Reform Capital Hill

There is agreement among the American people and the Presidential candidates that our government is broken. What the candidates won’t admit is that the steps to fix our government are fairly simple and rather obvious and it focuses on fixing Congress. The recipe has 3 steps: term limits for Congress, addressing the use of the filibuster, and ending gerrymandering. If these three things happen, we will have a congress that are forced to serve all of their constituents, compromise, and tackle issues head on. We will have a Congress that are in Washington to get things done, rather than cultivate a career.

The Filibuster

There has always been a romanticized idea of the filibuster which can be seen throughout our cultural history, with one prominent example being the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. It speaks to the american ideal of the minority stopping the tyranny of the majority.

The concern comes when the tyranny of the minority prevents the Senate from passing any legislation. As the country has become more polarized politically, and as members of Congress represents a constituency that is further being polarized through gerrymandering, passing legislation has become a zero-sum game. For legislation to pass it must appeal to the conservative or liberal base 100%. If it doesn’t, the threat of a filibuster is used to prevent the legislation from coming to a vote. The other side-effect of abusing the filibuster is forcing the Senate to require a super-majority to pass any major legislation, which that combined with gerrymandering, and no term limits significantly reduces the likelihood of bipartisan legislation.

Gerrymandering

This is a term that the American public are either completely unfamiliar with, or do not understand the repercussions of it. Ask most Americans how they feel about politics, and most people will say that they are sick and tired of “career politicians.” It is important to ask then, what can a politician do to extend their career? Well, when your career is dependent on the number of votes you need, you should increase the likelihood that majority of the people in your district will vote for you. Carrying that thought out to it’s logical conclusion, you would think that you increase your votes through sound polices that appeal to everyone in your district, and putting your feet on the pavement to campaign and get people to better understand your polices. That is not what our politicians are doing. Instead of doing the hard work, our politicians are redrawing their districts to fit as many people in their base as possible.

Using this graph as an example, most politicians are shaping their districts into graph 3. What this does, is further reduces the incentive for politicians to compromise, and rewards politicians that appeal directly to their base. This further polarizes our government. It is important to have each congressperson’s district accurately represent the people in their district. If there is not balance in the representation, you can begin to see decreased voter engagement as they begin to believe that their vote does not matter.

One possible solution for gerrymandering would be a variation of the “Let the People Draw the Lines” Act of 2013. This would create an independent group consisting of 5 Democrats, 5 Conservatives, and 4 Independents who would be responsible for creating the districts. This would allow each state to have reasonable districts where the Representatives would be forced to represent all of the constituents rather than just their base.

Term Limits

The final step to reforming the Congress is to enact term limits which would help to provide Congress motivation to affect change. Currently there is no reason for anyone in Congress to vote for any legislation that would put them in conflict with their base. Term limits would direct Congress’ natural proclivity towards self-interest and self-preservation towards serving the public’s interest.

Congress passing an Act to create term limits would help to go a long way to repairing the country’s faith in our political system, as 75% of Americans favor Congressional term limits.

With 3 steps: reforming the filibuster, ending gerrymandering, and requiring Congress to have term limits, America will make a lot of progress towards having a more vibrant and functional democracy. Congress’ failure to function on any meaningful bipartisan level, and it’s inability to produce any worthwhile legislation needs to become public discourse. It needs to be an issue that is addressed at every Presidential debate. Our government is broken and it isn’t because of Bush or Obama. It is because our Congress is now rewarded by appealing to their base constituents and their baser instincts. It’s time we demand change.