This isn’t going to be pretty, I’m afraid, but that’s no reason not to look at it. I’m reminded of the school child who was unhappy with something his teacher did and who, as a result, brought a gun to school the next day and killed the teacher with it. The child liked the teacher pretty well; it was just this one little tiff. The counselors were persuaded, on the basis of their conversations with the child, that he had no idea the teacher wasn’t going to be back at school the following day. Maybe he’d seen too many cartoons, where Wile E. Coyote is killed in every scene and reappears in the next scene. He didn’t want the teacher to be gone gone. He just wanted to say how unhappy he was at the moment.
We’re coming to next Tuesday’s midterm election. If that’s what you thought this post was going to be about, you were right. I ask your patience.
I always like to pay careful attention to people who make money for a living. They bring a clear focus and a relentless metric to their work. So you can believe or not in global warming, the message of tree huggers, Earth Firsters, and recently notorious VIP, Al Gore. But when businesses begin buying up control of non-navigable “rivers” of ice in northern Canada, it makes you wonder what they know. People are buying land for growing wheat which has never, ever, grown wheat.
And lobbyists are lavishing money of ranking minority members. This is a pretty astute group, so you all know that the ranking minority member of a committee, let’s just say, the House Armed Services Committee, is the most senior member of the minority party on that committee. He or she is the person who would, under normal circumstances, become Chair of the committee, should something untoward happen to the current chair, such as becoming a member of the minority party after the November 2 election, for instance.
Being wise in the ways of Washington, you also know that committee chairs are named by the leadership (principally the Speaker of the House) and that they are all of the same party. So every Republican you elect moves John Boehner closer to being the new Speaker of the House and moves the ranking minority members of the committees closer to being the chairs of the committees.
That might seem to be a logical stretch, something we don’t teach and perhaps shouldn’t teach in our civics classes. The question is, though, do you know what the effect of your vote will be? The lobbyists know what the effect will be in their areas of interest and they are working the process. That’s why they are dumping money all over Dave Camp, Republican of Michigan, who would be chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. Here's the full article from the New York Times.
“You don’t wait until Nov. 3 and say, ‘What is the plan,’ ” said Jennifer Bell, a former Senate Finance Committee aide who is now a health care lobbyist. She flew to Michigan last month in part to catch up with Mr. Camp while he was in his district. “Obviously, it is the majority that sets the agenda.
Can you think of any reason why a health care lobbyist whose living depends on changes in health care provisions would be alert to changes in the health care agenda? Neither can I. It isn’t really different in the area of military hardware. Howard McKeon, known as “Buck,” is in line to be the new chair of Armed Services.
“Buck is a great advocate for our war fighters and for the industrial capabilities that support their mission,” said Hanz C. Heinrichs, a former aide to Mr. McKeon who now represents military contractors like L3 Communications. Mr. McKeon has already said he wants to push for more spending on unmanned aerial vehicles, which could benefit contractors in his district. And, of course, why wouldn’t he?
And Doc Hastings would be the new chair of the Natural Resources Committee.
Clearly, he is pro-energy development,” said Michael D. Olsen, a former Natural Resources Committee staff member and Bush administration Interior Department official, who now is a lobbyist at Bracewell & Giuliani, a firm that specializes in energy. (Today's New York Times quotes a lobbyist from the mining industry saying that some way is going to have to be found to call off the Obama administration's "regulatory jihad" against the mining industry. He's thinking, possibly of a "crusade" on behalf of pollution.)
So I could vote for Rob Cornilles for Congress. He doesn’t sound so bad. Doesn’t seem to foam at the mouth. I’m not a big fan of the incumbent, David Wu, so why not? Because I know something a lot of voters don’t know. I know that a vote for Cornilles is a vote Camp for Ways and Means, McKeon for Armed Services and Hastings for Natural Resources. I’m not sure what the implications of McKeon’s interests are since President Obama is a heavy user of the “unmanned aerial vehicles” which are made in McKeon’s district. It is clear, however, that Camp is going to take tax policy in a way I don’t want it to go and that Hastings is going to take environmental policy in a way I don’t want it to go.
From the standpoint of democratic theory, it wouldn’t be all that bad if voters had voted for a Democratic president and a Democratic House because they wanted the policies that the Democratic Party promised, but now, in 2010, they have changed their minds and want all those policies to go back the other way. It would be bad, because the executive branch, which has just finished assembling its teams for those three areas, are going to continue to do what they promised in 2008. So, to use an impossibly archaic metaphor, this would be like riding on a wagon being drawn by two horses and pulling back on the reins of one and goading the other into a gallop.
It would be bad, but it wouldn’t be that bad—from the standpoint of democratic theory. But, in fact, voters are angry because they economy has not recovered quickly and they are suffering. The only emotionally satisfying choice being offered them is to vote NO on anyone currently in office. So they are going to vote for the Rob Cornilles of the world, unaware that they are voting for the John Boehners of the world and also the Camps, McKeons, and Hastingses. Then, having put the legislative branch into a collision course with the executive branch, they will complain about “partisan bickering” and complain that “the bureaucrats” just don’t seem to be able to “get anything done.”
Oh dear. It turned into a rant. My point was that until we understand that voting on the basis of how we are feeling at the moment and that voting in a congressional election is a vote for Speaker and ALL the committee chairs, we are likely to shoot ourselves in our collective civic foot about every two years. And probably screw up our marathon time. That’s bad because democracy really is a marathon. It just has water stops every two years.
No comments:
Post a Comment