Equal Opportunity and Congressional Membership

One thing that always confounded me was how Congressional members always seem to get re-elected even though as a group, America does not think very highly of the group. In a December, 2009 Gallup poll, only 25% of respondents approved of the job Congress was doing, implying that three out of four Americans do not think Congress is dong a satisfactory job. In a Rasmussen poll in 2008, 59% of the respondents said that would vote to throw out all sitting members of Congress if given the opportunity while only 23% said they thought the current Congress could solve the issues facing the nation.

Dan Gilgoff, writing for US News And World Report in May, 2006, cited the following statistics in his article, "A Fake Democracy":

• In 2004, 98% of incumbents won their elections.
• Less than 8% of the Congressional elections in 2004 were competitive, i.e. the final results for the losers and winners were within a few percentage points of each other.
• In 2004, incumbent candidates received 83% of the money donated to all campaigns.

Thus, it is pretty obvious that no one likes Congress but Congressional members always seem to get re-elected. Why is that? I have a few theories, some of which Mr. Gilgoff explored in his article:

• Congressional redistricting has become more and more precise in targeting and configuring geographic areas to favor incumbents. As an example, the political class in New Jersey has configured that state so that it would be almost impossible for the Democrats not to have seven House seats and Republicans to have six House seats. District 5 in New Jersey starts in the far northeast corner of the state, runs along the top of the state, makes a left turn at the upper most northwest corner of the state and heads down the western border for about a third of the state's length, a classic boomerang shape. The political class wanted a Republican district and this was a contorted way of getting it. The Democratic districts in the state are also contorted configurations to ensure that incumbents will have a strong base and minimizing any challenges to their Congressional seat.
• As we have reviewed in previous posts, the number of individual earmarks and pork projects in each Federal budget has grown from just over a 1,000 a few years ago to over 10,000 in the latest budget bills. This growth has happened despite the Obama campaign pledge to get back to the 1,000 level. Earmarks allow incumbents to spend tax dollars on wasteful local projects that should be funded by the state or local government entities. The incumbents can then highlight how much money they stole from other states' citizens and directed to their own districts or states. While the country suffers by expending resources on silly local projects, sitting politicians can brag about how great they are by "bringing home the bacon." The implication to voters is if they were not re-elected, that flow of money would stop.
• Last week we talked about a report on how 60% of the House members on the Armed Forces Appropriations Committee received campaign contributions directly from companies who were granted Defense Department earmarks directly by those House members. Basically, significant campaign contributions can be bought by sitting politicians by inefficiently spending taxpayer dollars on wasteful projects.

Thus, once elected to office, the incumbents can control the reelection process by controlling the redistricting process, spending untold billions on wasteful local projects, and buying campaign contributions by directing taxpayer money to friendly companies, who in turn get to do unnecessary work but who contribute heavily to ensure the incumbents are reelected.

As a result of these shenanigans, we get a poorly performing Congress that wastes billions of dollars and resources on creating the earmarks and pork, and which block fresh blood and ideas from getting into the decision making process. Consider the following Congressional profile information (sources: U.S./ Census and www.thisnation.com):

• While 66% of the nation is Caucasian, 83% of the House and 81% of the Senate is Caucasian.
• While 14% of the nation is African-American, only 10% of the House and 1% of the Senate is African-American.
• While 15% of the nation is Hispanic, only 6% of the House and 2% of the Senate is Hispanic.
• While just less than half of the nation is male, about 83% of both the House and the Senate are male. Furthermore, 100% of the longest serving members of Congress are male. All of the longest serving Congressional members have served for at least 37 years.

Now, this is not to say that a Caucasian male could not adequately represent a Hispanic Congressional district for example. However, the current makeup of Congress suggests that we may not have a representative government at all. Could it be that by rigging districts, controlling taxpayer dollars, generating thousands of earmarks, etc., that we have a Congress that is now atrophying and is devoid of solutions? We seem to think so, as measured by the polls, but are not able to make the changes necessary to inject new blood into the political process.

"Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would help break up this atrophy with the following steps:

• Step 6 - allow only individual Americans to contribute to election campaigns, barring companies, unions, PACs, lobbyists and all other non-individual entities from contributing.
• Step 8 - Strengthen and change the structure of the Federal Elections Commission to ensure that Step 6 and other election laws are strictly enforced.
• Step 14 - stop reconfiguring Congressional districts to almost guarantee the reelection of incumbents.
• Step 34 - remove Congressional members from committee and subcommittee posts for malfunctioning parts of government that those committees and subcommittees are responsible for.
• Step 39 - institute term limits for House and Senate members. If the President, the most important political figure in the country (and world) has term limits, than the less important Congressional seats should also have term limits.
• Step 45 - hold Congress to the same laws, principles, penalties and fines as the rest of the country as it pertains to equal opportunity, affirmative action and representation in the workplace, namely the floor of Congress.

Until we enact some or all of these steps, we will be saddled with a low performing, atrophied Congress who we despise but which we cannot get rid of.

Visit our website at www.loathemygovernment.com to order an autographed copy of the book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government -Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom and Destroying The American Political Class" and to sign up for the cause. The book is also available online at Amazon and Barnes And Noble.

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