This is a legitimate gripe. But it’s not like this is heavily curtailed in any other countries. They may pretend to be better than the US, but interests there lobby their legislatures just as much as here. Either directly, as here, or through the populace (…as here, also, come to think of it…). Heck, most countries lobby other countries to protect their interests.
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Actually, other countries do put much stricter restrictions on the use of money in political campaigns than is the case in the US.
For example, in Canadian federal elections, only individuals can make donations to political parties. Corporations, trade unions, other associations, are barred from doing so. And, there are strict limits on how much an individual is allowed to donate per electoral district.
Lobbyists are registered and are not allowed to donate to political campaigns, either directly or by channeling their clients’ funds to a political party.
There are also limits on how much candidates can spend. If groups start taking out adverts during a campaign supporting or opposing a particular candidate or party, the cost of their adverts is counted towards the candidate/party limits, so astroturf groups can’t skirt the campaign limits.
The House of Representatives was intended from the start to represent people. That’s why it’s so named. But even there popular influence was reduced with long terms (2 years at a time when a common catchphrase was, “Where annual elections ends, tyranny begins.” Voting districts were deliberately crafted to be larger to reduce the influence of individuals. And the representatives of the people weren’t entrusted with the full legislative power but another body, the Senate, was created to check the popular impulse. Senate terms were even longer and originally senators were not popularly elected but appointed by state legislatures. Senators were given per capita voting and were not subject to recall. Legislative power was further checked by veto power of the President, who is also not popularly elected and has a long term. Still another check on popular power was the judicial branch. While judicial review, being intensely controversial at the time, was not spelled out it was always lurking in the deliberately vague Article Three. And the Constitution itself serves as a final check on the legislative power of the people. Congress was not entrusted with constituent power. Instead constitutional changes under Article Five required huge hurdles to be enacted when they weren’t absolutely prohibited either temporarily or permanently.
So yes, people were given influence. But it’s ridiculous to call it direct.
Political parties have always been collections of interests. In that sense, yes, there were ideologies in each party. A party might be opposed to hard money in that it was composed of large numbers of rural farmers or a party might be anti-immigration because it’s members tended to be native born. Those certainly are ideologies though that didn’t mean that an anti-silver politician or an Irish one wouldn’t find a home in either party. For the first time in history the major political parties are divided along the liberal/conservative axis. That’s an entirely different animal.
But this is no different than it has always been. Popular influence is only rarely decisive, when there is widespread outrage over something. The special interests are always there, year in and year out. Waves of popular influence only happen once in a while.
I wouldn’t call the weak sauce Democratic support of environmentalism radical but yes, the Democratic Party has become more aligned with leftist ideology. They, unlike the Republicans, remain a big tent party, but they are affected by the trend in politics. How could they not be? My point was that the cause is the relentless drive of the GOP to drag the Overton window to the right.
Just because the political parties are aligned along the left/right axis doesn’t mean that they bracket popular opinion. Again, popular influence is greatly checked but not so the monied interests. On fiscal policy both parties are on the right compared to popular opinion. 40% of Americans have a negative view of capitalism (cite). Half of Americans oppose free trade (cite). Neither party represents these views. When it comes to money matters, money really talks. The same goes for social policy when there is a vested interest in one side. Most Americans want to deport the illegal immigrants (cite). But since loose immigration lowers labor costs the vested interests have a vested interest in making sure that doesn’t happen. The idea of another amnesty like the one under Saint Ronnie has been percolating but it’s so unpopular that it has to be a bipartisan effort and the GOP is so desperately dependent on the white male vote that they can’t afford to do it.
But that is ignoring the filibuster. It takes 60 votes to pass partisan legislation. That means there was a single 2 year period when the Democrats could pass legislation despite Republican opposition. The 111th Congress was the most productive in decades.
There is a difference between lobbying and campaigning. While there is some overlap in the second form of lobbying (“Vote for candidate Richards!”) there is little restriction on a group advertising “Vote Yes on Bill 127!” which is the type of direct-to-populace lobbying I was addressing.
Also, Canada is one of the worst international lobbyists, having been pushing their exports of asbestos to locations around the world through direct government action on the behalf of it’s industry. While I am by no means an expert on Canadian governance or it’s nuances, I’m dubious that this happened without any sort of lobbying on behalf of the industry within Canada.
Which is the problem I keep saying needs active participation to solve. If the common folk voted consistently every two years, change could be alot more effective. Just look at the Census bureau’s participation rates. Presidential elections? 53-58% fairly consistently. Midterms? 35-40%. Which means that roughly 37.5% of the population is consistently voicing their opinion to the government. One third. And yet surveys are plentiful saying what Americans want that are far in excess of this 37.5% of a voice.
Actually, both parties are far more express in their spending than Americans would want them to be. They want the government to spend less on most of the actions it performs.
Check your source. It says people have a negative view of the term capitalism when used as rhetoric device. So when some politician goes “I’m working to save capitalism!” 40% of people are negative towards the use of the word (and likely the speaker).
Yes. And if they made their voices heard (Remember, only roughly 37.5% do consistently) then it would be paid attention to instead of the lobbyists and special interests.
Yes. Because the majority of people don’t consistently represent their views to their government through voting.
You seem to be confusing the way things are with the way people want it to be. If these values were expressed in voting, the general representation of the public’s interests would be better. But let’s look at the current president for a microcosm view: He came in in 2008 on a raft of what people considered promises - mostly that he would help change the system. Most of those promises were just campaigning, but that’s a personal judgement so let’s not get stuck there. After four years, the largest of his promises to come to pass was the ACA and people were furious that what he said campaigned upon for medical care wasn’t included into the ACA. And yet, he still won the presidency for a second term.
What was his punishment for not fulfilling what the populace took as promises on his original campaign? Personally, not much. His party suffered in the midterms, but he wasn’t affected much. I acknowledge that there was a significant disadvantage in having the alternate option being voting for Romney, placing the election into a “lesser of two evils” mode that devolved into a “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t” run.
If you set a dimmer switch to 40%, you don’t get to blame the power company that you aren’t getting 100 watts out of your light bulb. In this same way, blaming the way the government is setup, which worked fine until the last 30 or so years, is placing the blame in the wrong place. Why do the majority of people consider it such a high bar to go to the polls (or even absentee ballot where allowed) every two years?
You might note that the populace was so annoyed with how things were running (And especially fueled on the ACA in particular) that they actively sought to get rid of that majority. Despite nothing much happening in the legislature through two elections, the populace seems content to leave it with the fracture it currently is.
And this supports your point how exactly? You’ve basically made my point.
It doesn’t negate the fact that voters aren’t single issue, nor the fact that majority popular support for a position may not be reflected in congressional vote totals - because district boundaries are not actually designed to reflect popular will but to perpetuate party control.
How is that supposed to prove that popular support for some form of gun control (the exact point to be determined) is bogus? It doesn’t.
Having a million more total votes nationally makes for an interesting trivia question but does not change how individual district vote totals select individual district seats.
Your side doesn’t have the votes it needs to control both Houses. You can manipulate the vote totals any way you wish but there are more GOP/TP seats in the House and more D’s in the Senate.
The national vote total number doesn’t actually elect any candidate to a public office. Dancing with the stars, maybe?
Gawd, let’s hope not. Political races are beauty contests, it is often said. Maybe we just need to emphasize the talent part of the thing; we coulda’ had Clinton playing his sax for the folks, or Bush clearing brush on-stage. One would hope the bathing-suit portion be eliminated from such a method. Or Maybe Tony Bennett would occupy the WH. Be okay with me. The constitution seems composed well enough for a representative result; just not performed according to it. The voting system has been corrupted by rich and powerful private interests and the S.C. endorses this.
Actually, his argument is that if you don’t manipulate the vote totals, the Democrats would be in control of Congress. It’s only through such (entirely legal) manipulation that Republicans have the political power they currently wield.
I’m not really saying that’s a bad thing. I don’t want to overthrow our system of representative democracy just because the other guys are in power right now. But it is important, for Republicans more than anyone else, to remember that no matter how many ways you redraw congressional districts, Republicans are a minority in this country.
Yes, and maybe you should do some research and find out how many times the Queen has said “no”, and even more to the point, whether she has the power to say “no” to the leader of a democratically elected party. You know what? I’d rather have a Queen performing a ceremonial function like that than a system where all Republican presidential contenders have to fly to Vegas to kiss Sheldon Adelson’s ass because they really do have to ask Adelson (and the Koch brothers) if they can run for President.
So this once again demonstrates your inability to distinguish between ceremonial tradition in constitutional monarchies vs. the exercise of real power. In other Commonwealth countries the Governor General performs that same function – also the opening and closing of Parliament and many other ceremonial functions. The only time that the GG or monarchy has discretionary power would be in rare cases of a political impasse or other event where partisan quarreling has no clear constitutional resolution, such as two parties with an electoral tie or if a prime minister dies in office and the party for some reason can’t agree on a new leader. This function in a constitutional monarchy, while almost always ceremonial, also provides a non-partisan elder-statesman function as a safeguard against deadlocked partisan bickering potentially devolving into a constitutional crisis. Unlike Sheldon Adelson, the GG is always a respected public figure with a long history of public service – yet, also unlike Adelson, exercises no real power except in extraordinary circumstances.
You mean fake-grassroots organizations like NASA, the National Climate Assessment, and the National Academy of Sciences?
That is, sadly, true. But it only underscores my point about the nature of contemporary American politics where the very wealthy are real determiners of political success, as opposed to the cited role of the Queen which is purely symbolic. I thought the story of these Republican ass-kissers was particularly hilarious.
I would also argue that the political inclinations of most corporations and the majority of the wealthy are towards the right, which is a major reason that attitudes toward campaign finance laws are so ideologically aligned, but that’s a discussion for another thread.
So what? You are arguing against the premise that a majority of voters want gun control. The fact that a majority of the legislature doesn’t want it just shows that the legislature is not actually indicative of public opinion - particularly since the votes for those legislative seats are not equally apportioned.
I think the reality of participation is actually worse than that. By the time the general election rolls around it’s already too late for any real change. Withholding support from your party’s candidate over this or that issue isn’t a good strategy because the other party’s candidate is far worse from your perspective. The primary elections are the main opportunity for issue advocacy and few people indeed vote in those except in those few primaries in states when the presidential nomination is still up for grabs.
I do think American politics would be in better shape if a lot more people were willing to put as much thought into it as us political junkies do. But how would we go about changing people’s nature? And even then the ability to vote for or against some of the politicians next year is just too blunt an instrument to expect to tame politics. Politicians need to worry about the opinion of their constituents next year or in three or five years but they have to worry about offending corporate lobbyists every day. And the risks are disproportionate. If the lobbyists support someone else they are in danger of losing everything but if they are good little corporate servants then even if they get booted from office they will receive the golden parachute.
In that sense voting for political parties is better than individuals. The party itself intends to go on and on. It cares if it permanently burns its bridges with individuals because it’s never going to retire and it has members up for election every other year. The problem is that political parties never get primaried. You only vote for or against them in the general election and again the 2 party system punishes dissenters. We need more viable political parties just as badly as we need a more representative system.
Relatively few people have the understanding of public finance to make their opinions on the subject worthwhile. I’d like to be able to buy a new car for $1000. So what? The point is that when it comes to issues that interest the wealthy interests, popular opinion falls by the wayside.
The ACA hadn’t gone into effect yet so the program itself wasn’t the reason. And do we need to look for a reason to explain why the Democrats got slaughtered in 2010? The economy was in shambles and Democrats traditionally are weaker in midterm elections as is the party that holds the White House.
I don’t have data, but I would agree with you because the primaries are party-specific.
The election cycles are actually the same for lobbyists. If you piss off a lobbyist, today, he will have to wait until the next election to hip check you out the door.
This is an issue, but it’s less so for Congressional persons than it is for appointees. Several executive branches have revolving doors between industry and the groups that are to regulate those industries. For Congress, they are professional politicians, yes, but they usually have a skill they can fall back on. Business owner, lawyer, etc. Most of the people in Congress are wealthy and so could be voted out tomorrow and be just fine for the rest of their lives by doing nothing.
From my personal opinion, I disagree. I think political parties need to go. America’s monolithic party system is just plain bad, but I’m not terribly satisfied with how other “primary issue” parties work in other nations. For instance, in Britain multiple parties will band together to be a majority to pass legislation. While this is better than the monolithic model, I still think it’s lacking. What would be better is to vote for individual politicians based on their commitments to various issues who would then use these commitments to form and then vote on bills in the legislature.
Pragmatically, however, I agree that there needs to be more parties to chose from in America.
Uh, no. The real problem is that most people don’t get to do a cost/benefit analysis on what they want. So if you want to save the sea monkeys and you see a federal program start up spearheaded by your guy you voted for to save them, you go “glee” and feel good on your insidey parts.
Now, what if it cost $1B for each sea monkey saved? Well, the constituent never really learns the true cost. But now you want more things. That sea monkey operation worked so beautifully. This is what’s actually missing and what most people mean when they say want to spend less.
The passage of the ACA was a very hot bed issue that had a huge public outcry. Even today, four years later, it’s still got roughly 53% of Americans opposed to it. There were a lot of legitimate complaints about it during the pre-passage phase that a lot of people felt weren’t adequately fleshed out before the D party passed it.
Note that the Tea Party grew to it’s power based on it’s promise to ditch the ACA (and then they passed…41? something like that… bills from the House to repeal the ACA over a single Congressional session.)
Poll results are one thing. Voting results are another and are the only results that matter. Many anti-2nd politicians who were in favor of gun bans/registration/confiscation were removed from office by the voters.
The legislatures have been changed to match the wants and expectations of their constituents. You act as if the will of the voters isn’t reflected in the votes of their elected representatives. Which could be why you are surprised that legislators don’t vote the way you want them to.
Nobody gerrymanders like Chicago Democrats gerrymander.
Luis V Gutierrez - Illinois’s 4th congressional district - looks like the letter “C” to incorporate as many Hispanic voters as possible. Or maybe he’s just a Chicago Cubs fan?
The national vote total for the U.S. House seem to be very reassuring to people who don’t actually understand that only the vote totals of the individual districts actually count towards electing a Congressman.
I’m trying to figure out what point you are actually trying to make.
Your original contention was that a majority of people don’t actually support some type of gun control laws.
But you argue this by citing legislative majorities - which you yourself accept are representative and don’t necessarily reflect the majority will of the people.
So, which is it? That you were wrong about the majority support of some type of gun control? Or that such support doesn’t exist and legislative majorities are what you really meant?
You keep dancing this dance. Voters aren’t single issue. Show me a single conclusive example of a politician who was voted from office because of this single issue.
Because if voters aren’t single issue, all you have is conjecture and confirmation bias.
*Bill Clinton to Democrats: Don’t trivialize gun culture
By BYRON TAU | 1/19/13 4:55 PM EST Updated: 1/20/13 12:52 PM EST
And Clinton said that passing the 1994 federal assault weapons ban “devastated” more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers in the 1994 midterms — and cost then-Speaker of the House Tom Foley (D-Wash.) his job and his seat in Congress.
“I’ve had many sleepless nights in the many years since,” Clinton said. One reason? “I never had any sessions with the House members who were vulnerable,” he explained — saying that he had assumed they already knew how to explain their vote for the ban to their constituents.*
My point is that a claim of a million more people voted nationwide for U.S. House Democrats is an interesting tidbit but has nothing to do with how the House seats are actually chosen. Individual districts select their own Congressman. Congressional seats are not decided by a national vote.
Legislative majorities are needed to change the status quo. That’s the way it has always been.
The claim that there is 90% in favor of gun control sounds good up until a general election takes place and the voters remove many of the anti-2nd gun grabbers. What happened to the 90%? Didn’t they vote? Do they actually exist?
