A Question of Values
James Wilson
Quote of the Day: "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money" - Alexis de Tocqueville
Subject: A Question of Values
In 2005 Representative Tom Osborne of Nebraska thought the Central American Free Trade Agreement was a bad deal, but the Bush Administration threatened to punish his district in the next farm bill if he didn't vote for it, so Osborne caved and the trade agreement passed by one vote.
I mention this because Osborne didn't seem like a typical politician. He was a famous college football coach, not a lawyer or career politician. He served only three terms and ranked near the bottom in receiving special interest contributions.
But even he voted for what he thought was a bad bill, in order to protect something that a significant block of voters in his district valued. Most representatives do this. It's a major reason they get re-elected at such high rates, and also why government constantly grows.
This is both bad news and good news. The bad news is obvious, but there's a silver lining . . .
If a significant block of voters in your district starts telling your elected Representatives that the "Read the Bills Act" is very important to them, your reps will introduce or sponsor the bill, and vote to pass it, even if they would prefer to NOT live under its constraints. (Remember, Osborne would have preferred to vote against the trade agreement).
We may like to tell ourselves that the politicians do what they do because they're some combination of stupid and evil, and that may well be true in some cases. But the more fundamental truth is that politicians really do represent the values of significant blocks of voters in their districts.
Notice how sometimes Democrats get elected in "red" Districts, if they express socially conservative values. Likewise, some Republicans often achieve success in "blue" areas if they support socially liberal goals.
It's a matter of local values. Members of Congress have an incentive to represent the values of their districts. But the Read the Bills Act is not a liberal-conservative issue, so any member might introduce it. And the first co-sponsor might be from the other party. It's a trans-partisan issue. All we have to do is . . .
- Make "Read the Bills" a significant local issue by constantly pounding our reps about it
- And constantly recruit new people to do the same
Here's the latest reason to pound Congress . . .
In the last week before their Spring Break the Housed passed 22 bills totaling 826 pages. It's doubtful they read any of it. Please tell your reps to stop doing this. If you've used our Educate the Powerful System before, do the following . . .
- Go to the DownsizeDC.org home page http://www.downsizedc.org/
- Log-in using the log-in button at the right of the navigation bar near the top of the page
- Scroll down and click on the link for campaign number 1. Make Congress read their bills before voting (We recommend you follow these steps, but in case you need it, here's the direct link) https://secure.downsizedc.org/etp/campaigns/27
- Scroll down to the form at the bottom of the page and send your message
If you're sending your very FIRST message to Congress using our system, click on this link, scroll down to the form, fill it out, and send your message.
Use your personal comments to object to the fact that Congress passed 826 pages of unread legislation before their Spring break.
And then affirm how important this is to you by sending this message to your friends and Digging it on our blog.
You can also raise awareness on your blog or website by joining the Read the Bills Act Coalition. Membership will give your readers an opportunity to learn about the RTBA. In return, your site will be listed in the Coalition on our home page and will be mentioned in a Dispatch like this.You can learn more and join here.
This week we welcome two new members to the Coalition.
Thank you for being a DC Downsizer.
James Wilson
Assistant to the President
DownsizeDC.org
P.S. For a list of bills Congress passed from March 30 through April 2, see below my signature in the blog version of this Dispatch.
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