More Hints of a Dysfunctional Federal Government, (Part 2) 7-29-2010

[Continued from More Hints of a Dysfunctional Federal Government, (Part 1) 7-29-2010. sch 2/22/23]

About the rules defeating legislation and allowing for factions, this feels like the place to mention a Truth-in-Legislation constitutional amendment. A New York Times editorial for July 29, 2010 (“Keeping Politics in the Shadows”) describes the legislative process that would be changed with such an amendment:

Supporters of the Disclose Act did not help themselves by adding several extrneous provisions that gave Republicans additional excuses for voiting no. In a bill that was supposed to be about disclosure, there was no need to prohibit independent expenditures by sme government contractors, or recipients of Troubled Asset Recovery Program funds, or oil drillers...

 [I almost omitted this quote as I can no longer see its relevance. Oh well, this was how my brain worked in 2010, and that is the other reason for posting this journal. sch 2/22/23] 

The current federal legislative amendment process encourages game-playing at the expense of the public good. I call that dysfunctional government. I suspect most will agree with me on that point.

When have legislators enjoyed making hard choices? I doubt they have ever enjoyed doing so, but they seem less keen to do so the last 30 or 40 years of my life.

I see the politicians as having outflanked the Constitution. Term limits will reduce the fear of a hard vote as ending a political career. Proportional representation might also help (although I think may more directly rein in the virulence of partisanship.) Alexander Hamilton argued in Federalist 72 against term limits:

One ill effect of the exclusion would be a diminution of the inducements to good behavior. There are few men who would not feel much less zeal in the discharge of a duty when they were conscious that the advantages of the station with which it was connected must be relinquished at a determinate period, than when they were permitted to entertain a hope of OBTAINING, by MERITING, a continuance of them. This position will not be disputed so long as it is admitted that the desire of reward is one of the strongest incentives of human conduct; or that the best security for the fidelity of mankind is to make their interests coincide with their duty. Even the love of fame, the ruling passion of the noblest minds, which would prompt a man to plan and undertake extensive and arduous enterprises for the public benefit, requiring considerable time to mature and perfect them, if he could flatter himself with the prospect of being allowed to finish what he had begun, would, on the contrary, deter him from the undertaking, when he foresaw that he must quit the scene before he could accomplish the work, and must commit that, together with his own reputation, to hands which might be unequal or unfriendly to the task. The most to be expected from the generality of men, in such a situation, is the negative merit of not doing harm, instead of the positive merit of doing good.

I think his argument has no merit to our modern Congress. As for time and doing good, I suspect we all would like having those qualities in a legislator. Adjust the time of limitation rather ban term limits outright.

Where do we stand when the majority of Americans and a branch of our federal government think Congress malfunctions? Nothing good, I am afraid… I recognize my incarceration adds a distraction to my argument, but damn it I could emerge from prison in 12 years, and if so I will be an American citizen. I cannot completely ignore these issues.

I do not think the solutions need to be drastic, but change must come. As I point out in more than one piece here, a violent revolution must not occur here. At the most drastic, the country needs a constitutional convention. I think a term limits and a Truth-in-Legislation amendment will correct our Congressional problems. The real task lies with the people: who will push Congress to heal itself?

sch