
Confessions of a Congressman - anigbrowl
http://www.vox.com/2015/2/5/7978823/congress-secrets/
======
KwanEsq
>We are still, despite our shortcomings, the most successful experiment in
self-government in history.

I'd like to know what metric they are judging that by.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
Agreed, the US doesn't rank first in virtually any metric that citizens would
consider to be desirable (like healthcare, education, safety, freedom of the
press etc). And it's no more democratic than say most European states.

Taking into context its size is a whole different matter, though. It's
relatively easier to build an awesome small country (say the Netherlands where
I'm writing from) than a massive union of states spanning multiple time zones
and climates. Perhaps if the US is compared to the entirety of the EU, then
Congress and the American system of governing can be said to be one of the
most impressive, if not the most impressive, experiment in government in
history _at that scale_ (although I'd much prefer Europe to the US even on
average). But that's more a function of it being the only 300m+ country in the
world that is also rich than it being the best among many of them.

~~~
ladytron
The USA has the strongest military in the world. Unlike the Netherlands, we
can actually defend ourselves against an aggressor. I would rather come from a
strong country than one that needs to rely on others when it comes to defense.

Your social programs aren't worth a damn if you don't have the ability to
defend yourself.

~~~
tinco
Don't be so quick to downvote ladytron, there's a core of truth in it. As long
as our surrounding countries allow us to be, The Netherlands is the greatest
country in the world (to live in), obviously WW2 has shown us that can be
taken away from us in an instant.

Arguing that the US wouldn't let it happen is stupid. Last time the US saved
us it took 5 years for it to make that decision (for which we are eternally
grateful) and in those 5 years the agressor had killed almost an entire
subculture of our society in gas chambers and put us through one of the worst
food shortages in our history.

I'm not saying we should make an effort to go all Israel and build an army
worthy of Mordor, but there's no shame in simply admitting we are weak and
depend on our diplomacy to survive.

The social programs really are worth a damn though. From my perspective (easy
as a Dutch person) countries like The Netherlands is what we're fighting for.
It's simply civilization, a world where we don't have to behave like animals
to get what we need. Take away your social structure, and you take away
civilization from the less wealthy. And the result is obvious, only the hyenas
and vultures make it out, and they'll be the ones perfect for a job as
Congress man/woman.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>I'm not saying we should make an effort to go all Israel and build an army
worthy of Mordor

Take back your insult to Israelis! Mordor _lost_.

>there's no shame in simply admitting we are weak and depend on our diplomacy
to survive.

Not true. You're an American protectorate.

~~~
tinco
> Take back your insult to Israelis! Mordor lost.

It's not an insult. Mordor only lost because they depended on the power of the
ring to unite their armies. Only when it was destroyed their armies fell into
chaos. If it were up to the military power of Mordor Middle-Earth would surely
have fallen.

> Not true. You're an American protectorate.

The whole idea of being a protectorate is that you're weak and are depending
on your allies to survive, which is exactly what I'm saying.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>The whole idea of being a protectorate is that you're weak and are depending
on your allies to survive, which is exactly what I'm saying.

Fair enough.

>It's not an insult. Mordor only lost because they depended on the power of
the ring to unite their armies. Only when it was destroyed their armies fell
into chaos. If it were up to the military power of Mordor Middle-Earth would
surely have fallen.

There's also the fact that Mordor was _evil_.

~~~
tinco
> There's also the fact that Mordor was evil.

You're saying Israel's military is not good enough for an evil power? I didn't
know alignments had strength requirements.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
I'm saying Israel is Chaotic Good.

------
GabrielF00
You also have the phenomenon of Congress doing politically divisive things
just to score points. For instance, the House just voted to repeal Obamacare
for the 56th time. Why do it a 56th time? Even John Boehner says that it's so
that freshman Republicans can go back to their districts and tell voters that
they voted to appeal Obamacare.[1]

Similarly, there's now a special House committee to investigate Benghazi, even
though there have already been investigations by four other House committees
(Oversight and Government Reform, Intelligence, Armed Services, and Foreign
Affairs).

[1] [http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/why-
repu...](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/why-republicans-
are-voting-to-repeal-obamacare-again/385105/)

------
chrisan
> 9) Congress is still necessary to save America, and cynics aren't helping

> Discouragement is for wimps. We aren't going to change the Constitution, so
> we need to make the system we have work. ... Our greatest strength is our
> ability to bounce back from mistakes like we are making today. ... The point
> here isn't to make us something we're not. The point is to get us to make
> sausage again. But for that to happen, the people have to rise up and demand
> better.

How exactly are we supposed to get them to "make sausage again" when #2-8
pretty much list out why they aren't going to make sausage?

Have we not been demanding better? Any laws we might want of them to limit 2-8
is going to require the people who benefit the most from 2-8 to vote against
themselves.

Articles like this is exactly why I'm discouraged and each voting cycle I get
less and less inclined to go out and vote and just stay home and code.

~~~
rattray
> Have we not been demanding better?

We haven't. Instead, we've been saying things like: How exactly are we
supposed to get them to "make sausage again" when #2-8 pretty much list out
why they aren't going to make sausage?

I, too, primarily get discouraged each voting cycle and feel progressively
less inclined to take any sort of political action. I'm right there with you.
It's actually very heartening to me that whoever wrote this article is
optimistic that, if we _really_ demanded it, change might come.

~~~
happyscrappy
The powers that be have zero interest in the legalization of marijuana and yet
it continues despite directly contravening federal law.

~~~
jonnathanson
_" The powers that be have zero interest in the legalization of marijuana and
yet it continues despite directly contravening federal law."_

The steady march towards legalization of marijuana is, quite frankly, a model
for how people can work outside of D.C. to make things happen. This really
began at the state level, then picked up momentum among voters by word of
mouth, spreading from state to state.

I remember many years ago, when some political activists thought that medical
marijuana was a strategically poor route to legalization. That has turned out
to be completely wrong. Acceptance of the medical benefits of marijuana did a
_lot_ to change general public perception of cannabis. It completely reframed
the issue, from one of moral panic, to one of compassion and economics. Over
time, marijuana became so normalized as to stop outraging the kinds of voters
it used to outrage. These days, even if many people still don't accept the
medical benefits, they're not up in arms about the subject. They've accepted
that people are going to smoke weed, and that the world doesn't fall off of
its axis when people do. Haters have stopped hating.

Now that cannabis has been destigmatized, and all but normalized--in pop
culture, in common experience, and at the polls--its former controversy has
been short circuited. It's no longer a hot-button "social values" issue with
any significant blocks of voters. Hence, no congressperson's job depends on
coming out for or against it every election cycle. So congresspeople are
apathetic about it. They're not going to try to help the issue, but they're
not going to try to stop it, either.

Marijuana beat Congress because marijuana went around Congress. That seems to
be the secret to making things happen in this country: make something a
grassroots issue, generate "demand" (so to speak), and build a groundswell of
inevitability _before_ dealing with D.C.

~~~
a3n
I agree. If you want something done, don't bother with Congress. State or
local is the only way to make a direct and timely difference in our lives.

~~~
acjohnson55
Yet, state and local politics is also where some of the most regressive
changes are happening. It's a real double-edge sword.

~~~
a3n
Then if you're a small-p progressive, and you want to keep regressives in
check, that's the place to be. :)

------
javajosh
Agreed about the credibility of an anonymous article. Vox would do well to
explicitly vouch for it.

But this throw-away line struck me as valuable:

 _> Why try to get on a good committee if you have already ceded authority to
your unelected, unaccountable party leaders?_

This, it would seem to me, is the most troubling aspect of all of this (to put
it mildly). If the tacit assumption is true (that congresspeople cede their
authority to unelected party leaders) then we do not live in a democracy, we
live in something like a kleptocracy.

~~~
rattray
The congresspeople are still technically free to vote apart from the party, so
it's still technically a democracy. But that and other factors (incl. the
gerrymandering, money in politics, etc mentioned in this article) certainly
lower the "level of democraticness".

------
throwaway344
I'm instinctually skeptical of anonymous articles. I always worry the
publications are just making it up. It just seems unverifiable. I wonder if my
conspiracy voice talking.

~~~
avivo
Regardless of verifiability of the author, this seems like an excellent list
of problems with congress. I've seen ~ all of these elsewhere from more
clearly authoritative sources.

It seems much interesting and useful to focus on the message over the
messenger. Unfortunately, many of these problems seem relatively intractable
given the incentive structure.

~~~
anigbrowl
This was basically why I posted it. I too worried about the lack of
verifiability, or whether it might be someone writing 'poetic truth' or
somesuch. On the other hand, the issues described are all real and all chronic
problems in US democracy. As someone said, our polity is 'less of a democracy
than an auction', and I feel that this is partly responsible for the high
incidence of gestural politics and legislative corruption that have displaced
a good deal of pragmatic lawmaking.

------
Shivetya
5) We don't have a Congress but a parliament

This is the true problem of Congress. It no longer is a separate part of
government but merely and extension of the political parties. The ACA is the
best example of this effect.

2) Congress listens best to money

The only way to fix this is to government fund all elections with a set amount
of money and do not permit direct donations to political parties. However we
must not ban paid political speech, only speech that targets a specific person
pro or con; excepting someone already in office, negative ads should be always
permitted against them

~~~
theiostream
Where I live (Brazil) there has been widespread debate about state funding of
political parties. It happens at the moment (I think something like 400mi USD
is invested in it), but the issue with it is that it has prompted a load of
small, socially inexpressive political parties to be founded to get money from
that fund.

Debate also spins around prohibition of donations from companies or from
donations over 2000 reais or something by a person (around 950 USD). Some
would argue that company interests are valid and that prohibiting that would
just generate that sort of funding illegally; others would say this sort of
company funding is the root of a very corrupt system. This should be one of
the main points of a try at political reform in the next four years.

Not necessarily is "being a parliament" a problem -- after all, parties are
together for a reason. Except they are usually ideological in most countries
(liberals, social-democrats, socialists), and not a group of people that got
into parties to get, as noted by the article, in the party most convenient for
the district where you come from.

------
malandrew
Can someone do a stylometry analysis on this? There should be a large enough
corpus of writing from every congressperson to identify the author.

~~~
semperfaux
While this is an interesting idea, if this becomes common practice, the only
possible result is a chilling effect on the willingness of informers to inform
or whistleblowers to blow said whistles. It's another needle in the coffin of
anonymity.

Plus, if this was written by a journalist (or someone else) based on a good-
faith account from a legislator, the result will be either that person giving
up his source (see paragraph 1, above) or being ethical and refusing to,
potentially casting a bad light on the article whether it's appropriate or
not.

~~~
waterhouse
One might expect that scary agencies already have machine-learning-based
approaches as common practice...

Could one defeat it by writing something, then having someone else "translate"
it into their own vocabulary sentence-by-sentence, or even paragraph-by-
paragraph, and having the original author approve the "translation"?

------
vacri
" _and we try to do our best_ ", followed by an article where everyone follows
the same rutted path like sheep instead of trying to break the mold. If they
were trying to do their best, they wouldn't engage in filibustering and
brinksmanship.

Then, near the end: "lower pay than a first-year graduate of a top law
school". $174k? That's your typical graduate salary from a top law school?
Yes, perhaps. If you choose the cream of the crop, in the most expensive
state, with the largest firms. It's a silly comparison anyway, because first-
year graduates are in their early 20s, and politicians are, for the most part,
middle aged. Talented middle-aged people aren't becoming politicians because
they're instead drawn by the lure of being a junior lawyer?

I mean, seriously, no-one believes that the only financial benefits federal
politicians get is their salaries. Hell, the Australian Prime Minister is paid
25% more than the POTUS (or at least was, before our dollar dropped), but the
current and past presidents aren't exactly strapped for cash.

------
briandear
A strange contradiction: the author claims that low pay is a problem with
attracting talent but then explains how it's a stepping stone to lucrative
lobbying jobs. I don't think there's a single person who would turn down a
Congressional seat because they pay isn't high enough. Congress should have a
salary that's equal to the median salary of a DC school teacher. In fact
Congressional pay should be statutorily pegged to the average salary of cops,
firemen, school teachers and mid-career soldiers. Those people don't get a
raise, then neither should Congress.

Better yet, let's tie Congressional pay to fiscal performance: for every
percentage the deficit exceeds the budget, congressional pay decreases by the
same percentage. If they don't pass a budget, then they don't get paid at all.
Maybe Congress (and the Executive) ought to feel the he same pain or pleasure
they inflict upon the country.

~~~
moultano
On the contrary, I think congresspeople should be paid enough to be
independently wealthy. At least a million dollars per year. I can think of no
cheaper way to prevent corruption in congress than to make sure every
congressperson has fuck you money.

I listened to an interview with one of Nixon's biographers a few years ago,
and he was explaining how it was that Nixon became so corrupt, and
consequently so paranoid. He was not a wealthy man when he entered politics.
He got power before he got money, and the temptation to use his power to
become as wealthy as his peers and associates was just to great. When your
social circle includes the captains of industry, and you're still worried
about day to day expenses, something is going to give.

If you want to prevent corruption among powerful people, you should pay them
commensurate with their power. They have control over 100s of billions of
dollars of industry, and are getting paid 200k, what do you expect them to do?

------
karmacondon
I'm not sure if anyone has ever done this before, but it might be worth
considering what the US Congress has done correctly. Namely, they haven't
really screwed things up. America is still here, and is still the most
powerful and respected* organization of humans to ever exist. That does count
for something.

There was talk here not too long ago about comparing programmers who fly by
the seat of their pants and end up looking like heroes to programmers who
write solid, maintainable and reliable code. The boss notices when you pull an
all nighter and crank out thousands of lines of code to solve a P1 critical
bug. But they notice less often the programmers who write good code that
doesn't produce a lot of bugs in the first place. Congress is kind of like the
second programmer. Their bosses, the voters, generally pay no thought to their
passing of procedural matters, vetting various candidates, oversight meetings
and routine votes. C-SPAN viewership will attest to this. People only care
when there is drama, scandal or crisis. It's a surprisingly thankless job, and
like the all the rest of us congress people tend to focus on money as a
meaningless way to keep score.

On balance, the entire US government has done more good than bad. This
generation was handed a finely tuned machine with one mandate: Don't fuck it
up. And they haven't so far. Of course things could always be better. I wish
that congress would do the things that I want them to do, and not the things
that other people want them to do. But they haven't caused me any problems in
particular, and haven't harmed most of the people that I know. It's very easy
to complain about how someone else does their job, but obviously difficult to
do it better ourselves. We have the option of firing hundreds of them at a
time. We're just waiting for them to give us a reason to do so.

* "respected" in the "envied and feared" sense, not the "what a nice bunch of people" sense

~~~
hatmatrix
"Namely, they haven't really screwed things up."

Could it be that in the past, external factors prevented that from happening:
the industrial revolution, 2 world wars, the cold war, etc. But in the world
we're in now, they aren't set up properly to save the declining domestic
quality of life for the average citizen (e.g., see arguments along the lines
of _The Two Income Trap_)?

------
rattray
A piece on the salaries of ex-gov lobbyists, which may be germane:
[http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/01/21/revolving-
door...](http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/01/21/revolving-door-
lobbyists-government-experience/)

------
chernevik
"The only threat a lot of us incumbents face is in the primaries, where
someone even more extreme than we are can turn out the vote among an even
smaller, more self-selected group of partisans."

From this the rest follows. Lobbying is a sweet gig because Congress is
stabilized to a predictability sufficient to justify organizational
investment. Congress is 'parliamentarized' because the national parties are
organized around their constituent interest groups. Etc.

This certainly wasn't what the Founders hoped for. And party organization and
factionalism have been the most malign factors in American history. If you
think it's bad now, just thank God you aren't in the middle of a Civil War.
Factionalism poisoned the Constitution even before it got started, by forcing
into the document an unprincipled carve-out for slavery and a logically absurd
and emotionally nauseating 3/5 "representation" for slaves.

And what's to be done about it?

The Founders were insanely smart political people, and it's a good rule of
thumb that if they didn't have a constitutional answer for a political
problem, there is no such answer. This guess is fortified by the failure of
Abraham Lincoln, the greatest de-bugger in human history, to solve the
problem. I'm not saying it's impossible to solve factionalism by some
constitutional / legal hack, but I'm not holding my breath.

I think our only hope is _culture_. Our ability, as citizens, to recognize our
own individual partisanships and check them. And to recognize them in our
fellow citizens and resist them. We have to recognize that in our current
political system, real power doesn't lie in Congress, or the Presidency, but
in whatever people and forces are shaping the ideologies around which these
parties are organized. We have got to identify those forces and examine their
motives and prepare to break with them when they aren't serving their stated
goals. For all power in all places is corruptible. We have got to start paying
attention to the use of language, not to understand problems, but as a tool
for political organization. We have to start recognizing the political and
organizational dangers of those ideas and dreams we hold dearest, and find
ways to guard against those dangers.

tldr; It is ultimately our government. Its flaws ultimately proceed from us.

------
lordnacho
If most of the seats are safe, why do they need to spend 50-75% of their time
finding money to defend them? Is it all spent in primaries?

~~~
WildUtah
My congressman raises $100k each cycle instead of the typical $1MM+ because
the seat is so safe. He has connections that keep him safe in the primaries,
too.

But many congressmen can't feel that safe in primaries. And raising less money
is considered to attract interest from primary challengers. So raising
millions is a prophylactic against possibly really needing to spend that kind
of money against a serious challenge.

~~~
mattmanser
Why would you have to keep raising it?

You win the primary, then why spend the million in the chest as the seat is
safe?

The arguments are contradictory. Either the seats aren't safe or everyone has
to spend more time fundraising to fight than legislating.

------
quadrangle
Maybe doing away with Robert's Rules style bullshit would help some.
Everything about the manner in which congress operates is basically designed
for partisan gridlock. All sorts of organizations today realize this and use
neutral facilitation and better open discussion and decision processes. Under
congressional rules, members have to propose bills first rather than agree
about problems and then discuss solutions and come to consensus.

Also, score voting would solve a lot:
[http://rangevoting.org/](http://rangevoting.org/)

~~~
philwelch
The business of Congress isn't done on the floor of Congress. What happens on
the floor of Congress is split between theatre and holding votes that the
respective party whips already know the outcome of.

The business of Congress is done in closed door meetings behind the scenes.

------
rwmj
"We aren't going to change the Constitution" .. why not?

~~~
WildUtah
Changing the Constitution requires 2/3rds of each house of Congress. [0] If
there were such a strong majority for reform, the reform would already be law.

[0] Amendments also require majority agreement in both houses of 3/4ths of the
state legislatures.

~~~
avar
That's one out of two ways to change the constitution. It can also be
initiated by the states without the involvement of Congress. See [1]. This is
the strategy being adopted by the Wolf PAC[2] which is seeking to pass an
amendment abolishing corporate personhood & publicly financing elections.

1\.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Five_of_the_United_Stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Five_of_the_United_States_Constitution)
2\.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_PAC](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_PAC)

------
lovelearning
If it's so bad, why did the author run for Congress at all? I wish (s)he had
explained their motivation to run for office.

~~~
johan_larson
There is a progression from idealism to disillusion to professionalism to
monetization.

You start out with high hopes of making a real difference. That runs smack
into a complicated and compromised system, which makes you disillusioned. You
try hard to figure things out and do useful things. Eventually, you understand
how things work and how to make the system work for you, which makes you a
political professional. Those skills are very valuable and you see your peers
making a killing with them. Not wanting to be the local chump, you use the
skills to your own advantage, which is monetization.

------
maxerickson
I enjoy the tension that exists between the first two points.

Interpreting with some hostility, Congress is not out of touch with people
that have money back home. Which means they are probably mostly out of touch
with people back home.

~~~
j42
My guess is "in touch with" is intended to mean understanding, not necessarily
reliability... meaning, they know exactly what the majority of their community
wants, but the paradigm rewards self interest which often runs contrary to the
_majority_ given the way that power & wealth naturally consolidate.

------
crazy1van
> We have a parliament without any ability to take executive action. We should
> not be surprised we are gridlocked.

I think the vast majority of new laws don't serve the people's interest. So I
welcome the gridlock.

------
w_t_payne
Hmmm. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

------
archlight
it floats up with best timing as House of cards 3 due to release this month

------
cubano
tl;dr; Everything about Congress is utterly and hopelessly skewed towards
corruption.

Wow, surprise.

No wonder approval ratings are so low.

------
DanielBMarkham
We're missing some other important insights here:

1) Congress is in a bed of its own making. Most all of the problems listed
here were created by Congress itself. And it could change any of them with a
few simple votes. But it will not, because Congress has always sought out the
least risky structures. No matter what this congressman might say, the
behavior is obvious: nobody wants to be a Congressman making the tough
choices; running with the herd is much safer.

2) Congress doesn't seek out the money, the money seeks out the Congress. The
congressmen just go and ask for it. Congressmen aren't on TV with a telethon
to save orphans from cancer -- they are not begging for bucks. Instead,
there's a ton of money out there already from lobbyists and PACs that are just
waiting for the right politician to come along. It's not begging -- it's more
like auditioning for a part. The key question is this: can you stick with the
national message, keep the troops fired up, and still take this money? If so,
take it! You need it. If not? You've got some more auditions to do. There's
plenty of folks wanting to influence the sausage making. It's a numbers game.

It's important to understand this distinction because the driver here is the
political power that Congress wields, not the guys with the checkbooks. If, by
some miracle, you could pull all the money out of politics? It'd be the same
old dance, just with government contracts and cushy political jobs. This has
been going on since Washington was president. The problem now is that the
stakes are tremendously higher now than they used to be. Political power
always trumps money -- that's why money chases it. That's why politicians
continue to create new structures where their power can be exercised.

3) While the smart people may not run, there are a ton of folks who have
already struck it rich and now just want another feather in their cap.
Congress is the way to do that. One senate majority leader said that running
the senate was like having to manage 100 little Napoleons.

4) Yes, in the overall the Congress may be having problems getting together,
but the individual role of Congressman is a pretty cool gig. All government
agencies have special hotlines for you to get special attention. You get to
ride around in helicopters, meet foreign leaders, magically make investments
that soar, get schmoozed by celebrities -- the perks go on and on. So let's
not blow smoke up anybody's posterior: if the job wasn't attractive, most of
the people who are currently congressmen would step down. That's not
happening.

5) Congress is not only necessary to save the country, they've been sleeping
on the job. You can be cold and bitterly truthful without being cynical.
Things are broken for a reason. Understanding those reasons is the first step
in fixing the system. I worry that people who hate on cynics are really just
saying "Become emotionally fired up and follow us on faith. We'll get you
there!" Sorry, I don't do that -- and I think we're nearing the end of that
attitude being helpful. In fact, it's beginning to sound like cheerleading on
the Titanic. Let's be blunt and honest. If the republic depends on my losing
my critical thinking skills then it's in worse shape than I think. Honesty,
learning from history, and being aware and critical of the many ways
governments screw up is what created the structure of the country, and its the
only true way forward. You cannot fix something you are not prepared to talk
honestly about.

~~~
georgeecollins
"Congress is in a bed of its own making. " Not entirely. Congress passed
campaign finance reform. The supreme court ruled a lot of it
unconsititutional.

------
barsonme
A better title: "9 obvious political facts we hashed together to make a cool
headline."

1) Of course. Everybody is short-sighted and the goal is to keep the
constituents at bay for the next election cycle. Wait long enough, and you're
basically set depending on how deep of a shade your district is.

2) Well, yeah. Nobody donates except for old people (barely), rich people, and
unions/corps. A house campaign in a "safe" district in my state costs over
$8M, and very little of that comes from your "average" citizen. Thus,
fundraisers with rich people. It's an arms race, because you don't want to be
caught without money _unless_ your opponent goes balls-to-the-wall -- then it
can be used to your advantage. ("Hey, look, he's a corporate/union/out of
state shill!") edit: also, sorting remits sucks. Super boring because most is
pennies save for a few large checks.

3) This one is probably one of the worst depending where you come from. A
state like mine doesn't have _many_ issues, whereas some of the states with a
very black and white demographic makeup (I mean that in more ways than one)
have a _lot_ more issues.

4) Yeah. It's frightening almost. Still, it depends on the data sets. Many
state parties have POS data sets that still rely on a top-down method of data
insertion that _sucks_. Also, the more rural you get the less accurate the
data is. (Although, there are other methods of voter ID for rural voters.)

5) Part of this is due to the polarization of the U.S., but yeah. I mean,
theoretically we're supposed to have a slow-moving congress, and separation of
powers (exec, leg, judicial) is a _good_ thing.

6) Ooooh yeah. Get on the (depends if you're talking about state or national
congress) finance committee, ways and means, etc and all of sudden you're
powerful. I should mention, though, that at the local level committee meetings
are taken much more seriously.

7 and 8) Yeah. One of the best ways to make connections is through politics. I
know people who are absolutely useless but make nearly six figures because
they worked on a campaign, ran one, worked as an la, and finally got a
position on a "policy group" or as a staffer. All of a sudden you have a bunch
of people vouching for you, regardless of your competency. If other
professions worked this way (e.g. doctors, lawyers) we'd all be dead or in
jail.

9) Apathy is the killer. Nobody cares anymore, and it's sad. If people would
care, learn about the issues and people, show up to local hearings, actually
_do_ things then we'd see real change. If people wouldn't be so polarized and
view the world as black and white maybe we'd end up voting clowns out of
office... although, that _does_ require people to actually vote.

~~~
dingaling
> If people would care, learn about the issues and people, show up to local
> hearings, actually do things...

I went to a local hearing once, about a proposal for a leisure centre to be
built on some grass pitches in our town.

At the meeting we were informed that we could not object to the proposal
except on economic or environmental grounds. The effects on the living
standards of local residents, and peoples' current use of the pitches, were
irrelevant.

The proposal passed, of course, because the economic benefit for the local
government of a leisure centre is greater than some free-to-use pitches.

That's why people are apathetic: everything is stacked against them and the
only representation they can make is disregarded.

------
mikerichards
_Congress is still necessary to save America..._

When you think like that, then you're part of the problem, not part of the
solution.

------
zaroth
This was a funny statement;

    
    
      Without crooked districts, most members of Congress
      probably would not have been elected.
    

I can say with certainty that without crooked districts every member of
congress would _still_ have been elected. I mean, I get what Anon is trying to
say, but it hints at a very slanted / anti-voter world view. This is my
surprised face :-|

------
powera
I'm also very skeptical that it's actually a congressman; if the person is
this bitter about Washington why did they just spend so much effort getting
elected 3 months ago?

Beyond that, members DON'T vote with party leadership 99% of the time. If you
count enough procedural votes it might feel that way, but that's just silly.

This emphasis on "talent" in Congress also seems like it's not from a
Congressmen.

I suppose this could be a particularly unambitious backbencher from a safe
seat (which would also explain why they don't care about committees).

~~~
saraid216
The author doesn't sound bitter to me. The author sounds frustrated.

Imagine a similar article about a programming language. The point is to give
people a deeper understanding of the problem domain so that they can help
contribute useful solutions, rather than proposing completely pointless or
counterproductive ones.

