The idea that Congress is largely failing in its duties is not novel and not controversial. Congressional approval rating polls have been consistently dismal for well over a decade. Any public sector organization that showed such perennially poor approval that did not enjoy a monopolistic advantage would certainly have perished at the hand of market forces long ago. So why does our inept Congress persist year after year? In one sense it is a monopoly, there is but one federal government with but one legislative branch. On the other hand, we do have regular elections that, in theory, allow us to optimize or replace our government as needed. So here comes the inconvenient truth, we have no one else to blame but ourselves, ‘We the people’. There is something to the cliché, ‘You get the government you deserve’, a notion attributed to both Thomas Jefferson and Joseph de Maistre. Additionally, Lincoln did not just assert that our government is ‘for’ the people, but that it is ‘of’ and ‘by’ these people as well. It is, therefore, our responsibility to construct a government that can effectively legislate on our behalves. We must do this by first becoming informed, and then going out and voting.
Another inconvenient truth is that selfishness is a common nearly ubiquitous human trait. This selfishness is born out of naturally selected survival instincts. Most faith traditions teach us to suppress our selfish instincts but history has shown that we mortals can not fully contain these instincts through faith alone. Over human history, great minds have found ways to redirect selfishness toward common benefit. The brilliance of capitalism, when executed well, is that it harnesses these selfish instincts to align our efforts toward shared benefit and exploits productivity gains of specialization. A key to well-executed capitalism is a foundation of trust, and this trust, in turn, must stand on a footing of shared truth. Capitalism can devolve into injustice when truth is lost and trust is unearned. Interestingly, democracy also seeks to harness human selfishness, redirecting it for common good. The idea is that individuals can vote for their self-interests while the vote tally will align with the common interest. The wholesale cooperation of all members of a democratic society affords more self-interest possibilities with people working in concert efficiently. The success of the American experiment thus far is attributable in no small part to the harnessing of selfishness through the enthusiastic embrace of capitalism and democracy. Just as with capitalism, democracy also relies on truth-based trust to deliver justice. We need access to the truth regarding our government’s legislative work for our vote to be informed and effective. It is important to note that the truth is not only distorted by outright falsehoods but by omission as well. It is primarily by omission that the electorate has been deprived of the requisite knowledge and truth. There is plenty of blame for this omitted knowledge to go around, and do not believe for a second that we the people are merely victims. The politicians themselves seem content to keep the public discourse regarding legislation superficial, allowing them to avoid honest reckoning of tradeoffs necessitated by limited resources. The news media seems content with equally superficial coverage, settling for platitudes and sound bites and focussing on the political game and the candidate’s personalities instead of their policies. We citizens have been far too willing to consume this diet of political junk food from candidates and the media, rather than seeking more substantive fare.
It would be naive to ignore the fact that our elected officials are just as susceptible to selfish instincts as the rest of us. It would be equally naive to assume that their self-interest will always align with our own. The onus is on us to be sufficiently informed to enforce this alignment unleashing the true power of democracy. At this point, You may be thinking that you agreed that you would like to be better informed to ensure the fidelity of your vote, but it is simply too hard and too time-consuming to do so. Those who think this make a truly valid point. In a world where the answer to most queries is just an internet search away, it proves surprisingly difficult to find concise answers when the query relates to the legislative activities of Congress. The raw database of active legislative documents is made available on Congress’ own website Congress.gov but this information is certainly not easy to consume. A much better presentation of this material along with a better query capability and some basic analysis can be found at the third-party site GovTrack.us. The work that GovTrack.us does is very valuable as a base of effort but additional analysis and curation are needed to bring the electorate up to speed efficiently. I think a useful analogy is an employee delivering a report to a C-suite executive. The executive has many responsibilities and does not have the time to personally collect low-level details about every decision she needs to make so she delegates the collection, collation, and analysis to a subordinate to present to her so that she can make a quick informed decision. Recall that our Congress members actually work for us and we are the ultimate decision-makers. We are the executive and they are subordinate in this analogy. We should demand more concise reporting from our Congressional employees so that we can be the informed decision-makers we need to be. Ideally, Congress and its staff would take the responsibility to provide these materials to us decision-makers to enable efficient democracy but it is not happening and we can not assume that it will just miraculously begin. The next place we can look is to the news media where we can find scattered examples of useful analysis but it is clear that they do not make informing the electorate about legislation a priority either. Internet searches regarding a particular piece of legislation can reveal valuable information but much of what is found is from advocacy groups. These sites should be consumed with a healthy skepticism and the agenda of the advocacy group should be considered. Perhaps, then, the best place to look for help in closing this information gap is to our fellow citizens. Who better to expect to have a shared self-interest and be worthy of our trust?
I hope that Rhetorise.com can act as a platform for this citizen sourced analysis that is needed to help close this information shortfall among our electorate. It is important that any such analysis is done as responsibly as possible, adhering to truth and employing sound reason. I will close this post with one brief example of such a citizen sourced analysis. I will analyze the legislation pertaining to universal background checks for gun purchases. I choose this topic as it seems to have strong support across the political spectrum and among non-gun-owners and gun-owners alike. There are two bills active in Congress regarding universal background checks for gun purchases, both originating in the House of Representatives:
| Bill | Name | Sponsors | Vote | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| H.R. 8 | Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019 | D: 227, R: 6 | For: (D232,R8) Against: (D2,R188) | Waiting for the Senate since Feb 27th, 2019 |
| H.R. 1112 | Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2019 | D: 15, R: 1 | For: (D225,R3) Against: (D7,R191) | Waiting for the Senate since Feb 28th, 2019 |
The essence of H.R. 8 is to close certain situational loopholes that exist that allow certain gun purchases to complete while bypassing the existing background check system. The most prominent of these loophole situations are private online sales and private sales at gun shows. H.R. 1112 focuses on extending the period allowed to execute a background check before the gun transfer becomes authorized by default. The existing law allows 3 days before this default transfer is triggered while this bill seeks to extend that to 10 days with an option to extend the check period an additional 10 days with written notice. Additional information regarding these bills can be found at BradyUnited.org and Giffords.org, two non-profit groups advocating stricter gun control laws.
Opposition to these bills consists of criticisms that they are overly restrictive presenting potential dangers in certain self-defense scenarios such as fear of potential domestic abuse. Other complaints state that these restrictions result in undue inconvenience. One example of an opposition argument can be found here.
Both bills passed the House just over one year ago and have sat awaiting action in the Senate. It seems Mitch McConnell is content to let these bills languish despite their commanding public support. One must question what is McConnell’s motivation in suppressing these bills. It seems the criticisms mentioned above could be addressed through a regular process of debate and markup. It is worth noting that McConnell has taken over 1.2 million dollars of contributions from the N.R.A. over the course of his political career. This amount pales in comparison to the over 65 million dollars taken by the full Republican caucus in the Senate. It does certainly seem that McConnell’s actions are better aligned with this monied interest than with the will of the people. One notable irony is that this N.R.A. agenda may well be at odds with the will of its own dues-paying membership.
I can not believe that such a ridiculous state would persist under the watchful eye of an attentive electorate. Please join me in the fight to close this attention deficit and help restore a properly functioning Congress.