Assuming Obama is sincere about wanting to change the way things are done in Washington I submit that he needs our help and can’t directly ask for it.
I think some old school entrenched politicians in Washington have either too many skeletons in their closet, too many favors owed to special interest groups, or are just too locked into the game of politics to change. This includes some democrats such as , Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, and possibly some others.
My suggestion is if we really want things to change we have to start throwing out more politicians from both parties and bringing in some new blood with new standards.
In order to hold our elected officials accountable we need to require them to make certain information readily available to any constituent who wants to know.
What you voted on and why you voted the way you did.
All your campaign contributions
3 All your meetings with lobbyists , who they are, what group they represent and any monetary favors they extended.
Any official who won’t make this info available on their website needs to go, period. I am off the opinion that decent conservatives, moderates and liberals will be able to work together and solve some problems even on issues they disagree on. The problem is entrenched dishonesty and political debt in both parties and professional politicians who can’t stop playing the game. They lie about themselves and their opponents and the issues on a regular basis because they are programmed to believe that’s the only game in town. It’s up to us to try and change it. Insist on some transparency and some basic honesty or they’re out.
Of course, the President can’t “get rid” of elected pols in Congress, only the voters in their states can do that.
There are tens of thousands of appointed bureaucrats of both parties. They should all be fired. A clean sweep. At least 90 percent don’t need to be replaced.
The Real Answer is term limits. Unfortunately, only Congress can vote for this and the chances of that happening are none to none.
Term limits are a tool for disempowering the electorate. I’m against all term limits as a matter of principle. We have regularly scheduled elections and a procedure for removing officials whose conduct rises to the level of criminality.
Individual states can vote for term limits; you don’t need congress. Remember, we’re supposedly a federal republic.
Personally, I really start to favor term limits, especially after seeing people like Chavez and Zelaya. “The electorate” is generally stupid, and dis-empowering them from voting for the Incumbent because they don’t know any better is a good thing.
The Supreme Court has held that individual states cannot impose term limits on their federal representatives (U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton). States can set up their own state legislatures with term limits, of course, and a sufficiently large number of states could call a federal constitutional convention and impose term limits on Congress by constitutional amendment.
If a voter demands this information from their elected representatives, but he hasn’t made an effort to become acquainted with the information which has been available to the public for a long time, then I think that voter is in a very poor position to demand additional information.
I think the odds are overwhelming that such a voter has no real interest in spending the time to read the volumes of information, but would rather criticize someone for not spending taxpayer money to produce reports that virtually nobody will read.
Bullshit. Term limits prevent people getting into elected office and staying there until moss grows on them. They provide for new blood and new ideas, which is why Congress will never term limit itself.
You seem to have conveniently forgotten that staying there requires the repeated consent of the people.If you want someone gone, it’s your responsibility to persuade people why, not remove their freedom in choosing their representatives.
Well gee, then why do we have term limits for presidents. What if we get a good one and want him to stay?
Voters in general don’t pay nearly enough attention to what their elected officials are actually doing. Reasonable term limits would do more harm than good IMO.
I think the key for me is “readily” available. In the computer age this information should be posted for voters to study at their leisure. We would need groups with time and aptitude to condense the information and evaluate connecting lobbyists to bills voted on.
By readily available I mean in a form that the average person can make sense of. It would require more effort from the voters and some interpretation from those with political savy that the average citizen may not have. I looked up some info during the last presidential election and it was a bit of an ordeal wading through it.
It would clearly require more effort from the voters as well. Voters as groups, perhaps bi-partisan, would look over the information and analyze it and present the relevant highlights to the voting public in a form that could be fairly easily read and understood. The information would have to be reviewed on a regular basis rather than just gathered a few months before each election. Demands would be made on Congress and the voters.
and if it helps , the snide tone of your post was noted.
Term limits are unnecessary: the average length of service in the Senate right now is about 12.5 years. A bit more than two terms, which seems underwhelming to me. Sure, there are some who stay in there for thirty years, but I think that’s because they serve their constituents well. (Granted sometimes that’s from steering lucrative contracts to businesses in their districts…)
I think you’ll need to be more specific about what constitutes “readily.” The THOMAS website contains the full text of every bill and resolution entered in both houses and every member’s vote or abstention.
Anything “connecting” a lobbyist to a vote is speculation. If Congressman Bob votes yes on an amendment to a Resolution Recognizing the Contributions of Pink-Bellied Slime Worms to Scientific Research in the Field of Blumpkin Taxonomy, how do you know that this was the result of some lobbying effort, the Congressman’s personal beliefs, debate within the Congressman’s staff office, or a completely random vote because he was late for his appointment at the whore house?
How is any of this information discoverable, and how can it be “readily” presented?
I did a search this morning and I see your point. The information is pretty available already. Looking at TNs Senate home pages I saw they do list their voting records but not contributors. I’d like to
see that listed.
There is a website called Open Secrets that contains a lot of data but I’d rather see something maintained by the government or the states.
I think the priority votes and links to lobbyists might be somewhat apparent. Now with a major discussion on healthcare we can see who is getting money , for example, we can see Pelosi has gotten a bunch of money from health professionals and a significant amount from insurance PACs.
I noticed TN Senator Lamar Alexander had video clips on his website. I think that would be a good resource as well. A Youtube like searchable video bank.
It’s all somewhat overwhelming for the average citizen who works and is trying to raise a family. That’s why we’d need people with political aptitude to help analyze and help break the political speak down to common language. Voters can and do choose their area of interests. If you’re raising a couple of kids you might be interested in education and health care.
It does require more effort on the part of the voter to spend some time monitoring our elected officials and attending some meetings about what’s going on.
Basically it would be up to state residents to monitor their elected officials. If we see a little too much influence peddling then they need to go.