Congress Is The Core Of U.S. Political Radicalism

Congress Is The Core Of U.S. Political Radicalism

There is so much talk of what is causing the divisive nature of American politics and the extreme partisanship of the American public. What is the root cause? What causes families to separate themselves from each other? What allows enemy foreign governments to so easily manipulate our temperament? What allows our politicians and President to divide us rather than unite us? What causes the gridlock that prevents finding constructive solutions to complex problems? What causes the tribalism and polarization of our public? What allows us to question facts and truth? What allows us to distrust the news media? What allows us to undermine the basic fundamentals of our democracy and our history of the greatest nation in the world? What allows our now great advances in social media to be used against the common good? What allows us to demean and demonize various segments of our population? What allows obvious lies to be understood as truths?

Is there any common thread to all of these questions? YES! The answer is our Congress. It may seem overly simplistic to cast this blame, but it is real. Congress sets the tone for our political discourse. Congress is the mechanism that is supposed to provide a “check and balance” on our political direction.

Over the last couple of decades, at the same time as our differences as a public have sharpened about the direction of the country, we have allowed political decision making to evolve to a point where even a one vote margin may determine our direction. We have allowed the one institution that is supposed to provide a “check and balance” to devolve into a useless entity, mired in gridlock, and no longer capable of performing its critical role to develop the legislation we need or to check the actions of the other two branches of government – the Executive and Judicial.

It should be clear that we are a divided country in terms of our beliefs about our future and what needs to be done to address our problems and issues. As the past couple of decades have revealed our differences are real, they are passionate and emotional. Yet we have refused to address the fact that our political infrastructure, which may have worked in the past, is no longer capable of addressing the issues, problems and political realities of the 21^st century.

How difficult is it to understand that a particular party (Democrats or Republicans), that maintains complete control of the Congress, House and/or Senate, by the very narrowest of numerical margins is not going to reflect the will of the country? How difficult is it to understand that whatever solutions derived by such a system, or action or lack of action by such a system, will be controversial or unacceptable to half or nearly half of the country?

For whatever reason we have allowed ourselves as a nation to accept the fact that this is the way we make decision – the way we govern; the way we solve problems. It is wrong. We know it is wrong. We know that it produces one-sided solutions or results. Yet, we continue on this path.

Our Founders, who created the greatest democracy in the world; what has been the gold standard of governing; warned us about the problems, they even said “evils” of political parties. At the same time they realized that parties are part of our DNA as a people.  But, somehow they trusted that we would see through the flaws and overcome the obvious. For nearly two hundred years we have managed to somehow make the system work with a respect for facts, truth, decency, moral responsibility, faith, international leadership and patriotism. We are now in a new era and faced head on with the reality that it no longer works.

The solution is obvious – the Congressional system must change if we are ever to restore our founding principles of governing and restore our image and reputation as the greatest governing democracy in the world.

The solution is recognition that governing must reflect and incorporate the views and beliefs of all of the people and not just half of the people. We can’t govern the greatest nation in the world based on the beliefs of just half of its population. We need leadership that recognizes our history and understands that governing by half of the country is not governing the nation as a whole.

I believe the public at large understands that solutions and problem solving are not one-sided and demand cooperation, compromise and decorum in leadership. Solutions and decisions must be made with recognition of facts and truth. Radicals on both sides do not understand this phenomenon. They believe that their ideas are the only ideas and they reject any sort of compromise. They seek division, perpetuate hate, misinformation, lies and even acts of violence to advance their position.

America, wake up! The Congressional system must change. One party, Democrats or Republicans, with a narrow margin of control, cannot command complete control of the decision making process of the House and/or Senate. The Constitution does not demand this; it simply says that Congress will establish its own rules. The existing rules are unacceptable and do not reflect the will of the public at large. They encourage division rather than unity. They exacerbate efforts to seek compromise and cooperation. They deny a comprehensive disclosure and investigation of the facts. And finally, they can incite rage and radical behavior among the public.

Congress can change its rules. Congress can develop a new system of “shared power” that reflects the will of the public and provides a new direction of leadership for our country.

We need to focus the criticism of our current governmental dysfunction, tribalism and radicalism where it belongs – Congress. We are much better than this and can change our course to a governing structure that can again be the model for governing that democracies of the world can respect and emulate.

I have written extensively about the concept of “Shared Legislative Power” (SLP). The underpinnings include: a strict adherence to a revised “regular order” process with bills and decisions moving through subcommittees and committees with equally balanced party representation, expert testimony, public input and with co-chairs and non-biased staff. This process is currently utilized by the House and Senate Ethics Committees and has been used, with success, by the Federal and individual state governments on rare occasions when the membership was divided equally. Following evolution through this revised regular order process, bills and decision, would proceed to the Floor for votes of the full membership, unencumbered by arcane rules that are designed to arbitrarily control and limit what bills and decisions are considered.

Admittedly, many procedural details would need to be addressed and it would involve a “game changing” revision to the existing legislative procedures in the House and Senate. Critics argue that it would result in complete gridlock; however, the limited experience in the past has proven otherwise with startling positive results involving cooperation, compromise, true bipartisanship, camaraderie and goodwill among members.

·                     Slow Learners: Save Democracy; Heed The Warnings (https://goo.gl/Qczn7a) September  3, 2018

·                     Ethics & The Way Congress Operates (https://goo.gl/wpSdXk) June 4, 2018)

·                     SLP: The Only Hope For "Country Over Party" (https://goo.gl/GSLfgh) May 21, 2018)

·                     Shared Committee Power And The Ambience of Bipartisanship(https://goo.gl/RgdtDz), March 22, 2017

·                     Shared Committee Power: How Crazy Is It? (https://goo.gl/wvpIUG), March 14, 2017 

·                     Beating The Dead Horse Of Bipartisanship (goo.gl/qy00fX), February 1, 2017

·                     Congress Could Be Functional; If It Wanted To (goo.gl/JlB5zu), January 18, 2017

·                     Bipartisanship: How The GOP Could Heal A Divided Nation(goo.gl/yU3zjB), December 23, 2016

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