On the other hand, congressional incumbent reelection is like 90%, which seems odd given that the vast majority of Americans hate every fiber of their being with every fiber of ours.
This queer arithmetic is of course the result of our election process, such as it is. People who loathe an incumbent (read: practically everybody) lie outside the Venn diagram of the people responsible for electing them (read: the 15% of constituents who bother to vote). As such, it's not difficult to renew your contract on America: you need only bribe the people back home with porks.
On the face of it, there's nothing wrong with this. A congressperson's first obligation is to their state or district. Opinions elsewhere don't matter. Nobody in Grundle county gives a hoot what them city slickers have to say about Votey McVoteface, 'cause ole Votey is bringing back the coal mining jobs and making sure the wimmen and nigras lern their place because guns. Conversely, nary a constituent in Upper Chardonnay offers one fig whether the wall-eared flapjacks residing outside their groomed enclaves disapprove of Reginald T. Legislator, Esq. championing quadgender inclusiveness and forcing churches to purchase bibles written in Esperanto by Chinese lesbians, and if so they may place it right in their bottoms.
You ain't the boss of my congressperson, is what I'm sayin'. It's in the Constitution, somewhere, though I'd bet not one in a million Americans could name the chapter and verse. No matter. We have bigger fish to batter this fine day.
The trouble is incumbency accrues influence, and absolute incumbency accrues absolute influence. When that influence begins to spill over into the district or state next door -- or even the country and world at large -- then we have a problem I call the runaway congressperson (RC). Like a train without brakes, like a rose without thorns, like a cherry without a stone, there is no mechanism to check the damage an RC does. The vast polity they roughshod have no power to remove them from office. As long as an RC keeps their own voters steeped in smug smirking self-superiority, the rest of us live perpetually at their mercy.
Allow me to provide an illustrative example of the runaway congressperson. Two, in fact. I have chosen one from each side of the aisle so I might convince the cynics joining us that I am not grinding a partisan axe but rather am speaking to a higher purpose of civic-mindedness. (To be honest, I quite suspect my attempt at evenhandedness is simply going to anger all dogs in this fight rather than only half of them. Let's press onward anyway.)
First, from the red column, consider Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe.
He of the this-is-a-snowball-ergo-your-physics-is-invalid fame, Senator Inhofe has made it his personal crusade to ensure the United States will never lift a finger, lend a hand, enact a policy, or pass a law that in any way, shape, or form might recognize or address the unpleasantness climate scientists assure us is on its way. Ever. This despite having no training in chemistry, or meteorology, or computational fluid mechanics, or much of anything beyond a half million dollars in campaign contributions from the oil & gas lobby. Coincidence? Who can say.
Prima facie, we can't fault the senator for his behavior. He hails from Oklahoma, a state that is beholden to the fossil fuel industry in every conceivable way, and the fossil fuel industry stands much to lose were the country to embrace non-fossil fuel anything. The problem is that Mr. Inhofe is not one voice in the climate change debate; he is the only voice. By controlling the congressional Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, he has decided, all by his lonesome, that no action will be taken. If Mr. Inhofe is wrong -- and all credible evidence indicates that he is -- people will die. It's that simple. Some of the dead will hail from Oklahoma, but most will previously reside elsewhere. Those of you with a thirst for vengeance might feel residents of Oklahoma deserve their fate -- they had many opportunities to recall Senator Inhofe and chose not to. However, the rest of us did not and do not.
Next, from the blue column, consider California Representative Nancy Pelosi.
The liberal's liberal --- guns, abortion, school prayer, gays in the military, immigration -- you name it and Ms. Pelosi's position on the issue will surely raise the hackles of every redneck sumbitch from Portland to San Diego and the other Portland to Miami. Furthermore, she's perfectly willing to make every one of us toil under the yoke of her San Francisco worldview, and there's not thing one any of us can do to stop her. Her seat is for all practical purposes unassailable: Democrats have controlled the California 12th since 1949. Ms. Pelosi may believe her logics unimpeachable and her motives noble, but many of her policies would arguably cause great harm were they to become the law of the land en bloc. The residents of San Francisco may deserve such a fate -- they had many opportunities to recall Representative Pelosi and chose not to. However, the rest of us did not and do not.
What we have here is a loophole, and loopholes exist to be closed.
Those of you wondering what any of this has to do with an ostraka are probably in the first place wondering what an ostraka is. The word is Greek for "pottery shard" and took on special significance in ancient Athens. Although the Athenians get blamed for inventing this thing we call democracy, closer to the truth is Athenian democracy was less a functional system of government and more the legislative equivalent of a rugby scrum. Athens could barely keep its great ship of state upright, let alone pointed into the wind and to say nothing of Bristol fashion.
This instability generated what we might call creative experimentation within Athenian democracy, usually concluding with less-than-stellar results. Reformer after well-intentioned reformer would tap out, exhausted and exasperated, and trod back to the sidelines to watch the demos devour the next poor bastard dumb enough to take on the mob and, not infrequently, each other.
But then, just as all seemed lost, the house lights dim and into the ring steps Cleisthenes. Father of Athenian Democracy. The Alcmaeonid Curse. The Purest Jurist. The Rollin' Solon. Cleisthenes is not in the mood for any of your guff. He institutes a number of new policies, the most creative (and arguably the most effective) being the practice of ostracism. Put simply, if a politico was causing grief for Athens, rather than waiting for them to get un-elected, Athenians could simply choose to throw their sorry ass out. Out of office, out of Athens, perhaps out of Greece itself depending on circumstances.
Boom! You. Are. Banished. Good luck finding new digs. To the east is Persia, who Athens is currently fighting a war with. To the south is Sparta, who Athens is about to fight a war with. To the north are the Macedonians, who are currently waiting for little Alexander to grow into his armor so they can sweep Athens off the map. And to the west is Rome, who will be dropping by later to bounce the rubble (if you thought Leonidas had a stink-eye for Athenians, you're gonna love Cato the Elder). Location, location, location, as they say in the Reality biz (in either sense of the word) and you gots none. Shoudda thought about that before stirring up the hornet's nest.
But why pottery shard? Because ostracism was decided vis-a-vis broken pottery. The guy who got the most pieces during an election won. Or lost, as it were. And now you know.
I suspect you see where this is headed. I say it's time, we, too, bring our political troublemakers to heel. Taking a page from Cleisthenes, I propose America institute its own version of the ostraka.
Here's how it would work: From now on, when you step into the booth, you still get to vote for whichever
If a congressperson gets more than 50% of the ostraka votes in any given election, then, boom! Ostracized. They are removed from Congress, a special election is held to refill his or her seat, and that person is barred from holding public office, anywhere, ever again. I can go either way on banishment. Unfortunately, banishment isn't the cure-all it once was (cf. Napoleon). On the other hand, there would be some gleeful closure watching James Inhofe explain himself to an angry polar bear or Nancy Pelosi attempt to negotiate an assault weapons ban with a Sudanese warlord. We could put it on pay-per-view. Your call.
It is no coincidence Athens' Golden Age arrived soon after instituting the ostraka (okay, it might be a coincidence, but I'm trying to wrap this up so let's assume not). And if making America great again is to be anything except an empty catchphrase, we need real actual reform. A changing of the rules, and of the guard. We all know which guards need changing. It's time we stop letting them hide behind their constituent's skirts. Some people simply can't be reasoned with; some parts of the system are simply too broken to be repaired. Like a rotten tooth, they need to get got. That's what the ostraka will do.
Not to mention the opportunity to whack a congressperson would probably triple voter turnout. As R.F. Laird observed, the defining characteristic of the American psyche is revenge.
No comments:
Post a Comment