Some say that the government of this nation is not at all responsive to the people. They say that most politicians are “professional” politicians that are firmly entrenched in “The System” in Washington that causes the Representatives of the people in Congress more interested in how they can be re-elected than how they can do the best for their constituents. This doesn’t make the Representatives necessarily “bad”, but it does lead to people putting their own self-interests over the interests of the people that they represent.
We see this in campaign donations by corporations that have no vested interest in the district the Congressman represents. We see corporations give money to Congressmen that do have an interest in the District. Either way, corporations do not really carry “personhood” and therefore under the First Amendment have no real guarantee of freedom of expression. They would like you to believe that in 1886 there was a dispute between a railroad, and that in that dispute they gained “personhood”, but that is not true, The court actually ruled against the railroad, but from a court reporters notes, they maintained they won the case. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Personhood_Debate.
Whether or not you believe that corporations should have “personhood” or not, we can all agree that the money they give to politicians that make a career in the House of Representatives is a clear signal to the American people that many of our Congress people have interests that don’t coincide with the interests of the people they represent. The two-Party system in this country has caused stagnation in legislation that is needed to cure this nation’s problems. The constant partisan in-fighting has caused many good pieces of legislation to die in committees because there is no chance of these bills being passed because of the gridlock of the House. The politicians with their “special interests” won’t let these bills see the light of day.
There is an organization called “Get Out Of Our House” (GOOH pronounced “GO”) that is trying to bring ordinary folks into the House of Representatives and unseat all 435 members of the House. The political partisanship and the ineffectiveness of The House of Representatives in representing ordinary citizens is the reason this group exists. They are being led in part by Tim Cox who was on my radio show www.blogtalkradio/liberalpro.com last night. Tim is a computer engineer who once worked for Dell. He decided that this nation should come up with a different way to choose how the people should be elected to represent their districts. Tim got problem-solvers together and through brainstorming and looking at data across the nation, they decided that the two-party system is just not working.
They now have a website, www.goooh.com where people can join just by giving their e-mail address. Once they have joined they can choose to get involved by filling out a questionnaire and actually submitting their name to run for Congress. They are given 100 questions and the answers will be given to a group of 10 people that belong to GOOH in their district and through elimination based on the answers that they give on the questions, two people will be selected to run. This will happen according to Cox, throughout the 50 States and there will be a fund managed by GOOH to pay for their candidacy. This fund will come from the $100.00 fee given by all that want to run, and by donations from the web. This is an excerpt from their Website:
“Through GOOOH's Candidate Selection Sessions, you and your peers will select the candidate in your district that best represents your district's views. GOOOH will then fund the national election campaigns of all 435 candidates (one from each district) to run against the party politicians competing for each district seat. Because GOOOH is a process for selecting representatives (not an agenda-based party platform), we expect a very liberal candidate to be selected in San Francisco and a very conservative one in Colorado Springs -- but it will be up to the GOOOH members in each district to decide”.
This is one of the most novel ideas that I have ever heard of in my life. Could you imagine what we could accomplish without the Democrats and the Republicans fighting over every piece of legislation? Could you imagine what Congress would look like with ordinary people instead of professional politicians that are beholden to the “special interests”? The great thing about this is that after you fill out the questionnaire on how you will vote on specific issues, is that you are beholden to it. GOOH members are only allowed two terms and must be represent their districts and not their political party. I believe that this is an idea whose time has come. Check out their website and see it for yourself. With a Congressional approval rating of 17%, this Congress may well see this organization as a threat.
That’s the way I see it.
Labels: Congress, Corporate Politics, two-party system