A REVOLUTION TO TAKE BACK THE U.S. CONGRESS
by Nelson Lee Walker
I am proposing that we create a popular, bloodless, political revolution in our country.
I believe that it is very necessary, very possible, and very doable.
The object of this revolution is the destruction of the professional political class which currently dominates and corrupts the US Congress.
I am convinced, as are many, many voters, that the bulk of our country's political problems arises out of this 'permanent' Congressional political class, and their devotion to party power and to the financial special interests keeping them in power.
There is a simple method that voters can use to create this revolution: That way is to...NEVER REELECT any Congressional incumbent, in either party, in either the House or the Senate, good guys or bad,. Just NEVER REELECT any of them!
It can be done easily and at no cost. All it takes is a national email campaign by all voters, convincing their friends, and their friends, and their friends, to send out this NEVER REELECT message, frequently, thru out 2008, 2010, and 2012, and maybe longer...Just NEVER REELECT!
If we succeed in doing this for two or three election cycles, we would sharply reduce the
rate of successful reelections for the careerist professional politicians, which currently stands at over 98% in the House. Similarly in the Senate. When they find that they are no longer virtually guaranteed to be reelected forever (like Kennedy and Dingle, over 50 years each, just two examples), they will drop out and get jobs elsewhere.
This would leave room for and encourage 'citizen legislators' to run for and win office, using the Internet, without the help of special interests. It would break the back of the special interests who will have to work ten times harder to try to poison a huge batch of freshmen every cycle.
The resulting larger contingent of freshman Congresspeople would enable us, the voters, to call for term limits of "Six Years and Out", and for publicly funded federal elections. Both of these changes would keep the professional politicians and their financial backers on the sidelines for a long, long time.
Let's do it!
(Note to all readers: Please feel free to use this message, with or without attribution, for any purpose).
[Editor's Note: Nelson Walker is a VOID supporter and author at TenureCorrupts]
Comments
Nelson, great points of view.
Elsewhere, someone wrote that to get to term limits, voters would have to vote out enough incumbents because term limits weren't forthcoming, in order in incentivize the new Congress faces to adopt term limits. But, if voting out incumbents works well enough to force Congress to represent the will of the people, then term limits no longer have a problem for which it is the solution, if I remember the argument right.
Made sense to me when I read it, and still does to some extent as I recite it. The problem in search of a solution is getting Congress to be responsive and responsible to the people that elect them, solving the problems facing them as a nation of people.
Posted by: Jim Hesse | April 7, 2008 8:53 PM