Legislative Accountability

John Florez has a good perspective on what constitutes True government accountability and the forces that work against citizens from receiving the benefits of that accountability. I thought his comparison of the legislature to a corporate board of directors was very apt. My thoughts were sparked by the following statement:

This year, with new legislative leadership, might be a good one to spend more time holding oversight hearings on how effective certain state departments are in solving the problems they were created to resolve — their legislative mandate. . .

For legislators to start asking the tough questions to hold state departments accountable puts their political seat at risk because they threaten and have to fend off special-interest groups that benefit from maintaining the agency status quo. Therefore, it’s critical that legislators, in very real ways, know the public will support them when they hold oversight hearings regarding agencies’ effectiveness and demonstrate what returns taxpayers are getting on their investment. For legislators, those are tough calls but vital in keeping our government working in the public’s interest.

Oversight hearings would provide the openness and accountability in our government that we all want.

Bureaucratic momentum is a powerful force and tends to discourage any real accountability. The first priority of any institution is survival, not the fulfilling of any legislative mandate. Because of that, government bureaucracies have become very adept at promoting their own survival and continuation. In fact, they have learned how to turn failure and ineffectiveness into a tool for budgetary and institutional growth. Bureaucrats have long practice at befriending legislators and promoting their perspectives so that those legislators will be disposed to grant them their budgetary and policy requests. The fact that government jobs are considered to be a very safe area of employment is a testament to how effective their survival tactics usually are.

Despite all these advantages for institutional continuance, I see a glimmer of hope. If legislators will actively seek to cultivate their relationships with the group of voters that they represent they can preempt the ability of any special interest groups to unseat them for asking tough questions when holding real oversight hearings.

Constituents can show that they will support their legislators by being vocal in requesting real accountability and in vocally supporting their legislators through the legislative process. If they do so the legislators should have confidence that they can ask tough questions and demand accountability without fear that doing so will cost them their seats.

As constituents it is to our advantage to focus our efforts on those who represent us. If we voted for our representatives we should have done so because we believe in what they are said they would do, and if we did not vote for them we should be letting them know what we want from our representative. Many politicians say that they intend to represent those who opposed them as well as those who voted for them, but if we do not communicate with our representatives, whether we voted for them or not, they are not able to accurately represent us.

I have found that my efforts are much more rewarded by contacting my representatives, whether I voted for them or not, than if I spend my time shouting into space about what the legislature as a whole should be doing.