Constituent Communication Can Innoculate Against Insiderism

Posted on 2009-11-06 by David

When I wrote about a legislator’s role as an information analyst the comments initially centered on Sen. Bob Bennett because of a quote I had used despite my desire to not single anyone out. Later in the comments on that post I made this statement that deserves to be elevated to its own post here:

In my opinion, the best defense against staying too long and becoming part of the problem is to maintain communication with constituents that is open enough for the constituents to indicate when the officeholder is compromising too much (or not enough in some rare cases) and the integrity to step aside when the officeholder finds that they consistently cannot act in accordance with the feedback they are receiving from constituents in good conscience.

Now that Senator Bennett has demonstrated a refusal to maintain open communication with constituents I am singling him out and exposing his refusal to communicate openly.

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Individualism vs Collectivism

Posted on 2009-11-05 by David

photo credit: 416style

It seems that the churning within the GOP is a conflict at various levels between the forces of individualism and collectivism. There is the question of whether the party faithful should do what they think is best or what the party determines to be best. There is the question of whether the national party should be uniform, or whether the local parties should be more autonomous, and there is the question of whether government should enforce the collective good, or allow for more individual choice in society.

With all the jockeying within the GOP there have been plenty of calls for a return to small government principles within the party and generic statements about various groups spoiling the supposed conservatism of the party but in a Los Angeles Times article yesterday Edward Crane sounded a call I never thought I would hear – The GOP Should Dump the Neocons. The first thing I had to do as I read that was confirm the accepted definition of “neocon” to decide if I could believe what I was reading and if there were any implications that I would disagree with. It turns out that I think I can fully agree with this position.

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Decision Time – GOP or ATTAP

Posted on 2009-11-04 by David

photo credit: Pat Rioux

When I learned that Dede Scozzafava dropped out of the NY-23 race, and even more when I learned that when she dropped out she endorsed the Democratic candidate rather than the Conservative candidate, it really got me thinking about what parties are supposed to be. That endorsement would indicate that the GOP establishment in that district is closer to the Democrats than it is to the Conservatives (or else Ms. Scozzafava is playing sour grapes, but somehow I don’t think that’s the explanation). In theory there’s nothing wrong with being closer to Democrats than Conservatives but in practice it depends on what the GOP stands for – which is the question currently raging within the party membership.

Political parties, rightly and of necessity, are coalitions of voters. In theory those voters share some political views in common in order to participate in the coalition. If that is the case then it must be accepted that some parties will have no presence in some locations because in some locations there will be no voters who share the views belonging to a particular party. I’m not suggesting that a place as large as a state would be devoid of voters for any significant party, but individual districts, cities, or precincts might easily be split more between the Green party and the Democrats or between the GOP and the Constitution party than they are between the Democrats and the GOP – assuming that the GOP and the Democratic party each have some core values politically.

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Go Vote

Posted on 2009-11-03 by David

I’d like to add my voice to that of at least six other blogs today by encouraging everyone who is registered to go out and vote today. (Props to Jason for posting four of those.) As this is the year for municipal elections your vote has the greatest impact for three reasons:

  1. You are voting in a smaller race so there are fewer voters in any given contest.
  2. Municipal elections have the most direct impact on your daily life.
  3. Voter turnout is lower so your vote counts for even more among the already small races.

This widespread blogger encouragement to vote is just an example of the last push on election day of what I hope political bloggers can and will do in every election.

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Knowledge – the Key to Sound Government

Posted on 2009-11-03 by David

photo credit: TheAllNewAventuresOfMe

Although I had never heard it before, this quote in Utah Policy really captured the essence of some of what I have been trying to convey in posts and comments on what makes an ideal legislator:

“A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives”.  James Madison

We are supposed to have a popular government (government of and by the people) and it must have popular information (information from the people) if it is to function properly. This is one of the reasons that backroom politics is so undesirable. In this age of hyper-communication every elected official (or even candidate) has the means of acquiring popular information and they must do everything in their power to acquire that information.

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The Dangers of a Crisis Mentality

Posted on 2009-10-30 by David

photo credit: paparutzi

Soon after the election last year in the Wall Street Journal, Gerald Seib wrote about the  opportunity presented by the financial crisis for Barack Obama. Perhaps he was simply reacting to Rahm Emanuel’s statement that, “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Seib summed up that perspective on crisis by saying that:

The thing about a crisis is that it creates a sense of urgency. Actions that once appeared optional suddenly seem essential.

That really captures the essence of a crisis mentality. Unfortunately it only looks at the silver lining while ignoring the cloud in front of it. The assumption is that we all can see the dangers of the crisis cloud. Unfortunately the only part of the crisis cloud that most people see is the front side – the possibility with any crisis that we will fail. The problem is that right in front of the silver lining he spoke of there is the hidden backside of the crisis cloud which we conveniently forget.

Because of the sense of urgency that tends to accompany a crisis we not only begin to view once optional courses of action as essential, in many cases we go beyond that and begin to view once forbidden courses of action as excusable.

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Posted in culture, National | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Legislator as Analyst

Posted on 2009-10-29 by David

Earlier this year at a town hall type breakfast meeting I had the chance to ask Senator Bennett what he considered to be the most important task of a Senator. I was not very impressed with his answer that the most important thing was to try to see the future clearly. I still argue that keeping their oath of office is what all the actions of an elected official should revolve around, but upon further reflection I think I have a better understanding of what he meant and it was closer to acceptable for me. His third item in the list of of most important jobs was that they should do their homework. I think that what he was trying to get at was that legislators need to study the information that is available to them and then make wise decisions about how to deal with whatever information is available. After all, that is the whole point of a representative form of government – voters are essentially selecting someone who will have access to more information than most of them with the expectation that the elected official will make a better than average decision with that more comprehensive information.

While that task of analyzing information to make decisions should be anchored to keeping the oath of office it is truly one of the most important tasks of a legislator. As an analyst, a legislator must always be seeking as much information as possible on the issues they are called to decide upon. They should seek that information from their constituents as well as all the official sources of information that are brought before them (such as task forces and committee reports). Their job is to take all that information to put together as accurate a picture as possible of the reality they are dealing with and then make as wise a decision as possible with that understanding.

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A Question to Ponder

Posted on 2009-10-28 by David

I really did not need to focus on any serious topics today (or yesterday for that matter – notice the lack of a post) so I have to thank my brother for providing a humorous but thought provoking question on Facebook last night. I thought that the question deserved to be freed from the walled garden of Facebook so I thought I’d share it here:

If China decided to call America’s debt today, which state would {President Obama} sell to make ends meet?

California received some votes as well as Texas, North Dakota, and non-states such as Guam. What do other people think (recognizing that this is entirely not realistic no matter which state anyone suggests)?

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Our National Emergency

Posted on 2009-10-26 by David

I was surprised when I learned that Obama declared swine flu a national emergency late on Friday. My first thought was that I had not heard anything to suggest that things were any worse than they had been previously. Looking closer at the announcement the article states that “Swine flu is more widespread now than it’s ever been and has resulted in more than 1,000 U.S. deaths so far.”

While we don’t like the idea of 1000 deaths it’s important to put that into context by noting that the seasonal flu results in 36,000 U.S. deaths each year – that’s an average of 3,000 deaths per month year round. During the flu season that amounts to more than 1000 deaths per week. To really put that into context it should be noted that the seasonal flu produces that many deaths despite the fact that a vaccine is widely available while the swine flu vaccine is barely coming into circulation now.

That is enough information that there are many people who will shout that this is not an emergency – some will even say that this is a scare tactic or power grab by the administration. Going back to the actual declaration I have concluded that there really is a national problem.

The White House on Saturday said Obama signed a proclamation that would allow medical officials to bypass certain federal requirements.

The very real problem that this declaration of emergency addresses is a problem of over-regulation. The government should never regulate something to the point of interfering with the benefits of whatever they are regulating – as they have done with the medical system. (I would call this an emergency except that “emergency” suggests serious immediate consequences if we do not take immediate action whereas a lack of immediate action does not have particularly immediate consequences.)

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Senator Jim DeMint on Term Limits

Posted on 2009-10-23 by David

I started a discussion on term limits a couple of years ago on this site and between what I said then and what I have said on other sites I think my position on term limits is fairly clear – I believe that term limits generally produce benefits that far outweigh the drawbacks that opponents will cite. I think solid evidence of that is that not one state (out of 15) that has enacted a term limit law and had it start limiting terms has ever repealed their term limit law. (Six states did enact laws and then repeal them before they took effect – including Utah.) Coming from that position, I was happy to hear the announcement from Senator Jim DeMint that he plans to introduce a term limits amendment soon.

While I have some questions about some of the specifics of what he plans to propose like how he decided that three terms would be the appropriate limit for members of the House or how flexible he would be on the particular limits he is proposing, I found one statement that he made very insightful about the last time that term limits were seriously pursued by the political class.

Fifteen years ago, Republicans – who had been out of power in Congress for forty years – made term limits a centerpiece of their “Contract with America” agenda.

The term limits constitutional amendment ultimately failed, in part because so many new reform-minded congressmen imposed term limits on themselves. After six or eight years, these members voluntarily went home, leaving behind those Republicans and Democrats who fully intended to make a career inside the beltway.

The fact is, party doesn’t matter when it comes to reform. If you want to change the policies, you have to change the process.

He’s absolutely right that no significant reform will come in how Washington operates until we make structural changes that force it to operate differently. His comment that many of those who wanted to enact term limits voluntarily term-limited themselves – thus crippling the attempt by leaving it in the hands of those who had no interested in being term limited was insightful. I realized that anyone who wants to make such a change would have to take the attitude and make a pledge to stay in Washington as long as possible until they either got term limits enacted or else until they no longer believed that term limits were worth pursuing. Those who will impose their own limits independent of everybody else will limit their own comparative effectiveness by granting more power to those who do not believe in their ideals (specifically the ideal of having term limits).

Posted in culture, National, State | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments