Fix Congress First
Though "change" is the dominant rhetoric of this presidential campaign, everyone realizes that fundamental reform can't come from a president alone. If there are problems in the way Congress now works, for example, no president can fix those problems alone. Any fix would require the cooperation of the very institution that needs changing -- Congress.
Not surprisingly, however, not everyone in Congress is eager for change. Whatever they say, and however strongly they may deny it, there are many who have grown used to a system they understand well. And many of those are not about to support radically reforming that system, at least until pushed.
But the 111th Congress will be the freshest that Washington has seen in more than a decade. There are more than 67 "open seats" in this years' election; the last time we were anywhere close to that number was 1996 (62). This fact has led some to think about strategies for getting Congress to take seriously the idea of remaking itself.
At the National Press Club in DC today, with the support of political strategist Joe Trippi and others, I will launch one of those strategies. Change-Congress.org will be a bi-partisan, web-based effort to leverage and amplify the important reform work being done by others. Think of it as a kind of Google-mashup, but applied to politics. Our aim is not to displace primary reform organizations, but rather to complement and feed support back to these organizations. And in the process, we hope to make transparent just how broad and deep the support for fundamental reform is.
Change-Congress.org will develop in three stages. The first layer will give candidates and Members of Congress a simple way to signal their support for any mix of four fundamental planks of reform: (1) a promise not to accept PAC or lobbyist contributions, (2) a commitment to abolish "earmarks" permanently, (3) a commitment to support public financing of public elections, and (4) a commitment to compel transparency in the functioning of Congress. Once a candidate or Member selects the planks he or she supports, the site will give the candidate code to embed that pledge on the campaign website. Citizens too will be able to take a similar pledge, promising to support candidates who match their own vision of reform. When they do, they will be linked back to reform organizations that support each plank.
But the real contribution of citizens will reach far beyond simply making a pledge. Beginning in April, we will launch a second stage to the site: in a Wikipedia-inspired manner, wiki-workers will track the reform-related positions of candidates who have not yet taken a pledge. If a candidate, for example, has endorsed Public Campaign's bill for public financing, we will record that fact on our site. The same with a pledge to forgo money from PACS or lobbyists, or any of the other planks in the Change Congress pledge. And once this wiki-army has tracked the positions of all Members of Congress, we will display a map of reform, circa 2008: Each Congressional district will be colored in either (1) dark red, or dark blue, reflecting Republicans or Democrats who have taken a pledge, (2) light red or light blue, tracking Republicans and Democrats who have not taken our pledge, but who have signaled support for planks in the Change-Congress platform, or (3) for those not taking the pledge and not signaling support for a platform of reform, varying shades of sludge, representing the percentage of the Member's campaign contributions that come from PACs or lobbyists.
What this map will reveal, we believe, is something that not many now actually realize: that the support for fundamental reform is broad and deep. That recognition in turn will encourage more to see both the need for reform, and the opportunity that this election gives us to achieve it. Apathy is driven by the feeling that nothing can be done. This Change Congress map will demonstrate that in fact, something substantial can be done. Now.
Finally, the third stage of Change Congress will provide financial support to reform candidates. Following the model of Emily's List, we will recruit contributors to support Change Congress candidates, both Republican and Democratic, who make reform a central platform of their campaign. Individuals will be asked, for example, to contribute $10/month to five Change Congress candidates. That support will make it easier for those candidates to spread the message of reform, and to define at least one central part of their candidacy to be about reform.
The key to this movement will build upon the best of Internet social and community activism, to the end of substantial reform. The web is not simply a replacement for broadcast. It is not simply a cheaper, more interactive political brochure. It is instead a technology which, if architected right, can enable an extraordinary range of citizens to engage -- to speak, to write, to investigate, and to pledge. It is this engagement that turns supporters into soldiers for a cause.
Let the cause of this political cycle be substantial and fundamental reform of Congress. For with an approval rating hovering in the low 20s, no other federal institution needs the renewed confidence of the people more. From the scandals involving outright bribery, to the indirect corruption of earmarks, to the pervasive and persistent skepticism born of the view that too rarely does congressional action track policy sense rather than campaign dollars, this is an institution in desperate need of change. Done right, the Net can leverage the support for that change. And get it done.
Lawrence Lessig will be launching the Change Congress project today (Thurs March 20) at 1:30pm EDT at the National Press Club in DC. The event also will be web cast here.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Nice try Larry, but it won't work. Public financing is a bad idea that will only help the incumbents.
Public financing will ALWAYS be augmented by people who want to spend their own money to have their say ... and they will find a way to do it.
Transparency is great - lets have complete transparency in campaign spending - all contributions publicly reported online in real time. Let's have complete transparency in voting - no congressional voice votes, all votes published online in real time. And, let's have transparency in earmarks too - all bills, complete with earmarks, to be published online, in real time.
What we really need are TERM LIMITS on congresscritters. Then, the LINE-ITEM VETO for the president.
Government in this country is gargantuan and must be reduced in size. Professional career politicians and their patronage and earmarks are killing us. Term limits and the veto are the quickest way to get there.
We badly need increased transparency in both the legislative and executive branches. Congress needs to revamp the Freedom of Information Act to make it harder to evade and it also must revamp the whole concept of "state secrets" so that they can no longer be used as an automatic get-out-of-court free card.
To clean up its own branch, the Congress should:
o pass rules that require the public posting of the complete text of legislation a week before it is voted on; this would include conference reports.
o All votes will be on the record: no more voice-votes
o No workings of Congress shall be secret or anonymous except in defined and very limited matters (e.g., classified information, etc.).
There is one simple fix that would immediately improve much of what is broken. In both houses create a procedural rule that any amendment to a bill must be germane. Pure and simple. Another way of stating this same principle is that a bill may only have one purpose. This would not only eliminate earmarks, it would help ensure that a Congressman knows what it is he is voting on and would help eliminate amendments added merely to buy a colleague's vote. The Maryland legislature has this rule; it seems to work quite well.
Jazzy, I'm curious. How does this work in Maryland?
I think you're right that a lot of the BS that gets stuck in bills would evaporate if something like this were implemented.
Is there a rules committee that adjudicates disputes about germaneness?
After viewing most of the video presentation of the roll-out of the Change Congress project, I wrote the following to Professor Lessig (minor edits):
1) I'm very happy the last woman to ask a question related her experience and her suggested emphasis on having an accessible database of Change-Congress supporters. She had a definite view as to what would motivate a candidate the most! I would add, though, that it's desirable to track Change-Con
So, when individuals are approached for the first time, who have no previous exposure to Change-Congress, as a minimum they could be asked for their phone numbers to get the once-per-election informative phone call, but additionally they will be asked to go to the web site and pledge, and to consider getting organizations they belong to involved.
2) We need to track referring organizations with each voter who pledges, if he/she cares to volunteer that information. (I hope you don't mind if I use the term "we". I'm really into this.) The reason is, the way to make this go viral, in terms of boots on the ground, is to leverage civic-minded organizations. And, as motivation for them, some friendly competition in terms of how many fellow voters they enlist is never a bad thing. But you can't have a competition without a means of keeping score, so the database needs a table of Referer's, with unique id's, of course.
I personally have no problem with rewarding organizations financially, though I'm afraid this may be unseemly. (After all, the corruption of government has it's roots in financial interests.
3) When a program for enlisting civic-minded groups, such as Boy Scout troops, is worked out, it be nice to have a downloadable .pdf which people like me could print out. I could then present this to whomever I'm talking with, and/or mail it out before a face-to-face meeting.
4) Talk show hosts should be asked to push both individuals to pledge, as well as appealing for groups to get involved. There are a lot of frustrated voters out there, throughout the political spectrum. While I doubt that shameless smear-merchants like Rush Limbaugh would welcome something like Change-Congress, I can't believe that conservative voters, in the main, like corruption any more than non-conservative ones. Hence, a general appeal to talk show hosts is recommended.
And while I'm thinking about it, here is one Congressman you can put on your hit list:
Patrick Murphy, 8th Congressional District, Pennsylvania.
Why?
Among other reasons, he voted FOR George W. Bush!
Federal Financing would be great, if and only if it can be passed.
I don't see this happening in the near future.
Just to run costs huge amounts of money and if you are not independently wealthy or lucky you just can't do it.
Perhaps, the internet will help to provide new ways to advertise as it seems today but everything costs money.
I could care less about PACS and Lobbying because frankly, talking about these things takes away from the number one problem we have:
The Representatives & Senators themselves need to be replaced.
The system isn't so broken it's those who make it up that have to be replaced.
If the Democratic delegations of Florida and Michigan aren't seated, that will be a starting place.
I also think that those who do NOT GET ANY $$$ from the feds this MAY because they were unemployed will have a say in this too.
It seems to me a Presidential Candidate and Senator with a record of co-authored bi-partisan legislation, who travels with the former VP Candidate of the other party and is not well liked by the fringe of his own party is more likely to promote a cooperative congress than a Presidential Candidate and Senator who is at fringe of his party and has no track record of success other than extraordinary campaign skills.
Mr. Lessig, I have great respect for you and I wish you will in this project.
However, I'm a little worried about how you stress that this will be a "bi-partisan" effort.
The fact is, that there is no such thing as "bi-partisan" in politics. We have one party that wants to shrink government to a size where it can be easily "drowned in a bathtub" (and then plans to drown it), and another that believes in a government by, of and for the people, and that efforts in the public sector don't have to be counter-freedom. There simply is no way to join these two points of view.
When you have the influence of an extremely powerful corporate sector involved in politics, "bi-partisan" will always mean "what the Republicans want". I challenge you to give me an example of a single successful "bipartisan" issue in the last 10 years that has been acceptable to a Progressive view of America.
Problem is what do you do about the multi-term, well entrenched Congressmember for whom campiaign monies are minimial for reelection?
Perhaps too, we should find some way to limit the corporate lobbyists from psysical access to the capital and to the politicans and to give them money directly or indirectly. We also need to ban any elected or appointed official from any corporate interest lobbying organization, law firm and certain corporations and so on for at least 2 years after leaving office.
One thing I would like to see is a maxium age caps, ranging from 70 to 75 years old that one could be a Federal elected or appointed official, including the Cabinet and the Federal Court system. This would be in effect a form of term limits, would reduce the risks of someone dying, ill or senile while still in office due to their powerful positions.
Even when you're done we will still have only two viable political parties, the seniority system will likey be unchanged, and there will still be legal challenges asserting that limiting monetary participation in the political system has free speech implications. Further, there will be an army of lawyers hired to look for legal ways for big business to channel money to those legislators with the ability to render favorable influence.
Also, what we will still not have is a viable way for the public to register our disapproval with the direction of government when it starts heading down a road that we just don't want to take. We will not have a system incorporation "no confidence" procedures.
Obviously what is being proposed is far better than nothing. Equally obviously what is being proposed will never be able to create the kind of comprehensive reform that could reslut from our holding The Second American Constitutional Convention.
I like the idea in theory and hope it can work in fact, but I might like to see a sliding rate and a choice as to how many Reps we would want to contribute to. I wouldn't want to be tied down to a certain amount by some sort of contractual agreement. Especially if the Reps weren't expected to make a binding contract to stick to the platforms that they claim to support. I do want to see changes made to our Government. It definitely needs it. Two changes I would want to see are Getting rid of the Electoral College, and a change as to how the Supreme court is selected and the Attorney General is appointed. Giving the President the choice of their selection, even with Congresses needed approval doesn't work. It hasn't worked for the last several years. It allows for to much power in the wrong hands.
Congress is unfixable, too many Democrats in their. With people like Reid & Pelosi leading the way there is no chance.
Great! So now what...
I signed up and took the link to opensecret
My Rep is getting 41% of his funding from PACs, but I think he does a good job (Mike Thompson D-CA 1).
So do i email him and tell him or do you?
Am i now "a soldier for the cause"?
I think the point KarenM makes is a good one-the media. Without mass awareness, the plan will go nowhere.
This is a hugely complicated scheme that's going to ultimately have little or no impact. Lessig could spend much less money by doing what I've tried to encourage him to do a few times. That involves simply encouraging others to go to campaign appearances, ask the questions the MSM won't ask, and then upload the responses to video sharing sites. 100 people holding politicians accountable would have a far greater impact than Change Congress ever will. I'd suggest starting with illegal immigration, since that's a huge indicator of political corruption and it's the area where the candidates are weakest. But, it doesn't have to be about that. As for why Lessig would come up with some hugely complicated and expensive scheme rather than something that would work and would cost very little money, I have no idea.
Good luck. I hope it leads to some much needed changes.
However, I think one of your planks should be to support a Constitutional line-item veto. The fact of the matter is that Congress has proven itself utterly incapable of policing itself. Giving the Executive branch an opportunity to shine some additional light on overspending and pet projects is badly needed.
Who oversees the overseers? Since Congress and the Executive branch both need to act in concert to pass legislation, they should both have a voice in shaping that legislation.
The President needs Congressional oversight, and Congress needs Presidential oversight that goes beyond simply vetoing an entire omnibus spending bill.
No line item veto! No Unitary Presidency! No royal corporate rule.
i suggest that instead of line-item veto that we have ONE TOPIC legislation, rather than tacking unrelated earmarks and unpopular/corrupt or extortionate topics onto otherwise good bills.
on a broader note, i think this revolution is a great idea, and if you want any on the right to join in, you will want to make sure that your definition of "lobbyist and PAC" includes unions, who they view as extremely threatening. not agreeing, just noting what i hear.
also, Scalia's demented obsession with Corporate Citizenship Status and Bribery = Free Speech must be overturned by the Supreme Court before we can get back to democracy and "one man one vote." Kucinich and Nader both brought this up...
we don't want "transparency" in lobbying. we want representation without bribery. our reps have been purposely deaf to that notion for years now...
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
