Drain Washington’s Great Dismal Swamp

By

LeRoy Goldman

Guest Columnist

Citizen-Times

June 3, 2016

The Great Dismal Swamp in North Carolina and Virginia is a national treasure and sanctuary. The one in Washington D.C. is a vermin ridden pest hole. Let’s drain it.

America is on the verge of what will be the filthiest and most expensive presidential campaign in the nation’s history. By Election Day it’s a virtual certainty that the two presumptive nominees, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, will have spent (wasted) upwards of $2 billion in efforts to demonize each other. What’s coming is: Hillary, the crooked and trigger happy, versus Donald, the Mexican-hating, Muslim-hating misogynist.

Most of you are too busy and too sensible to spend much of your time reading the blizzard of political columns in the newspapers or listening to the nonstop rants by the biased bobble heads on Fox or MSNBC. But, if you did, you would have learned that either Hillary Clinton will win in a breeze, or that the election will be very close. How helpful is that? It’s not.

But, if this election turns out to be close, as is likely, then here are four reforms that would play a decisive role in determining who wins, what sort of mandate the President-elect will have, and who controls the Senate and the House of Representatives when the 115th Congress convenes next January.

Abolish the Electoral College

We say we believe in majority rule and one person, one vote. We don’t. The Electoral College is an undemocratic anachronism. It makes irrelevant the votes of Democrats for the presidency in many states such as Texas, South Carolina, and Kansas. Similarly, it makes irrelevant the votes of Republicans in many other states like California, Illinois, and Maryland. In 2000 it led to election of a president who lost the popular vote by more than 500,000 votes. Abolish it by constitutional amendment.

Abolish House Rules Committee

Republican and Democratic Speakers of the House use the House Rules Committee to strangle the legislative process. At their direction the Rules Committee routinely issues “closed” rules that circumscribe debate on the House floor for virtually all major legislation. The Closed Rule precludes the Minority party from offering amendments to the legislation. It’s the mechanism that currently enables the radical House Republican Freedom Caucus to subvert the legislative process. Abolishing the Rules Committee would open the legislative process and restore compromise and comity in the House.

Abolish the Senate filibuster

Originally intended to be used rarely and only under extraordinary circumstances, the Senate filibuster has become the weapon of choice for both Democrats and Republicans to paralyze the Senate when they are in the minority. Its automatic use by the Senate Minority makes a mockery of Senate procedure. Its repeated use needlessly fosters enmity between Democrats and Republicans. The beginning of the 115th Congress next January offers the opportunity for the Senate to change its rules and abolish the egregious abuse of the filibuster.

Reform the federal bureaucracy

Like the secret, all-powerful, and corrupt Vatican bureaucracy that does not answer to the Pope, the federal bureaucracy does not answer to the president, regardless of whether he is a Democrat or a Republican. Worse, it’s accountable to no one. And that means it can and does do whatever it wishes.

That’s how you get an IRS that abuses its authority to attack political organizations it opposes. It’s how you get a VA that is willing to murder sick veterans in order to protect its reputation, its leadership and their annual bonuses. It’s how you get the rollout of the Obamacare website that doesn’t work. It how you get a CDC that botches the response to the Ebola outbreak. Its how you get children with elevated blood-lead levels in Flint, Michigan thanks to the incompetence and irresponsibility of the EPA. The next president must have a plan to bring the federal bureaucracy to heel, rather than be its willing patsy.

Don’t underestimate the significance that advocacy for these reforms would have in determining who wins the White House. While they may seem esoteric and prosaic, the candidate who can convince the electorate that he/she is serious about ending the stalemate in Washington and knows how to do it, will win. Advocacy for these reforms will focus voter anger like a laser.

Do you know which candidate is more likely to propose these reforms? Here’s a hint. One of them has lived in and prospered from Washington’s Dismal Swamp for the past quarter century. The other has not.

LeRoy Goldman lives in Flat Rock and can be reached at:

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