File this under "good idea that will go nowhere"...
Beyond principle, there are practical reasons to expand Congress. For decades, presidential candidates have promised to change the “way Washington works.” But once elected, they’re soon captured by their own congressional parties, which are in turn beholden to the “old bulls” and constituencies rooted in interests outside their districts.A Congress of, say, 5,000 citizen-legislators would change that overnight. Would it cost more money? Yes. But today’s huge staffs could be cut, and perks and pork might even be curtailed by using the old chewing gum rule: If there’s not enough for everyone, nobody can have any.Term-limit activists have the right idea — getting new blood in Washington — but their remedy is anti-democratic. The trick is to swamp Congress with new blood and new ideas. Want more minorities in Congress? Done. Want more libertarians? More socialists? More blue-collar workers? Done, done, done.In free-speech debates, it’s often said that the cure for bad speech is more speech. Well, the cure for a calcified Congress just might be more members; the remedy for an undemocratic system, more democracy.
With electronic voting, there's no reason most of the expanded Congress has to meet in person either. Cut every district into ten pieces and make a rule that only one of the ten new Congressman can be physically in D.C. at a time. Run ten sessions per year, and rotate who's in town. Everyone else has to go home. They still get to vote remotely. They can teleconference and make all the speeches they want to. The point is to dilute the influence of individual members, and at the same time increase their responsiveness to their geographically concentrated constituents. Great idea. It will never happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment