"What your Congressman won't tell you"


The things they don't want you to know
Read this from Brigid McMenamin at SmartMoney.com.

1. "I can't lose."
This year 404 members of the U.S. House of Representatives are standing for reelection. For most it's a formality: On average, more than 90% of House incumbents win, according to a 2005 report by the Cato Institute.

What's behind the incumbency advantage? Campaign financing, for one thing. We taxpayers pick up the tab for incumbents' regular offices, staff, publicity, travel and mailings, so they needn't raise as much money to run. Challengers, on the other hand, must come up with a fortune — and do so in dribs and drabs since Congress caps individual contributions at $2,000.

But the biggest factor is partisan gerrymandering. Since the Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that states must ensure each congressman represents the same number of constituents, the process of redistricting after every census has been aggressively used by state party bosses to protect their incumbents. "Because of gerrymandering, almost 90% of Americans live in congressional districts where the outcome is so certain that their votes are irrelevant," concludes the Cato report. And it's bound to get worse: In June the Court ruled states can redraw congressional districts as often as they please.

2. "I'm above the law."
Some people were dismayed last spring when Capitol Police didn't give a sobriety test to Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) after he rammed a Capitol Hill security barrier late one night and emerged from his Mustang "impaired," with "unsure" balance and "slurred" speech, according to the police report. Georgetown University law professor Paul F. Rothstein wasn't surprised: "They always give [congressmen] a pass."

Why? Inside Congress author Ronald Kessler says that historically, most officers have operated under the mistaken impression that the Constitution prohibits arresting or even ticketing congressmen while Congress is in session. The belief was so prevalent that the Justice Department issued a statement in 1976 explaining the "previous policy of releasing members who had been arrested was based on a misunderstanding of the clause in the U.S. Constitution," which forbids only civil arrest, not arrest for a crime.

Nonetheless, Capitol Police still coddle and avoid arresting members of Congress. For one thing, protecting congressmen is part of their mission. For another, Congress controls their budget — including top cops' salaries.

3. "Read the bills I vote on? Who's got that kind of time?"
In a perfect world, our legislators would vote on each bill based on thorough, firsthand analysis. But that's not how it works in Washington. Most congressmen don't actually read bills, relying instead on impressions gleaned from staff and lobbyists. And in many cases, they couldn't read them if they wanted to: The 700-plus-page Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 2005, for example, surfaced after 1 a.m. and went to vote early the next morning. "That's the way it's done," Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Conn.) told the Hartford Courant in January.

Result: Congressmen seldom know exactly what they're voting on. Take the 1,600-page Appropriations Bill in 2004 that had already made it through the House before it was discovered that a staffer had slipped in a provision permitting his committee to browse any tax return filed with the IRS.
There have been some attempts to get Congress to change its ways. In February, for example, D.C. nonprofit ReadtheBill.org persuaded some reps to introduce a resolution requiring the House to post each bill online for 72 hours before even debating it. But that resolution has been languishing in the Rules Committee ever since.

We need "None Of the Above" to be included on every single ballot. It's the only way to break the false choice that the two major parties offer.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Wed - October 11, 2006 at 04:59 AM  Tag


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