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How to Turn Congress Inc. Back to Just Congress
What is the biggest scandal of 2010 so far?
Allegations of fraudulent misrepresentation from Goldman Sachs? An oil spill that poses a threat to our environment and economy for generations? Mining operators freely ignoring safety violations and treating workers as disposable?
Each of these is bad. But perhaps the biggest political scandal is the one that aids and abets these others -- the pay-to-play system that buys up Congress, pollutes our political system with special-interest cash and deep-sixes the kind of bold reform agenda that we voted for and need.
The health-care industry has contributed more than $200 million to congressional candidates in the 2008 and 2010 election cycles, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Is it any wonder that there was no public option in the final bill, or that Medicare isn't able to negotiate lower drug prices for seniors the same way the Veterans Administration does for veterans?
Big banks and Wall Street financial firms spent more than $500 million since the beginning of 2009 on lobbying and campaign contributions, the center reports. In just the first quarter of 2010, the finance, insurance and real estate sectors spent more than $123 million on 2,057 lobbyists. Any bets on whether the final financial reform bill will create the kind of robust, independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency that would serve as a watchdog with teeth?
Big oil and gas spent nearly $170 million lobbying in 2009 -- nearly $1 billion in the past 12 years -- and has given more than $140 million to members of Congress in the past 20 years. Is it any surprise that we've seen so many exemptions from environmental studies for oil-exploration plans? Or that the climate bill is stalled and insufficient to confront the global warming crisis?
It is clear that the kind of strong reforms we urgently need won't be achieved simply by electing a new president or new members of Congress. Despite the voters' mandate for change, the underlying problem of Washington -- what author and Washington Post reporter Robert Kaiser calls "so damn much money" -- remains unaltered and is in many ways more powerful than even before. In the wake of the Supreme Court's recent Citizens United decision -- which awarded corporations the rights of citizens when it comes to electioneering, allowing them to use their coffers to manipulate political discourse -- the prospect of a Congress "brought to you by (insert corporate sponsor here)" has only grown.
Americans must fight back with legislation that will help organized people defeat organized money. I'm not speaking of the Disclose Act -- a good response to Citizens United that would make corporate campaign funding more transparent. Democratic leaders must recognize that such efforts are mere triage and fail to get to the heart of the money problem in Washington. Congress should also pass the Fair Elections Now Act.
This legislation would sever ties between big-money campaign contributors and members of Congress, who, in the Senate, must raise an average of $27,000 every week they are in office in order to run competitive races. The bill would bar participating congressional candidates from accepting contributions larger than $100 and allow them to run honest campaigns with a blend of small donations and public matching funds.
Sponsored by Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin and Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), the bill has 18 Senate co-sponsors (12 of whom signed on since the Citizens United decision) and 149 bipartisan cosponsors in the House. Activists are hopeful there will be a House vote as soon as this summer, and Durbin reportedly will push for the Senate to take it up after the House does.
Fighting for this bill is good policy and good politics. A recent Greenberg/Mark McKinnon poll found that voters support the Fair Elections Now Act by a 2-1 margin, 62 percent to 31 percent. Independents support it 67 percent to 30 percent. Is there a candidate in the country who wouldn't gain votes by saying, "I want a political system in which someone who doesn't take more than $100 from anybody can run a competitive race for Congress. I want a political process that makes Congress listen to their constituents and allows them to ignore the lobbyists with fat checks in hand"?
It was a Republican president, Teddy Roosevelt, who had it right when he told Congress, "All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law." He was so worried about the power of the trusts that he called for public financing of elections. More than 100 years later we can take a desperately needed step to protect the public interest and clean up our politics by passing this legislation.
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92 Comments so far
Show AllThe American people must take back congress and legislation from corporate money/influence. We need democracy not oligarchy.
The American people must take back congress and legislation from corporate money/influence. We need democracy not oligarchy.
Isn't that a little like saying that the solution to cancer is to get rid of that damn cancer? Corporate interests have seized power, which means that they have seized our power to get that power back. One is reminded of the old cartoon of two wretches chained hand and foot to the wall of a dungeon with the caption "Now here's my plan..."
Of course I will pressure my congressmen (Kyl and McCain) to vote for Fair Elections Now. But consider the absurdity of such a strategy, the absolute futility. The power of the people is a row of red white and blue ballot boxes stuck to the wall of our community centers with suction cups. They are no longer (if ever) connected to the machinery of government. The Merkinpipple confined to legal avenues of influence are simply no longer a problem to Congress Inc. The very meaning of Congress Inc. is that it is already a wholly owned private oligarchy. Do we have a viable plan for getting our own people on the board of Morgan Chase or Exxon Petroleum? Nope.
As a useless cynic I have no solution to offer. The Merkinpipple have been able to influence government in one notable way: as a huge, surly mob jamming Pennsylvania Avenue, worrying White House security guards and making the administration cowering inside fearful for their physical safety, as occurred in 1969. In order to create that much passion and gather that many people things have to be really really awful in a palpable way that is personally painful to everybody. We aren't quite there yet today, but one can always hope.
My dead ex-brother in law was Assistant Attorney General at the time, and I have it from the horse's mouth that everyone in that besieged enclave was scared shitless, so I do believe in the legislative efficacy of a mob of 250,000 pissed off merkinpipples. So here's my plan. Wait till our beaches become a greasy bathtub ring and gas is $20 a gallon. Wait until every family has lost a son or daughter to one or another "insurgency." Wait until our cities are rotted out from the center and people are stealing bread and local constabularies are rolling out crowd control technologies. Then let nature take its course. What we resist persists. Always go in the direction of the horse you're riding. We're likely to end up in an even worse scenario, but that's the danger of real movement.
I think we should change the campaign rules: Campaigns can last no longer than 6 weeks, such as they do in England. That would solve the problem of how much money is poured into politics. 6 weeks; wham, bam thank you ma'am and it's over. Then they can get to the job of running the country instead of always raising money to run their campaigns.
Six weeks is all they get in Canada too AND we still use a pencil & paper and have all the votes counted in ONE day. Members of Parliament can request a vote of "No Confidence" in the current administration. This results in an election being called immediately. It's like having the right to recall a government that is not serving the best interests of the people. (Imagine that?)
Why does the US need electoral votes? That seems counter productive & ripe for corruption.
The biggest difference is parliamentary government with day-to-day accountability for the chief executive and his ministers rather than a "unitary executive" combining head-of-state, head-of-government and commander-in-chief authorities in a single imperial office with life and death powers that would make "the divine right of kings" envious.
But that certainly doesn't make Canada immune from the corporate takeover disease, as I'm sure you know all too well. And "first past the post" electoral practices don't help either. Proportional representation might provide some improvement.
You silly Canadian. If God wanted that type of system she would have made Canada the greatest country ever. She didn't, she picked USA, USA, USA. Get over it!
Heh heh! Just wait 'til she pumps out all of her off-shore oil into the Gulf of Mexico and dries up all of her water below the Great Lakes. :^)
Hahahahaha!!! Too funny.
If SHE had picked the USA, the USA wouldn't be so screwed up.
Get over yourself! Your country is hooped.
If you believe and want change don't just wish -- do something. Join Fair Elections Now Act. Click on the link in Katrina's article. People power is action!
I agree with the $100 contribution limit from any individual, group, or corporation. We need free airtime from local radio and television stations for candidates to debate the issues for all local elections. We need free airtime on all outlets for Presidential election debates. We need limits on how much any candidate can spend during their campaign, even if spending their own money.
We also need to look at monies provided to U.S. Senate and House candidates from states other than their own. Usually big money from outside their home state indicates they are bought and paid for by special interest groups. Keep local elections local.
Absent new laws that prohibit or at least restrict corporate gazillions being stuffed into the pockets of candidates and incumbents, we are screwed.
But, who really thinks that the current Senators and Representatives are going to write and enact legislation that will cause them to be thrown off the proverbial gravy-train that we call Congress??!!??
And, who really thinks the corporate-controlled, right-leaning Supreme Court will ever find for the People in matters concerning the best interests of the moneyed interests??!!
We have moved from semi-democracy to corpora-fascism over the past couple decades, and reclaiming our rights is going to require a long, hard fight.
Publicly financed, six-week campaign - and one term only! Social Security credit toward eventual retirement from the career of choice.
Google: "Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacicic Railroad" to see where we went terribly wrong.
This article and the comments so far illustrate the stunning disconnect which exists in the minds of so-called Progressives. The first half of the article points out that our Congress is the sole subsidiary of corporate interests. Then the author suggests we "fight back with legislation." Which corporation does she think will put up the money to buy such legislation? Until we are ready to disengage from this corrupt system and take to the streets to instigate the necessary non-violent social revolution which brings about its demise, all this talk about change is pure fiction.
It would seem highly unlikely that USA Incorporated, having achieved (inter alia) sponsoring ownership rights in the legislative apparatus of U.S. governance, would willingly allow that purchased apparatus to enact legislation abrogating those rights awarded by judicial fiat and backed by all the other corporate subsidiaries.
The necessity for some kind of hostile takeover as an essential prerequisite would appear to be almost self-evident to the meanest intelligence. But possession of even that level of intelligence (and/or the requisite intestinal fortitude) by "progressives" en masse is an open question at best.
In fact, one can't help wondering, at times, whether any such takeover would really result in a significant improvement. To be honest, my faith in "government of the people, by the people, for the people" is waning rapidly.
jmowrey and RV, your diagnosis of the problem is right on: you can't expect a legislature, a Congress or even a referendum election to enact legislation that will translate corporate-Congress into just-Congress. Your remedy---the one advanced by jmowery and seemingly accepted as an ideal if unlikely solution by RV--is questionable at best. Before we the people "take to the street" to demand a government of, by and for the people, there's another remedy---a very difficult one but not more and probably less so than the "legislation versus the streets" alternatives posed here. This is to use the electoral process itself, so money-contaminated as it is, to claim popular sovereignty by a devaluation of the power of money to buy votes in those elections. The Green Party, for one example, disdains corporate campaign funding even where it is legal and, without necessarily endorsing GP candidates (who will be out in surprising numbers in the November elections), their idea is the right one IF (big if) the people are willing to throw off their shackling to the idea that they have to choose their government officials from the alternatives offered them by two corporate-dominated parties. This "de-valuing" of campaign money process is advocated and explained in any article that you might find enlightening: http://sunstateactivist.org/ssablog/?p=455 As the author says, we can "curse the darkness" of corporate domination of our elections, or we can illuminate candles of resistance to this dominance by finding ways to campaign "smartly" by candidates "running against the money" and with the anti-plutocratic sentiments of most American voters. Is it worth a try? (Big try).
Well, "some kind of hostile takeover" doesn't necessarily imply violent takeover. (I deliberately used the terminology of corporate capitalism itself.) But it sure as hell does mean something more than pleading with non-representative representatives to please give up their places at the trough.
I've said in the past that depriving the Republicrat corporatists of their claim to democratic legitimacy might be a place to start. If you see a likely "non-revolutionary" way to do that, go for it. You'll forgive me if I remain somewhat skeptical at the moment.
RV: you're certainly entitled to your skepticism as I am about the "revolutionary" path to popular sovereignty. As for the "way to do" requested, a whole new enterprise called Campaign Corner has been opened, with the cooperation of many "progressive populist" campaigners across the country, and the "Corner" is dedicated to a "way to do" SUCCESSFUL political campaigning with a populist campaigning technology. It would be very helpful to the people who frequent the Corner's interactive "lounge" if you would go there and express this skepticism for the benefit of the very people who are trying so hard to prove your skepticism misplaced, and doing so by the very example of their own campaigns, not by the kind of rhetorical skirmishes in which we engage in Common Dreams comments.
http://sunstateactivist.org/campaigncorner/?page_id=57
I understand. It's a campaign and you want to keep it "on message." My sincere best wishes, but I'm afraid I couldn't and wouldn't be much help in that context.
This sounds counter-intuitive. It's like going to war without guns.
voxclmatis: So was passive resistance counter-intuitive. Thing about intuition though, the technique worked in India, South Africa, U.S. south in all which the resisters "went to war without guns," disarming their enemies by refusing to try to match their superior fire power, putting "conscience" on their sides. If I didn't think populist (cheap) campaigning would work, I wouldn't be promoting it. I'm not big on futile gestures or even "symbolic victories."
I've posted this elsewhere, but I'll repeat it here:
How about a new "Fairness Doctrine"? Allow unlimited spending on political ads and broadcasts, *but* require television and other public airwave media to balance those with equal time for opposing viewpoints costing *only whatever the opposition groups can afford*, i.e., free if necessary. The media will quickly realize that if they take on a lot of programming by big spenders, they're going to have to cut their profits by hosting cheaper opposition broadcasts. The media may limit overall political programming themselves because of reduced revenue prospects, and the results should be in better balance.
This can be made broad enough to protect the interests of smaller splinter parties as well as the two big political parties. Public financing of campaigns may not be as protective of smaller parties.
Jesus Nation, read your own article before you print it.
TR said ANY contributions from corporations will be problematic for America. As soon as you say $100, the corps will find a way to make that millions.
100% Public Financed Elections today, tomorrow, and forever.
No contributions to any political campaign ever by anyone, period! That is the only way to ensure a congress of K-street free thievery.
One of the Presidents I most admire is Progressive Teddy Roosvelt. Even though he was Republican he was a Progressive. He was a great man.
I agree with you that we need to take all corporate money out of the political process. I agree once you say they can give $100 dollars they will find a way to make their influence felt by finding every single loop hole to break the Law.
Public funding 100% and the media since the airways belong to the people must give all candidates free and equal air time to get their message out as a public service. Open up the debate and have real debates between all candidates regardless of party and political view. Let the American people be able to vote with knowledge and not be dumbed down to basing their vote on soundbites, campaign slogans, corporate paid commericals, and these fake debate and town hall meetings that are pre screened, questions given to the people to be asked, and excluding candidates of the people so that the only voice one gets to hear is the corporate candidates playing their usual horse and pony show. People have valid anger!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Will we the people have the courage to do what is needed to kick the large corporations out? Once people have power they don’t give it up easily without a fight. Do we have the guts to vote out every sitting Senator and Congressman who has taken corporate money and have sold themselves and this country down the river? Do we have the guts to stand up and vote for third party candidates and not the corrupted two party candidates who do as they are told and not what they feel is morally right?
he stood up to the trusts but never saw a war he didn't love......
he was a big game hunter, an admirer of Montana vigilantism, a racist proponent of the Indian Wars and a precursor of American global vigilantism. There are some things to admire about TR, but he was not a great man in my book.
Thr right to petition our gov't shouldn't come with the need to have checkbook in hand. Unfortunately, as we see with the news about the lowest Fed. tax rates since the 50's, Americans don't want to pay for anything. The want a Wal-Mart gov't. That is why it is very ironic that most of the stuff in Wal-Mart is made in China and they are holding a lot of our (bad) debt. We are getting exactly what we are willing to pay for. Public Financing of elections with, say $ 100 dollars per individual, wouldn't be too much to ask from our yearly paychecks if it ensured fair and open elections. Coupled with free air time from our media, say 60 hours per cycle, and grass roots campaigning by earnest individuals and parties would give us much better legislators and a smaller, more efficient electoral system and gov't. In America people pay attention when they are paying for something; very close attention. Will reform happen? Are you kidding? The Corporations will spend whatever it takes to ensure it won't. Just watch if don't believe me. He who has the gold makes the rules in our country has never been disputed by either party. As Getty said so long ago , " The poor may inherit the world but not its' natural resources. " Government is the best resource for more wealth for the rich ever invented.
"Americans must fight back with legislation that will help organized people defeat organized money."
Since when did it become the responsibility of the American people to create legislation and why should we pay taxes to do the job of Congress?
"What is the biggest scandal of 2010 so far?"
Can't we just add them all up and prepare to HUFF, PUFF, AND VOTE THEM ALL OUT ?
Our congress can't pass universal health care, or anything close to it. There is one politician who has just promised universal health care within three years.
Oh, but wait, that's the newly elected president of the Philippines talking today about his mandate for his country. I wish the best of success to Noynoy in accomplishing what the government of the USA couldn't do for we the people. I am glad that perhaps some portion of the almost $140 billion in grant aid the US government gives the Philippines can go to improve the health of somebody even if we can't get it for Americans.
if we survive our current 'phase', it will be in spite of Congress, not via Congress...
they're doing it to us...replacing them accomplishes no more than replacing any cog...the machine rolls on...
screw you katrina!
the biggest scandal is the bait and switch of "change we can believe in"
into the "same old same old" killing machine....
and those words probably make ME a terrorist in the eyes of eric holder.....and then there go MY constitutional protections....
and so much for the change the 1st black AG was going to bring.....
Katrina, which planet do you live on?
"Americans must fight back with legislation that will help organized people defeat organized money."
How many "Americans" Katrina were opposed to the rapacious "Troubled Assets Relief Program" (TARP) bailout? How many? Theme from Jeopardy
And what happened Katrina? Yeah! That's right, the banksters got their loot didn't they. And the proles? They lived happily ever after.
Now go and tap your shoes three times and perhaps the good witch from the North can wave her magic wand, and these pernicious bastards who lurk behind the curtains will disapear.
Public financing of ALL elections is the only way that we will ever stand a chance of having anything near a fair country.
Here is my proposal.
1) Do away with the idea of corporate personhood. Corporations are NOT humans, they are artificial constructs invented to limit the liability of those in charge while maximizing profits. They are not humans, and until they can get a cold or need an appendix operation, they will never be.
2) All elections must be publicly funded, with NO private money allowed at all. Each candidate gets a certain amount per election, and no more. No candidate can use their own money, their family's money, any friend's money, no corporate money, no private money period. Anyone found breaking this regulation would be removed from the election and do jail time, as would the giver of that money.
3) A certain amount of air time would be allotted to each candidate and provided as a public service and a provision of the license they get to broadcast. We USED to expect something back for that license to print money, it's time we do so again.
4) No electronic devices are to be used to count the votes, regardless of whether the source code is available or not. It's too easy to infect computers with code that tells it to print out one thing while saving another set of data to the internal memory. And since the heads of the machine companies have come out and essentially bragged about how they were gong to deliver elections to who they want, they cannot be trusted to be honest.
A candidate's ability to live within this framework would tell you a LOT about how they will deal with the office. If they run out of money early due to bad spending choices, that tells you it's someone you don't want running things. If they don't spend it wisely enough to get their message out, then they wouldn't really be an effective leader. And most importantly of all, they wouldn't be beholden to anyone but their own ideas, and when they get up in a debate, or even on their own commercials, they can actually be honest.
You wouldn't have gov't officials having to whore themselves out every day to make their $40,000 for that day just to get reelected. They could actually do the job they were sent there to do and do so without the financial sword of Damacles hanging over their heads.
See, you can have a system of honest elections with only 4 points. It doesn't have to be difficult, complicated or challenging. Keep it simple, and it's FAR more likely to work and work well. The more complicated it gets, the easier it is to game the system and screw things up.
I had no idea it was that easy. You have my complete support.
So how soon can we expect a return of representative democracy?
There is no such thing as representative democracy; that's a classic oxymoron.
A system can be one or the other, not both.
the $100 donation clause is an attempt to weed out candidates with a groundswell of real public support from those ready to declare a candidacy for the public funds alone.
"A certain amount of air time would be allotted to each candidate and provided as a public service and a provision of the license they get to broadcast. We USED to expect something back for that license to print money, it's time we do so again."
We should expect *a lot* more cheap airtime for political programming and ads as a public service. My concern with public financing is that even with that, if costs and monetary expenditures remain high, the money will corrupt the process. Public funding may wind up being "incumbent protection", and "two party system" protection, i.e., splinter movements will get ignored in such funding ...
Really, we need to do something about the rich. Tax them, muzzle them , pitchfork them-- other than that, the rich rule--twas ever thus
Articles like this one that for many of us state the obvious need to come with more examples of what would change if elections were publicly financed. The unconvinced are unaware of how many areas of their lives would be affected by putting some distance between the 'greed driven' and those who putatively act on the public's behalf. vanden Heuvel gets the big three 1. WallStreet, 2. Healthcare, 3.Big Oil, but others would include 4.the Military-Industrial-Complex, 5.forces for privatized education, 6.immigration and 'open' borders, 7.free versus fair trade, 8.job outsourcing, 9.alternative energy research (nuclear vs everthing else), 10.the War on Drugs vs Marijuana legalisation, 11.states rights, 12.investor socialism vs labor socialism,
13.progressive taxation, and I'm sure many more.
The simple understanding should be: if someone is in it for greed (ie any corporation or private business entity) then what they want is, by definition, not in the public's interest. Congress should SPECIFICALLY be turning them away. There's no 'invisible hand' that takes them to Congress, only graft. This is not a comment on greed per se, just on the proper playground within which we (yes we, the people) allow greed to play a motivational role.
I remember attending an Ocean Energy conference a few years ago: wave energy, OTEC, etc. Two local Congressional representatives were lunch speakers and one of them was blunt: you have no lobbying presence in Washington, therefore, we cannot help you. Period.
Nothing changes. Nothing gets better, until we fix congress first.
Okay, I'll say it one more time: There is no cure short of eliminating the Congress altogether. Am I the only one tired unto death of these superficial, timid, ineffectual and misbegotten recommendations? We don't need free campaigns, we need no campaigns. The problem is not the personalities or the zeitgeist or the corrosive effects of capitalism, the problem is the structure.
You don't get the benefits of democracy until you practice it, folks, there's no way to do that on the cheap. That means citizens make the important decisions. Their ballots go to settle issues, not to choose their rulers. Self government means exactly that; it's not like a leaky pipe or a flat tire for which you call somebody to come fix it. To get it done right you have to do it yourself.
The need to 'represent' the citizen went away in 1964, duh.
In a democracy there is no Congress, period. This should be THE issue today, but it isn't even AN issue, a giant failure by our putative intellectuals, who continue to catalogue endless lists of symptoms but never get around to the treatment. They used to bemoan the 'problem of scale' but when the computer arrived on the scene and solved that one, they changed the subject.
I wonder if The Nation has ever taken up this matter? And why not?
There's certainly no technical obstacle to replacing nominal "representative" democracy with direct democracy. Its practicality in a highly complex societal environment, expecially considering all of the global relationship issues, however, seems questionable.
Just as one example, would every eligible citizen be obliged (legally or otherwise) to vote on every issue within his/her purview as in the aincient Greek attempt?
My view is no. I was unaware that the Greeks had such a requirement, but then I don't know just what the dicastery and ecclesia did, either.
As for practicality, would you consider the current failures practical? We now see a lot of predictions that as we are now going some kind of total collapse is inevitable.
I think one key would be to take up issues one at a time and explore them thoroughly before making the decision.
As a corollary, it's probably best if those who are interested participate, and those who would rather watch pro wrestling do that. So if you want to take part you can, subject only to ordinary registration requirements, but you can drop out as well; that seems only reasonable to me. Coercion seems undemocratic to me in some undefined way.
I would be proud as punch, like Hubert Humphrey, if my country were to become the first large scale democracy. But it will probably not work out that way, we are too set in our ways and fearful of change. Maybe Sweden or Norway will take the lead.
The idea that it is every citizen's duty to participate in the decision making dates back to the foundation of democracy itself, the Athenian democracy. According to their laws at that time, attendance at the decision making assembly was "voluntary", at least in theory. However, as is sourced from Aristophanes's comedy Acharnians, in the 5th century BC, public slaves forming a cordon with a red-stained rope herded citizens from the agora into the assembly meeting place (pnyx), with a fine for those who got the red on their clothes.
All that historical stuff is largely irrelevant to the main issue, however. Direct democracy, regardless of whether or not voting is compulsory, depends on a citzenry that is informed and aware regarding each and every issue that requires a democratic decision. That was difficult enough in aincient Greece. Its workabilty in today's much more complex political environment seems doubtful. At the very least, it would certainly require a vast improvement in mass media communications and, even so, one wonders if citizens would be left with any free time for anything else.
P.S.: No, I certainly don't consider the current failed system to be desirable. Nor am I opposed in principle to your proposed alternative. I'm just wondering about its practicality in modern society and its governance. That's all.
Thanks for your enlightening comment. To continue re practicality, we face the need to redesign the formal political system (such as it is) for today's world. We need to work out the methods, procedures, and institutions that would perform the fundamental tasks, such as:
Managing the national agenda: Many now complain that government does not deal with the matters that most concern us. So let the Post Office hand out, free, postage free cards on which citizens can nominate a subject for the agenda. Let there be an office that receives, classifies, and counts these nominations, and every day updates the total and publishes the list on the Web and puts it on the news wires. Then when we dispose of the current issue, we can consult the list and revise the agenda as required.
Informing the electorate: Let there be a research and analysis institution, formed perhaps from such offices as the Library of Congress, the Congressional Research office, et al, whose task it is to investigate the issue, gather the relevant data (historical and current) and present it publicly. Citizens could well serve on teams of researchers formed ad hoc, bringing to bear language and other skills and knowledge of the subject. They could travel as required, and receive compensation for their time, like jurors.
Making the decision: Let us have a publicly owned channel (or several) on which the issue is debated, using the data gained above, by staff people assigned to the pro and con of the matter. Public television used to run a series named The Advocates, one of whom was a young Michael Dukakis, that operated is a quasi-judicial manner and could serve as a starting point. Include subpoena power for witnesses and evidence, and the ability to compel testimony. Some have derided this as 'government by debating society,' but that is not a bad description; at least we would have unbiased objective information, the time to do a thorough job, and we'd know that both sides would be presented. With electronic plebiscites, the people can exert good control over these proceedings; we can ask Are you ready for the question? so voting does not occur before we are ready.
Note that the system suggested here does not use commercial mass media; it has its own facilities, including the dedicated, closed, polled computer network that counts the electronic votes entered in the citizen's living quarters on a small gadget I call the Voxbox. Said system can not be accessed by any other devices, e.g. via the Web or by phone or whatever is in fashion this week.
When polling happens the results are displayed instantly for all to see. A polling cycle could probably be done in 30 seconds, time enough to walk across the room and push a button.
A lot of work needs to be done to work out the details; the pity is that nobody is doing that. I have not seen a concise definition that separates political decisions from administrative ones. But we might bear in mind that the original Constitution had almost no specifications of the judicial branch other than that there would be one; that all had to be worked out as we went along. One learns while doing.
Democracy is the only form that educates its citizens, and we sorely need that beneficial side effect.
Electronically assisted instant democracy is certainly something within the scope of possibility. I've wondered why we don't do it, though with a little examination it is clear that certain existing power structures would oppose it. Carried to its logical conclusion we could dispense with Congress and the Executive and simply make decisions by daily referendum. But my poor knowledge of American history seems to recall a dispute between Hamilton and Jefferson about this very thing. Do we really want a perfect democracy? The crusades were enormously popular. People didn't wait to be drafted, they just grabbed their pitchforks and headed for Jerusalem. Lynch mobs form quickly and brainlessly among the populace. I would not want foreign or domestic policy made by Joe the Plumber or (the same thing) the vast, bovine mass of volatile, vindictive, uneducated America. I would not support a perfect democracy without an educated electorate. Before we allow some opinionated yahoo to vote we should require that he/she be able to demonstrate a high school level knowledge of history and civics at the very least.. I'd favor an ever tougher quiz for people seeking office. My postman had to take a civil service exam to get his job, but George Bush was not required (or able) to name six foreign heads of state. 2004 was a fair enough election and should be a lesson to advocates of absolute popular rule.
Don't forget the much-maligned voter you describe is a product of the current system, which requires too little of him and so does not educate him as the Enlightenment thinkers hoped. As for 'perfect' democracy, I'm suggesting that we should put the people in the niche now occupied by Congress, but not that we dispense with the other two branches, although that might eventually be considered. It might be well if the Executive branch were reined in a bit, making it less imperial, but one thing at a time is probably wise counsel.
The proposed reform would at least take the influence of wealth out of the picture, which is the central objection these days. You are probably understating the degree of objection that would come from some quarters; those now taking advantage of the present arrangements would hate the whole idea, of course. It could get nasty; we have never had a real debate on the merits of democracy, that's one of the problems.
Finally, another sane voice. So-called Progressives these days live in a fantasy world where they think groveling before their "leaders" begging for a crumb of justice is Democracy. We ARE the leaders. These scumbags in D.C. are superflous baggage. Thanks for your comment!
The Internet does make direct participatory democracy conceivable. But what would you create to replace the cadres of executive branch employees tasked with seeing policies implemented? How about judges to supervise court challenges?
And these are the monies that they report--do you think that there's nothing going on behind our backs? Excuse me but how many times have we seen some of these lobbyists caught off the record--remember jack and his buddies, even in cahoots with the MIC--can you imagine how many more deals are made that we know nothing about?
Gorsegrower is absolutely correct when he points out why we DON'T need more politicians confusing the matter--let them ratify what the people vote for and stop all this bullshit that has the people almost to complete state ruin.