All over the country we hear the word accountability from politicians, pundits, citizens and so on. We expect those who we elect to any office be accountable for their actions to the public. Sadly this is not the case. Everyday we see more and more evidence that those who reside in Washington D.C. live inside a bubble. From within this bubble Congressmen pass legislation which seems only to benefit themselves and perhaps a select group of their constitutents. The House of Represenatives is designed to be the will of the people, and the Senate is to be the voice of the State. Problem is that these Senators are far more secluded from their States than ever before. Thus the issue of Senate accountability comes up. There just isn't any. To get to the point of the matter I profess that we must repeal the 17th Amendment. My argument for doing so is to make senators accountable for their actions. I believe that if governers were given the power to appoint senators again there would be greater accountability of these men and women to the states they represent. Citizens have better access to their local government officials than to anybody serving in Washington.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
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7 comments:
I partially agree. We do need accountability, and the current rule-set we have in place allows too much to go unaccounted for. However, I'm not sure how repealing the 17th Amendment would be a 'critical hit' against corruption, though I'm sure it would have some effect.
So we go back to having our state legislatures decide on which Senators to send to D.C. through appointment? What about a new approach, one that has a competition of the current system and the original? An experiment?
I suggest we repeal the 17th, and ratify a new amendment that gives each state individual choice over the how-to-elect-Senators process. Some states can have direct elections, other states can have appointed officials. Why not? A comparison of legislative ideas is one of the central advantages of having several republics within a larger republic. We have options, which are the bane of stagnation.
I agree that just repealing the 17th Amendment isn't enough, but it would be a start. I do believe though that your suggestion of having a choice of direct election and appointment might deliver us into the same situation we are currently facing. If the 17th Amendment is repealed then the power falls back into the hands of the governor. It would be his/her decision on which two mouth pieces for the state are sent to Washington. Now I'll admit that a crony system can develop from this, but it is much easier to replace a governor than it is two senators
I think the legislature was appointing senators, not the governor. The governor would only appoint a temporary senator if the legislature was out of session during the death or resignation of a senator. It would be easier to replace a governor than two senators, but not necessarily easier to replace enough state legislators versus two senators.
But still, I think allowing each state to try a unique approach, and then looking at trends in approval ratings (just as an example), we would see which approach left out the most cronies.
I believe the original idea was that the House of Representatives would represent the "virtue of the people," while the Senate was supposed to have the "virtue of wisdom." The best and most enlightened of the political elite would be chosen to serve.
I think if we look at state government, we cannot necessarily trust them to put good people forward either and wouldn't it be better for the people to at least choose the cronie, rather than the cronies to chose the cronies?
You could argue that Senators are accountable to their state. People complain about "pork" these days and that every bill has hundreds of pork projects attached to them...well most of those are individual congressman trying to get some kickbacks or benefits to their state or district. Which of course earns them political points with their constituency.
I'm a fan of direct democracy as often as possible; wouldn't it be better if we directly voted for the cronies that govern the Federal Reserve Board? Then again, if citizens had to pay attention to so many elections (in order to directly vote for every significant office imaginable), voting might become a full time job.
As for pork, that's one major problem with Congress appropriating so much funds: representative democracy becomes a regional competition for national public resources. In essence, this is one of "the rules" our politicians must play by, just to stay in the game. Even the more "public service" minded statesmen must participate.
Whoever can promise the most, wins the votes, and the "smart" allocation of scarce resources over a measure of time becomes a secondary consideration for everyone.
This entire discussion sort of illustrates the reason why the state itself is an illegitimate power structure- federal or local. Civil society is where it stops. The idea that we should have a separate government entity... that we should call it a republic... just seems almost absurd.
Presenting the concept of direct democracy and states rights doesn't do a whole lot for me given the context. The entire issue of states rights is mere semantics. If your aim is to alleviate corruption, shifting power to the state level will only serve to allow smaller, mid-sized businesses and private interests to control the government. When private interests are allowed to exist above and beyond the scope of influence held by civil society, they become the very essence of tyranny. Civil society never serves to corrupt itself, it is manipulated by organizations hostile to the very essence of liberty and democracy- private aggregates.
What if we abolish the upper-house in its entirety? Is that just absurd?
Assuming corruption is a symptom of our nature that cannot be undone, the best we can do is to alleviate it in relative degrees. Some things that might happen:
The ratio of represented to representatives would be tipped to favor the represented. 535 representatives deciding on issue A, which has a large effect on the lives of 300 million represented, will consider each individual (560,000 people per rep)to a smaller degree than 90 representatives will 7 million (73,000 people per rep for AZ). We share our federal representatives with 7.5 times as many people as we share our state representatives (in AZ), and considering each representative has a limited amount of time to do all the things required of making an informed decision, it seems focusing power in the state would be a pragmatic step in the right direction.
The decisions made in each state would allow for a stronger reactionary voting system. If state A is less bureaucratically lean (more corrupt) than state B, for whatever reason, and provides relatively less public services for the taxes they raise, citizens will react. Maybe state A raises taxes to increase revenue while state B, being relatively efficient, does not. There will inevitably be a migration of some number of people because of this opportunity cost. With these individuals go resources. If some computer company that employs 3,000 folks in state A makes the marginal decision to relocate, all the jobs, less the number of employees relocating with the company, will be transferred to state B. State B, with its relatively lower taxes, has gained that much of state A's taxable income. Federally speaking, citizens have voted for which state government structure they prefer. The greater the federally levied taxes are in proportion to these state taxes, the lesser the contrast between states. Less functions for the federal government would improve the functionality of state governments.
This is all from a pragmatic stance, though. I still think the state is parasitic at all levels. Taxes discourage production, and therefore wealth creation. People are far more creative at acting in voluntary ways, without coercion. The human resource is always wasted under any degree of oppression, the lawful seizure of earnings included.
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