No doubt about it, Congress is the big news buzz these days.
Just about anything wrong today is traced back to congressional action, or lack thereof. Everyone has some beef with Washington D.C., even us, as this week's editorial details.
More to the point, most everyone has a way to fix it – if they could.
Click to read more of what John McCallum has to say.
The reason I write those last three words is because ideas to fix Congress – make them more representative of citizenry than special interests – right now would only start in Congress. We have to get Congress to agree to fix Congress – heal thyself.
There is a way to make changes to a Congress that lacks incentives to make their own and that is through the provision in the Constitution's Article V that allows two-thirds of state legislatures to call a constitutional convention to propose amendments.
It would be an unprecedented move. Scholars can correct me, but if memory serves, all of our 26 amendments since 1788 have gone through Congress first, followed by states ratification.
Maybe it's time then to set precedence and change the Constitution. Not with a balanced budget amendment. I'm thinking of something more fundamental, and maybe change is not the proper word.
Maybe call it a course correction. A simple redirecting of an institution back toward the original course set for it by the Founding Fathers.
I'm speaking of the House of Representatives. The “People's House,” remember?
In his book “America's Constitution: A Biography,” author and constitutional scholar Akhil Reed Amar details how the Founders used the British parliamentary system's institutions of king, House of Lords and House of Commons as models for our own three branches of government system – with notable changes of course.
One of those changes was in requirements for service in the two legislative chambers. Unlike their English counterparts, neither the House nor the Senate required a threshold of property ownership or wealth for service in the respective chamber. As long as they meet age and residency stipulations, anyone anywhere on the economic scale can serve if elected, the idea being that those without property and wealth will bring different views, ideas and citizen identification to government than those who are more wealthy.
That's true today to a point. That point unfortunately is when one gets elected to Congress.
Example: Cathy McMorris Rodgers. According to the website governmentgonewild.com, McMorris Rodgers' average net worth when she was elected to the House in 2004 was $106,504. By 2008, it was $1,423,013, reflecting a growth of 1,236 percent. In 2009, McMorris Rodgers dropped to $1,330,509, and after this Monday, who knows.
But McMorris Rodgers isn't the only congressional member hitting the financial big time via congressional service, and the only reason I use her is because she's our district's representative in the House. She's just one of 39 Republicans and 41 Democrats listed on governmentgonewild.com's “Skyrocketing 80” list.
But that's what shrewd investments will get you when you have a six-figure yearly salary to help out. When McMorris Rodgers started in 2005, her pay was $162,100, that eventually hit $174,000 in January 2009 where it's stayed.
I can't fault these folks for investing wisely. My point is however, with that salary and that wealth, how much do they really identify with the financial needs and concerns of the rest of us?
For contrast, the U.S. Census Bureau lists the 2009 median household income — just income — at $49,777, down from $50,112 in 2008. That 2009 figure ranges from $71,830 for a married-couple household to $25,269 for non-married female household.
People making $174,000 a year with net worth in the millions don't face the same impacts, struggles and hurdles as those making $71,830, let alone $49,777 or $25,269.
How can they then say they represent us or even understand and feel our pain? I don't think they can, and as such have perverted what the Founding Fathers intended when they eliminated wealth thresholds as qualifiers of service.
It's time to change that, at least in the “People's House,” and that likely needs to be done through citizen influence on their state legislatures to take action. I have ideas on changes, and I'm interested in reading yours.
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