The Simple Plan

  for Congressional Reform

 and Democratic Revitalization

1.  Line Item Votes   Note: not line item VETOS controlled by the executive branch but line item VOTES taken by the legislature.  It doesn’t require a Constitutional Amendment for Congress to do the job we’re paying them to do.  Presently the wheelhouse of democracy, the legislative branch, is the one place in the country (outside of preschool) where tried and true democratic methods are least effectively utilized. Democracy in Congress has been usurped by a biased and corruptible hierarchical autocracy which procedurally denies most citizens their constitutional representation. Individual Line Item Votes as a part of a systematic mechanism to democratize the processes of legislating demands debate and votes on every disputed line of every major piece of legislation that comes before Congress.  It is the job we are paying them to do.

2.  Campaign Finance Reform  Campaign war chests are cesspools of graft and corruption at odds with both electoral fairness and legislative objectivity.  The getting and holding of huge independent caches of private funds by public employees - deriving directly from their employment but resting outside their employers’ control - is clearly inimical to the public good.

The initial promissory acquisition of these funds completely biases and disrupts the day to day legislative processes of government.  Then the expenditure of these same funds totally ruptures the electoral process of democracy by rendering it far less competitive and responsive. The very presence of these funds deters most honest Americans (aware of the ethical and anti-democratic compromises necessary to acquire them) from public office. 

There is no conceivable benefit our democracy receives in giving an incumbent a natural inbred and unassailable financial advantage over any and all challenges to their reelections.  It is not at all in our interests and is in fact undemocratic in the extreme, if only candidates either flush with proceeds from influence peddling or who are wealthy themselves, are able to afford to run for office.  This turns our political system into a rich men and women’s backwater of corruption, inactivity, unaccountability and undeserved privilege.

Revolving campaign war chests and slush funds must be banned.  No employer can accept such behavior from their employees.

3. Elimination of Conflicts of Interest The simplest way to approach this - again requiring no constitutional challenge or amendment - is for elected members of Congress to simply recuse themselves from voting on an issue in which they have any financial interest (read: any vote reinforced with the old green handshake of money, gifts, junkets, payoffs or kickbacks).  Any large concentration of contributions from any organization or business or interest can not be considered to be anything but a bribe.  Bright, clearly distinguishable lines must be drawn (then enforced by law and a much more robust sense of personal integrity) to separate unjust influence peddling from the natural healthy instinct of merely representing the interests of their constituents. 

A clearly defined policy of strict Recusal is hardly novel.  It will only bring our wayward political employees back in line with the common ethics that the rest of us adhere to every day.  Despite their claims that large campaign contributions are not given in exchange for their votes, once a direct quid pro quo between a contribution and a vote is severed, watch the worst abuses of excess campaign finances begin to dry up on their own.

            Briefly: The argument that politicians have a constitutional right to be bribed is an absurdity on its face. Politicians have a right to run or not to run for political office.  Other than that they have no special rights at all. They work for us not we for them.  

The companion concept that the expenditure of money is the equivalent of freedom of speech is similarly unworkable. Money and speech – like any two completely disparate things as, say, fire and ice – are not so much equivalents but opposites and generally mutually exclusive.  Where money may be a lubricant to speech in small doses, in large amounts (accessible to only a few) money is obviously a prime suppressant to free speech and the public’s right to an equal voice in all our affairs.

4. An honest Day’s Work for an Honest Day’s Pay Two day work weeks, long recesses, junkets and long vacations are nauseatingly offensive insults to a hard working public whose taxes pay their salaries and is arrogantly dismissive of the very jobs they were hired to do.  They must earn their pay and stay at work until the job they are hired to do is well done, not just put in time until time for recess comes.  If you don’t want the job don’t take it.

5. Personal, Professional and Institutional Ethics  Any set of laws may be hedged or broken when there is intent to do so.  The glue which will make the six steps of this Simple Plan for reform mutually reinforcing is the sense of ethics which is its foundation.  We need to attract a higher class of people for political life than we currently have.  We need people who actually consider public office a rare privilege and honor, not a cash cow to sate their personal venality or a soapbox for the imposition of eccentric, oppressive or minority views upon us, or a stepping stone for craven pandering in anticipation of some far more lucrative lobbying job awaiting them in the private sector later.  We need people in Washington we can turn our backs on for half an instant without fear of being victimized.  The solution lays less in more regulations than in finding people of higher capability, dedication and character to be our public servants. 

6. Free and Fair Elections  To achieve this, the sine qua non of democracy, free, fair, open and competitive elections, must be reenergized to draw fresh and much better candidates into office.  As our elections have become the least free in the history of the United States, they have, not coincidentally, at the same time become the least fair.  For democracy to function best every seat for national office must be well contested with multiple qualified and capable candidates given a fair and equal chance of success.  Gerrymandering districts by voter or voting bloc rather than geography must be barred outright.  Uniform electoral rules and requirements must be established for elective national office with an aim to encourage (rather than actively discourage) equal access and opportunity, honest debate, alternative candidacies, increased voter trust and participation, new ideas, more responsibility and better ethics.