The Congressional Reform Act would contain 8 provisions, all of which would probably be strongly endorsed by those who drafted our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Congress has the lowest approval rating of any entity in government. I would surely think that the voting public could get their arms around something like this. Something that would create and sustain real change and hope.

Congressional Reform Act of 2010

1. Term Limits: 12 years only, one of the possible options below.

A. Two Six year Senate terms
B. Six Two year House terms
C. One Six year Senate term and three Two Year House terms

        Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

2.  No Tenure / No Pension:
    A congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office. 

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

 
3.  Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security: 
    All funds in the Congressional retirement fund moves to the Social Security system immediately.  All future funds flow into the Social Security system, Congress participates with the American people.

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan just as all Americans.

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.  Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned  citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

6. Congress looses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

 7. Congress must equally abide in all laws they impose on the American people.

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

8. All contracts with past and present congressmen are void effective 1/1/11 . 
    The American people did not make this contract with congressmen, congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.

    Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned  citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work. 

Highlighted in the report are the following:

There’s the $43.8 million spent on a temporary police training camp that has never even been used.

There’s the $36.4 million for armored vehicles, body armor, and weapons that no one seems able to account for.

There’s the $73 million facility built to train Iraqi security forces that has massive expansion cracks in the walls and trickling sewage from ceilings.

This does not even include all the billions stolen by shady civilian contractors who have been hired to perform certain services for the troops- there’s plenty of billions down the drain there too.

But of course, in the mind of the President, where all is well in Iraq (or at least was until around November 2006) and getting better by the day, what’s a few more billion unaccounted dollars between friends. After all, this Iraq war was all about generating massive corporate profits for the Military Industrial Complex and their derivatives, not about anything so noble as spreading democracy or making the world a safer place.

According to an article in The Tennessean, Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R) and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R) engineered a backroom legislative maneuver to protect pharmaceutical companies from lawsuits.

In language tucked into a Defense Department appropriations bill, AT THE LAST MINUTE and WITHOUT APPROVAL OF A HOUSE-SENATE CONFERENCE COMMITTEE, Frist and Hastert proposed giving immunity to companies that develop vaccines in the event there is a declared public health emergency. Basically, what they are asking is that their big pharmaceutical donors be immune from any repercussions arising from their producing, marketing, and dispensing vaccines or other health “countermeasures” that result in serious harm or death to users of said product.

Aside from the obvious pandering to high money donors at the expense of the ‘real American’ citizens, there is another issue at stake here, namely the fashion in which this language was slipped into the bill itself.

From the article: “some say going around the longstanding practice of bipartisan House-Senate conference committees’ working out compromises on legislation is a dangerous power grab by Republican congressional leaders that subverts democracy.”

While apparently not illegal, it is highly unusual for tactics such as these to be used as they ameliorate the entire reason for compromise committees to meet in the first place.

And the text of the inserted bill was reportedly written by representatives for the pharmaceutical industry and given to the lawmakers for insertion. It is somewhat germane to remind readers that Frist has received over $270,000 in campaign donations from the pharmaceutical industry since 1989.

Several problems are presented here: (a) lawmakers apparently are not writing laws themselves, but letting donors and staffers do this work, a total shirk of their actual job. They seem to have come to the conclusion that we vote them into office to collect donations that will keep them there instead of working out legislation that protects and promotes the average American’s concerns; (b) lawmakers are routinely tricked by their own leadership when it comes to working out legislation. According to the report, members of the bi-cameral committee were told that this bit of legislation was NOT in the final bill. They left the meeting only to return to the floor to vote on the bill that then included the language in question; (c) large corporations are buying off elected officials to create situations for themselves that no average citizen could get away with, such as blanket immunity for creating faulty products or services; (d) omnibus bills that contain legislation that is not even remotely related to the main thrust of the bills are common place these days and dilute the oversight power of individual members or watchdog groups until it is too late to change things.

This law was signed by the president on December 30th, 2005. So if by chance you get a bad batch of vaccine for any reason, too bad for you. You have no recourse against the makers of the vaccine for your or your loved ones ill effects.

And all this in the name of protecting America and of government for the people.

Oh yes…this piece of information came to light because of complaints by a Republican staffer, so sorry GOPers, can’t blame this on the ‘liberal media bias.”

(cross posted at Bring It On)

Now, in the wake of the Abramoff scandal, we are seeing both parties scramble to out-do each other and reform ethics rules in the House and Senate. The biggest problem is the access of lobbyists to lawmakers, and the perks they toss around for getting favorable legislation passed. Early indications show that this will have little or no effect as the proposals don’t really cut off access, they merely attach new rules, like the Republicans demanding campaign contributions in addition to the other perks they already receive and the Democrats saying that they have the ability to “just say no.” Make no mistake, both parties are skirting the real issues and simply trying to look good in the eyes of voters in an election year. Reform measures are pointless so long as those entrusted to follow them are only concerned about getting and keeping their seats of power.

Still, reforms are vital to the future health of our nation and efforts to make needed reforms should not be taken so lightly. Instead of vilifying each other in the press while quietly seeking ways to make the fewest changes necessary, politicians need to step up and show some real integrity. Among the most vital areas ripe for reform are the rules that govern how business is done in the halls of government.

Specifically at issue are the matters of adding amendments to bills and the fact that most lawmakers don’t even know what it is they are actually voting on.

First things first. If you’ve ever read an actual bill that is headed to the floor for a vote, the first thing to stand out is the extraordinary length and legalese that makes legislation nearly impossible to digest. A primary reason for this is the policy that allows legislators to delegate the actual writing of bill language to their staff, which in turn team up with whomever is advocating for the bill in the first place. Believe it or not, the act of crafting actual legislation is the prime reason we have representatives. This task, above all else, is their primary job. But in our world of influence buying and constant campaigning, our elected officials turn over the task of writing legislation to their unelected aids, many of whom are more than happy to add a little here and add a little there depending on what their own goals and interests may be. Sometimes this is a conscious effort to subvert the original intentions of a bills sponsor (supposedly the legislator themselves, but often a corporate or special interest hack). Other times it is not. In either case, what comes out is something far more complex than is needed and often too long and confusing for the legislator to understand, even though they may think the bill is what they originally asked for. What could easily be a couple of paragraphs turns into a 40-page document, leaving elected lawmakers to shake their heads and hope for the best. This problem is especially rampant in appropriations bills and a major reason why so much pork is thrown into our budgets.

To rectify this problem, and to ensure that bills that make it to the committee’s or to the floor are what they were intended to be, we must pressure the Congress to adopt rules banning this practice. Any legislation to come up for consideration should be written by an elected official, and be limited in scope to address a specific, concise issue. It’s fine to use staff members to conduct research and flesh out grammatical errors, but actual legislation should come from the hands of the elected people and not their staffs.

Secondly, due to the nature of bills being so incredibly complex, most lawmakers do not actually take the time to read the bills they are offering before they submit them for consideration. This has the unfortunate consequence of lawmakers voting for something without really knowing what they are voting for. For this reason, we need to insist that Congress adopt rules that make it mandatory for all legislators to read and understand the contents of any bill they present or intend to vote on. An immediate effect of such a rule would be that bills would be much less complicated and even ordinary people would be able to understand what laws are being made. It would mean an end to the nuanced interpretations of specious segments of legislation, especially if lawmakers were held accountable for their votes by a public who could understand what the verbiage of the bill was. It would make eliminate the whole “flip-flopping” issue as an excuse for voting for bad legislation.

Another much needed reform is the process that allows for unrelated amendments to be added to bills in the effort to gain passage. Too often, laws are made not because they can stand the test of necessity or common sense, but because legislators engage in a kind of back scratching affair. Politicians who are trying to get less than necessary legislation on the books are able to trade votes by tacking on things they want to another piece of legislation. Such actions do not serve the best interest of the tax paying public in any way. If indeed a bill is valuable enough and necessary enough to be passed into federal law, it should have the ability to stand on its own merit. If it can’t do that, the chances are that it is not a good bill for the country, even thought it may be good for a particular district, or more likely, for a particular political benefactor. Congress must be pressured to end the act of allowing unrelated amendments to bills in exchange for support during the vote.

Of course, opponents of these ideas will say that I am naive. They will say that the only way to get things done in Washington is through the very kind of horse-trading schemes that have been going on for decades. I reject that line of argument though as little more than an admission that most of what they do is not really necessary for the average American citizen or is so convoluted that any one with common sense would reject it outright. We do not elect politicians to play games with our money and our lives, yet the current way of doing things does just that. Real leadership is about identifying real problems and solving those problems in the most efficient, most fair, and most reasonable way possible without complicating the matter so much that the solution can never be realized in the real world.

Reforming congressional ethics is important, but we already have a lot of good rules for that on the books. Rather, it is the class of politicians we need to change to restore ethical behavior to the halls of government. Reforming campaign financing is valuable too, and the people of this great country can manage a large bulk of that themselves by giving their political donations not to the party coffers or special interest groups, but directly to the candidates committees themselves. The laws forbidding corporate donations are there, they just need to be policed and enforced. (See also some suggestions for campaign reform in Fixing the Vote I & II) But the way that Congress does its business is where real reform is needed if we are ever to break out of the corrupt system we are locked into today. The imbalance of the two party
system can be reduced by reforming the very way that laws are written, read, and passed and that is where real leaders should be forcing changes. Until we get Congress to change the rules of engagement, all other reforms will have little effect on the actual business taking place in the name of American citizens and we will continue to languish under bad law, wasteful spending, and legislative abuse of power.

Seriously though, who do these people think they are? As an average hard working American citizen, I can’t say that many of the people in my neighborhood make $165,000 a year. Neither do the people I work with or the parents of my daughter’s schoolmates. In fact, aside from business leaders and CEO’s that I come across from time to time, I don’t really have among my group of peers anyone who brings home that kind of cash.

$165,200 a year. That doesn’t include the other benefits afforded our elected representatives in Congress. They also have medical care under FEHBP, which covers up to 75% of the premiums and all but about 15% of major medical costs. Of course, the uncovered portion is deducted from the congresspersons pay, but since it all originates from the tax receipts anyhow, congress people aren’t really paying their share at all. A similar situation occurs with the FERS retirement plan that covers Congress. Granted, you’re not really vested until you’ve served several terms, but hit that marker, and you’re looking at a pretty sweet deal.

$165,200 a year. That also doesn’t include the professional perks of being chosen to represent the people of your district. A major biggie is the practice known as ‘franking’ or the free use of the U.S. Postal Service. What amounts to free political advertising is often used by incumbents around election time, basically forcing opponents to spend a fortune competing with this kind of advertising. These costs are ultimately borne by the taxpayer in the form of increased postal costs down the road. Other professional freebies include a fully paid office staff, usually in multiple locations, again at taxpayer expense. All this adds up to millions each year.

$165,200 a year. That seems just about high enough to take advantage of the continuing tax cuts too. Those in addition to exemptions they have already created for themselves. While the bulk of America is struggling with stagnant incomes and rising costs, our honest, elected representatives are helping themselves to a bigger piece of the pie.

Although the Republican Party controls the Congress, this disgusting show of avarice is a bipartisan effort, one of the only ones you’ll find lately. And while the total increase in salary costs is just around $1.35 million, a mere drop in the federal budget, the sheer audacity of the act is what is most troubling. It is hard to believe that this raise is necessary for our officials to keep up with the cost of living. It is harder to argue that the raise is deserved for exceptional work. The current salary is miles above that of the average working person in this country, and that’s without all the goodies thrown in.
So despite all the rhetoric and name calling and political posturing, the fact that Congress managed to calm down long enough to give themselves a raise before heading back to the playground of politics should speak volumes about the real priorities of the current crop of politicians. Apparently it is okay to slash military pay and equip soldiers on the cheap. And it is also fine to slash taxes for the richest Americans while the middle class slowly fades away as jobs are exported. Better to turn a blind eye to the hundreds of American companies that all share a building in the Cayman Islands as their corporate headquarters and avoid their share of taxes while enjoying profits in the billions of dollars. Cut funding for social programs, education, even veterans services; no one will really notice. Deficits? Fugiddaboudit! As long as Congress gets their extra cash, all is right in the world. Right?

Think about it for a minute. Think about whether the people representing you are really worth 3 or 4 or 5 times as much as you are. Look at the policies that have come from our halls of government. Look at the high costs of health care and the declining quality of our educational system. Been to the gas pump lately? How about that first winter heating bill? I bet you barely get a ‘cost of living’ raise this year. But even if you got the 3-5% that supposedly makes that even, your annual total was probably just breaking even to begin with. I don’t know about you, but at $165,000 a year, it doesn’t seem like we’re getting our money’s worth. If we’re going to be stuck paying this much, why don’t we at least get some people who have integrity and are willing to break out of the party mold. We need people with fresh ideas who aren’t beholden to the system.

So…anybody looking for a good paying job?

(Some information used to support this article can be found here: http://www.ntu.org/main/press.php?PressID=343  Salary information is taken from an AP report printed 11-19-05.)