant the 10 most populous states 2 additional Senators, the 15 next most populous states 1 additional Senator, and the District of Columbia 1 Senator. [See, Democracy: How do we achieve One Person One Vote? (Impractical Proposals 2009-10-09)]Presidency:
2. Appoint all former Presidents and Vice Presidents to the new office of “National Senator.”
3. Mandate non-partisan redistricting for House elections to enhance electoral competition.
4. Lengthen House terms to 3 years (from 2) and set Senate terms to coincide with all Presidential elections, so the entire House and Senate would be elected at the same time as the President.
5. Expand the size of the House to approximately 1,000 members (from current 435), so House members can be closer to their constituents, and to level the playing field in House elections.
6. Establish term limits in the House and Senate to restore the Founders’ principle of frequent rotation in office.
7. Add a Balanced Budget Amendment to encourage fiscal fairness to future generations.
8. Create a Continuity of Government procedure to provide for replacement Senators and Congresspeople in the event of deaths or extensive incapacitation.
9. Establish a new 6-year, 1-time Presidential term with the option for the President to seek 2 additional years in an up/down referendum of the American people.Supreme Court:
10. Limit some Presidential war-making powers and expand Congress’s oversight of war-making.
11. Give the President a line-item veto.
12. Allow men and women not born in the U.S. to run for President or Vice President after having been a citizen for 20 years.
13. Eliminate lifetime tenure for federal judges in favor of non-renewable 15-year terms for all federal judges.Politics:
14. Grant Congress the power to set a mandatory retirement age for all federal judges.
15. Expand the size of the Supreme Court from 9 to 12 to be more representative.
16. Give federal judges guaranteed cost of living increases so pay is never an issue.
17. Write a new constitutional article specifically for the politics of the American system.Universal National Service:
18. Adopt a regional, staggered lottery system, over 4 months, for Presidential party nominations to avoid the destructive front-loading of primaries.
19. Mend the Electoral College by granting more populated states additional electors, to preserve the benefits of the College while minimizing the chances a President will win without a majority of the popular vote.
20. Reform campaign financing by preventing wealthy candidates from financing their campaigns, and by mandating partial public financing for House and Senate campaigns.
21. Adopt an automatic registration system for all qualified American citizens to guarantee their right to vote is not abridged by bureaucratic requirements.
22. Create a Constitutional requirement that all able-bodied young Americans devote at least 2 years of their lives in service to the country.National Constitutional Convention:
23. Convene a new Constitutional Convention using the state-based mechanism left to us by the Framers in the current Constitution.Although intended to advance democracy, some of these proposals strike me as anti-democratic. Why should former leaders who have lost the confidence of the citizenry, a Jimmy Carter, say, or a George W. Bush, be restored to a degree of power by lifetime appointment to the Senate? (And vice presidents? Makes you wonder for a minute if Sabato is kidding.) Unless you adopt other "reforms" -- regional qualifications? race and gender quotas? -- it's difficult to see why additional justices would make the Supreme Court any more representative. Term limits actually limit the power of voters to decide who will represent them. A balanced budget amendment would restrict the ability of future generations to deal flexibly with crises like the current financial meltdown (and why not deficit-finance infrastructure projects, if it is intended that future generations will reap the benefits?). The line-item veto is a direct attack on representative democracy.
In making his case, Sabato, who is founder of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, is a good deal more subtle, cogent and persuasive than he comes across in outline. The reforms he suggests reflect the values he believes are already present in the Constitution: pragmatism, flexibility, fairness, the quest for equality and for justice. Whether his particular suggestions are the best ones to achieve a more perfect constitution, they are commendably thoughtful and well articulated.
Maybe, eventually, a constitutional convention will be needed to get the American experiment back on course. In the meantime, there are more limited actions -- serious campaign finance reform, an amendment to retire the electoral college, weekend voting, instant run-offs, proportional representation -- that will tend to make the system more responsive and accountable. The struggle for reform has just begun. The debate will continue. The road to go is long. A More Perfect Constitution makes a good start.
Source: "23 Proposals to Revitalize the US Constitution," from A More Perfect Constitution: Ideas to Inspire a New Generation by Larry J. Sabato.
Democracy: How do we achieve One Person, One Vote?
The so-called Gang of Six -- three conservative Democrats and three conservative Republicans on the Senate finance committee -- have been struggling for months without much luck to devise a health insurance reform plan acceptable to them all. Together representing less than 3% of the U.S. population, they were selected by the White House to forge the chimerical "bipartisan" reform package that was somehow to gain legitimacy by encompassing the values of the party that lost the last congressional and presidential elections instead of merely reflecting the will of the majority. Why these six conservatives, an equal number of them Republicans despite the outcome of the last election, were picked instead of a full spectrum of democratically chosen representatives is one for the history books, but the result so far is that the Senate has had before it a series of proposals far less extensive than polls indicate is desired by voters.
The harebrained elevation of the Gang of Six to the status of super-senators reflects a bigger problem that confounds and constricts our democracy: the Senate itself is a surpassingly undemocratic institution. Born in 1787 of a necessary compromise between the larger and smaller states, the upper house was created to protect the less populous entities from being overwhelmed in the national legislature by those that had more people. At a time when no one thought of himself as an American, it made sense to protect the political sovereignty of the "state" that did hold a person's allegiance.
The nation and the concept of democracy under which it operates have evolved enormously since then; it is no longer tolerable, let alone necessary, to permit vast differences in the value of the individual franchise. The concept represented by the phrase "one person, one vote" is the accepted measure by which we judge democracy today. By that standard, no institution that allots equal power to .5 million citizens in Wyoming and 36.5 million citizens in California, to take one example, can by any reasonable measure be called democratic. The existence of the Gang of Six is emblematic of the sorts of mischief that follow from stunting democracy.
The most efficient way to deal with the Senate would be to get rid of it. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention originally envisioned a Congress consisting of a single chamber but ran into a wall over representation. Delegates from the larger, more populous states wanted the Virginia Plan, which called for the number of each state's representatives to be based on population. Delegates from smaller states liked the New Jersey plan, under which each state would select an equal number of delegates. Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut proposed a "bicameral" legislature as a compromise; the Congress would have two chambers, one representing the people, the other the states. Now that the impasse that engendered the Senate is long past, the simplest solution would be to revert to the unicameral model.
In a country as conservative as ours, though, it may not be possible make such a seemingly radical change. If we haven't even been able to eliminate a dysfunctional relic like the electoral college, how likely is it that we will throw out the Senate, no matter how profoundly it violates democratic ideals? We ought to do what we can, however, to make the body more democratic. The smallest step would be to remove one senator from the 16 least-populous states and grant an additional senator to the 16 with the most citizens. Under such a plan, California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, New Jersey, Virginia, Washington, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Indiana would have three senators each; Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia, Nebraska, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming would each have one. The other 18 states would continue to have two senators.
Depending how strongly we revere democracy, for most of us this plan wouldn't go nearly far enough, of course. While more fair and equitable than the current arrangement, it would still vastly tilt power toward the inhabitants of small and rural states. If this configuration were adopted, each of those folks in Wyoming would still be worth 32 Californians, although that's a considerable improvement over 72-1; it would take five California senators to Wyoming's one to cut the disproportion in representation to 14-1; and you would need 72 California senators to one from Wyoming to approach the ideal of One Person One Vote.
Simpler just to dump it.
The harebrained elevation of the Gang of Six to the status of super-senators reflects a bigger problem that confounds and constricts our democracy: the Senate itself is a surpassingly undemocratic institution. Born in 1787 of a necessary compromise between the larger and smaller states, the upper house was created to protect the less populous entities from being overwhelmed in the national legislature by those that had more people. At a time when no one thought of himself as an American, it made sense to protect the political sovereignty of the "state" that did hold a person's allegiance.
The nation and the concept of democracy under which it operates have evolved enormously since then; it is no longer tolerable, let alone necessary, to permit vast differences in the value of the individual franchise. The concept represented by the phrase "one person, one vote" is the accepted measure by which we judge democracy today. By that standard, no institution that allots equal power to .5 million citizens in Wyoming and 36.5 million citizens in California, to take one example, can by any reasonable measure be called democratic. The existence of the Gang of Six is emblematic of the sorts of mischief that follow from stunting democracy.
The most efficient way to deal with the Senate would be to get rid of it. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention originally envisioned a Congress consisting of a single chamber but ran into a wall over representation. Delegates from the larger, more populous states wanted the Virginia Plan, which called for the number of each state's representatives to be based on population. Delegates from smaller states liked the New Jersey plan, under which each state would select an equal number of delegates. Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut proposed a "bicameral" legislature as a compromise; the Congress would have two chambers, one representing the people, the other the states. Now that the impasse that engendered the Senate is long past, the simplest solution would be to revert to the unicameral model.
In a country as conservative as ours, though, it may not be possible make such a seemingly radical change. If we haven't even been able to eliminate a dysfunctional relic like the electoral college, how likely is it that we will throw out the Senate, no matter how profoundly it violates democratic ideals? We ought to do what we can, however, to make the body more democratic. The smallest step would be to remove one senator from the 16 least-populous states and grant an additional senator to the 16 with the most citizens. Under such a plan, California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, New Jersey, Virginia, Washington, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Indiana would have three senators each; Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia, Nebraska, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming would each have one. The other 18 states would continue to have two senators.
Depending how strongly we revere democracy, for most of us this plan wouldn't go nearly far enough, of course. While more fair and equitable than the current arrangement, it would still vastly tilt power toward the inhabitants of small and rural states. If this configuration were adopted, each of those folks in Wyoming would still be worth 32 Californians, although that's a considerable improvement over 72-1; it would take five California senators to Wyoming's one to cut the disproportion in representation to 14-1; and you would need 72 California senators to one from Wyoming to approach the ideal of One Person One Vote.
Simpler just to dump it.
Health Care: Democrat feeds the GOP a bitter pill
In his short career in Congress, Florida Democratic freshman Alan Grayson has become one of my political heroes. You remember those pages Republicans kept waving during Pres. Obama's health care address to Congress? Rep. Grayson found out what is in those pages -- the Republican health care plan: "1. Don't get sick. 2. If you do get sick... 3. Die quickly!"
Naturally, the Republicans, who can dish it out but oh so can't take it, started whining and puling, demanding an apology. And they got it:
Grayson, by the way, is the member of Congress who used a little-known parliamentary maneuver called “extension of remarks” to expand the impact of the House's opportunistic bill to defund ACORN (HR 3221) to every contractor who has ever submitted a fraudulent form of any kind to the Government.
House rules allow a short period for members to offer a "legislative history," instructing the courts and the executive branch on how to interpret a law. According to "Thomas," Congress’s website on legislation, Grayson is the only member of Congress to provide such instruction on this bill. His extension of remarks now becomes the official interpretation of what the bill means:
"The purpose of this bill is to cleanse federal contracting and grant-making, completely and permanently. The purpose of this bill is to put an end to the invidious practice of rewarding those who steal taxpayer money by giving them more taxpayer money. The bill imposes, and is intended to impose,
a corporate death penalty on contractors who fall within the scope of its prohibitions," Rep. Grayson wrote in his extension of remarks. So long, Halliburton. Bye bye, Blackwater.
At last, a fighting liberal (just for the fun of it, watch Grayson take on Fed chair Bernanke), a Democrat worth supporting. And you can support him by sending contributions to his office. And you'd better support him, because you can bet the long knives are out for him now.
Naturally, the Republicans, who can dish it out but oh so can't take it, started whining and puling, demanding an apology. And they got it:
Grayson, by the way, is the member of Congress who used a little-known parliamentary maneuver called “extension of remarks” to expand the impact of the House's opportunistic bill to defund ACORN (HR 3221) to every contractor who has ever submitted a fraudulent form of any kind to the Government.
House rules allow a short period for members to offer a "legislative history," instructing the courts and the executive branch on how to interpret a law. According to "Thomas," Congress’s website on legislation, Grayson is the only member of Congress to provide such instruction on this bill. His extension of remarks now becomes the official interpretation of what the bill means:
"The purpose of this bill is to cleanse federal contracting and grant-making, completely and permanently. The purpose of this bill is to put an end to the invidious practice of rewarding those who steal taxpayer money by giving them more taxpayer money. The bill imposes, and is intended to impose,
a corporate death penalty on contractors who fall within the scope of its prohibitions," Rep. Grayson wrote in his extension of remarks. So long, Halliburton. Bye bye, Blackwater.At last, a fighting liberal (just for the fun of it, watch Grayson take on Fed chair Bernanke), a Democrat worth supporting. And you can support him by sending contributions to his office. And you'd better support him, because you can bet the long knives are out for him now.
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