Putting America First
Following up on my previous blog
post, Barbara Boxer introduced the bill she was rallying support for, officially
named the Pay Our Bills Act. The title
is telltale of the bill, which in all simplicity would be a law requiring the
federal government to play its bills in a timely manner. The 12 page bill was introduced on October 29th,
only five days ago, but is already forecasted by govtrack.us to fail because it
cited the general trend that of the only 11% of bills that make it past the committee
stage are enacted.[1] The bill only has two cosponsors and despite
the government shutdown, has not caused very much buzz in the media. The bill represents just how difficult it is
to get a bill through committee, as the class saw with the bill concerning
healthcare discounts for healthy lifestyles being killed by American Cancer
Association lobbyists.[2] Practical bills that Americans assume will be
passed dying because they conflict with the interests of wealthy private
organizations represent the flaws of the American democratic process.
A flaw fixed in California was
their success with handing over redistricting to a bipartisan committee. This represented a huge step in electoral
reform, yet is a modification rejected by both parties over worries of losing
historically Republican/Democratic seats.
Boxer previously rejected such reform, but recently, she lauded California
Governor Schwarzenegger for getting such reform passed, and in light of the
recent government shut-down, has declared her support of national redistricting
in a bipartisan matter. Boxer has
praised the practice as promoting competition, a key component of the
democratic process.[3] Both lobbying, and partisan redistricting epitomize
flaws in the American political process that result in misrepresentation and opaque
legislating. If America ever wishes to
gain transparency in government, they must first be represented by a Congress
that does not host the deadlock they have seen in the past month. Alexander Hamilton spoke of the failures of
direct democracy, “It has been observed that a pure democracy, if it were
practicable, would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that
no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies, in which the
people themselves deliberated, never possessed one good feature of government.
Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.”[4]
The American political sphere, today, resembles Hamilton’s fear of too much
power in the hands of the people. Does
the inability to adopt such practical reforms because of the parties’ fear of
loss of certain power represent devolution in the American Representative
Democracy? Or does it merely represent a breed of legislators who consider
compromise for the greater good of the American people as losing? It seems the
political parties fear an increase in competition by not supporting election reforms,
and are over-concerned with staying in power, by being persuaded by lobbyists
for campaign support. Shame on you. Hopefully politicians like Boxer who embrace such
reforms can put their neck on the line for positive change by putting America
first and reelection second instead of following a power-blind party.
[1] https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s1598
[2] http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-31-2011/how-a-bill-doesn-t-become-a-law
[3] http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-na-pn-schwarzenegger-barbara-boxer-20131031,0,921657.story#axzz2jdAziZKW
[4] http://www.ourrepubliconline.com/author/22
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