Why Has Congress Failed Americans?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Congress, ConstitutionThe following is an article submitted by Joel Hirschhorn, former senior staffer in the U.S. Congress for 12 years and author of Delusional Democracy…
The Founders of our nation and the Framers of our Constitution surely did not foresee the day when, of the federal government’s three branches, the public would have the least confidence in Congress. In fact, the public has a little less confidence in Congress than it has in HMOs. At 14 percent, the fraction of Americans with a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in Congress is the lowest in Gallup ’s history of this measure — and the lowest of any of the 16 institutions tested in this year’s Confidence in Institutions survey. The Supreme Court received 34 percent confidence and the awful presidency of George W. Bush received 25 percent – nothing to be proud of.The 2006 congressional elections show that switching power between the two major political parties is an act of utter futility. We have a bipartisan failure of Congress to fulfill its constitutional responsibilities and serve the public. In the end, Democrats may have a different style, but like Republicans are also corrupt, arrogant, and incompetent. Things have gotten so bad institutionally and culturally that we cannot vote our way out of a dysfunctional and destructive Congress as long as the two-party duopoly maintains its grip on our political system.
We no longer have a significant number of members of Congress that rise above partisan political priorities to put the good of the nation and the integrity of our Constitution first.
For our constitutional republic to really work Congress must have the courage and integrity to use its constitutional powers to safeguard Americans’ freedom, security, health, safety and welfare. Even the most distracted and cynical Americans now see Congress has done next to nothing to fulfill its constitutional responsibilities.
Worst of all, Congress has allowed the Bush presidency to accumulate far more power than our Constitution permits. Even after years of arrogant disrespect by Bush and Cheney for our Constitution and Congress itself, Congress is too cowardly to do what they are supposed to do to maintain the structure of our federal government. It has not used the constitutional remedy of impeachment – not to punish Bush – but to preserve the constitutional limits on the presidency.
Add to this: the failure to protect the rule of law; the failure to control spending and reduce our debt; the failure to control our borders and protect our national sovereignty; the failure to stop the insane Iraq war; the failure to stop the many forms of corruption of Congress itself; the failure to restore public confidence in our elections; the failure to stop the excesses of globalization that is destroying our middle class; the failure to address rising economic inequality; the failure to fix our broken health care system; and so much more.
All this has resulted from repugnant runaway politics. Getting elected, grabbing power and enjoying the benefits of office trump governing. Hundreds of members of Congress – in the House and Senate – are mental midgets, embarrassing blowhards, chronic liars, outright crooks, corporate lackeys, and elderly buffoons. They are plutocracy protectors more than democracy defenders. And too many that think they should be president.
So what can the 86 percent of Americans without confidence in Congress do?
Put aside partisan views and stop re-electing members of Congress. Only a handful of incumbents deserve to be re-elected. A very few that never supported the Iraq war, do not use pork spending to reward their supporters, and have worked to impeach Bush, for example.
Now is the time to elect independents and third party candidates to Congress. When one objectively sees the utterly low quality of both Democratic and Republican members of Congress it becomes clear that even a random selection of ordinary Americans would probably do better. But we have thousands of independents and third party members with considerable civic and elective office experience that deserve the opportunity to restore our representative democracy. How could we do any worse? Let’s throw the bums out and give real change a chance.
We also need much greater public awareness that Congress for a very long time has failed to obey the part of Article V of our Constitution that gives us the right to a convention to propose amendments to the Constitution. Such an Article V Convention was created by the Framers as an alternative to Congress proposing amendments. They created this convention option – a temporary fourth branch of government giving us some direct democracy – in case Americans some day lost confidence in the federal government. That day has arrived!
Even Congressman Ron Paul, self-proclaimed champion of the Constitution, has not supported an Article V Convention.
There are many constitutional amendments that deserve public discussion, especially ones to make our government work they way our Constitution intended it to work. We need to strengthen our Constitution to prevent power-hungry presidents, useless Congresses, and Supreme Courts that create new public policy.
Moreover, the one and only requirement to have an Article V Convention specified has already been satisfied, because way more than two-thirds of state legislatures have requested such a convention. Learn more about this congressional disobedience of the Constitution at www.foavc.org, the website of the new national, nonpartisan group Friends of the Article V Convention.
Why has Congress failed Americans? Because Americans have allowed it to fail them. Now is the time for Americans to assert their sovereign constitutional power and take back their country. That means YOU!
I had never heard of Article V, so I visited the website Joel linked to. Here’s more:
Article V of the Constitution of the United States provides that “on the application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, [Congress] shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments…”. The Founding Fathers of our nation recognized the importance of providing this means by which the citizens of our country could initiate amendments to change and/or clarify the Constitution; the fundamental document which they intended to be not only the blueprint for our federal system but also “the supreme Law of the Land”.
In addition, all 50 states have applied for a convention a grand total of 567 times. What do you think? Are we being cheated out of having a voice? Certainly seems that way to me.
Article V also sounds very close to what Mike Gravel has been talking about with his National Initiative. Obviously not the same thing, but damn close. Gravel’s plan would seem to just eliminate the middle man, the state, so individuals could propose laws. And while those aren’t amendments to the Constitution, that ability could be just as valuable.
This entry was posted on Friday, August 24th, 2007 and is filed under 2008 Election, Congress, Constitution. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 24th, 2007 at 9:25 am
The reason why is because do you know what would happen if the people en-masse decided to go amending the Constitution? Article V would destory the constitution as we know it. Why don’t we do it? Because the few of us who DO understand the Constitution (admit it – 9 our of 10 – or less do NOT have a friggin clue about constitutional law) know that an Article V would be a disaster! We the People foundation agrees (they now are going to have the Supreme Court hear for the first time in history what ‘right to petition for redress’ means in the First Amendment for the governments, and IRS, unconstitutional behavior.
August 24th, 2007 at 9:34 am
[...] Gardner, a writer from Donklephant, nails it perfectly in describing congress and the United States political party system. In the end, Democrats may have [...]
August 24th, 2007 at 9:49 am
This article affirms my belief that we have been collectively ignoring the 10th amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
I believe that the Federal Government should be as small as possible, providing essential services needed by the entire country. Otherwise, it should be up to the states, just like the Constitution says.
August 24th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Our Constitutional Republic has been destroyed. The foundation of American Liberty has been either distorted, erased or forgotten. Our entire planet is ruled by an oligarchy of established bankers, oilmen and global corporations. We the People find ourselves enslaved and intoxicated by an economic system that by design, destroys the prosperity, development and education of the Worlds Citizenry. The Federal Reserve and its fiat monetary policy need to be abolished. The unconstitutional (and enslaving) 16th Amendment need to be repealed. Congress needs to listen to the people and convene an Article V Convention so we may work towards restoring the Constitutional Republic that our “elected” officials have stolen from us and sold to the highest bidder within the corporatocracy. Our government is allowing the corporate elite to successfully merge Canada, Mexico and the United States into a single supra-national entity, the North American Union – complete with its new currency the “Amero”, which will be ushered in just after the fabricated collapse of our economy. The fascist Torries within our government are working towards another false-flag attack similar to 9/11 to “justify” an attack on Iran and the further erosion of our civil liberties in America. A Halliburton subsidiary, KBR has already been awarded a $385 million contract to construct “detention centers” in the United States. Any puppet President of the United States now has the power to enact martial law and fully transform America into a police state. The conditioned-complacent public in this country and all the Worlds Citizenry need to act now to save what few liberties we have left. The time has come to ascend upon Washington and RESTORE THE REPUBLIC! “One if by Land and the Lantern is Lit…”
August 24th, 2007 at 10:10 am
The issue here Justin is whether or not the states have to propose the SAME amendment to the Constitution. Sure 2/3 of the states may call for a convention, but if New Jersey is calling for a convention to over turn the 2nd Amendment and Wyoming is calling for a convention to ban same-sex marriage — it does not really count. Article 5 can’t be a cummulative remedy for a variety of constitutional grievances.
August 24th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Many people proposing an article five convention do not understand what it means. Article five means that the whole Constitution can be junked in one fatal swoop. Once an article five convention is called, the door is open to the complete destruction of the Bill of Rights by those who wish to destroy her. For instance, on the issue of immigration, article five is an avenue that allows Canada, Mexico, and the US to become the North American Union in no time flat, and without having to deal with the Constitution preventing it from happening. Pick your poison to liberty and article five guarantees that it can happen. THAT is why Ron Paul is against an article five convention. So am I, and so should every liberty loving American be.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:08 am
This is all so hysterical. An Article V convention wouldn’t destroy anything, and the fact that states have applied for such conventions means nothing unless 66% of the states all apply for such a convention to address the same issue (as DosPeros said).
Article V just gives a controlled way to modify the constitution. As there should be.
And it is very difficult to do. As it should be.
There’s no story here, and the NAU isn’t going to happen.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:19 am
If you want to stop the erosion of our constitutional rights, Vote Ron Paul in 2008!
http://www.RonPaul2008.com
August 24th, 2007 at 11:51 am
Governing through direct democracy is not a good idea. Look at California. Through its initiative process, special interest groups are able to spin their special interest legislation and get a majority of uninterested voters to believe they are voting on something entirely different than what is proposed. Morover, the initiative measures are usually poorly drafted and overly stringent and do not provide for the necessary contingencies and flexibility that legislation needs to work in our convoluted society. I also agree that the Article V convention is too risky, but getting rid of our two party system may be just the ticket. After all, many of our founding fathers were against a two party system for fear of the reality we live today.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:52 am
Look, all you have to do is just return to what laws are ALREADY written and it will fix this country. We don’t need Article V – we need to return to articles I,II,III,IV, and protect the rights and freedoms of Americans.
August 24th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
The USA is becoming a police state
http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/PoliceState.html
August 24th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
[...] 24th, 2007 by Michael van der Galiën Justin Gardner has an interesting guest post up by Joel Hirschhorn, former senior staffer in the U.S. Congress for 12 years and author of [...]
March 6th, 2008 at 5:38 am
When do you think the Feds will implement the Amero currency?
Do you think the Amero will be just as worthless as the current dollar? Do you think things will be far worse if they do bring in the Amero?
What things can we expect to see (economy, society, housing, food, energy, foreign relations ect..) when they do bring in the Amero?
If I were you I would start buying gold and silver coins which I am.
Because those coins will be worth more than the dollar and the Amero.