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Ivan W.
Parkins |
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About
Ivan W. Parkins: Dr.
Parkins is a retired professor of Political Science from Central Michigan
University. He received his PhD from
the University of Chicago and is a graduate of the United States Naval
Academy. Dr. Parkins served as a naval
officer during WWII aboard the battleship Alabama. He is a recent widower with three
daughters, 3 grand children and 2 great grand children. Dr. Parkins has written extensively, having
authored 3 books and a newspaper opinion column for many years. |
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Confused Elections Our national election system has become
confused in ways that hamper effective leadership and obscure partisan
responsibility. Since 1948, the first
post WWII presidential election, five democrats (Truman, Kennedy, Johnson,
Carter, and Clinton) have won office.
There have also been five Republican winners (Eisenhower, Nixon,
Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, G. W. Bush). But, contrary to our previous history,
there has been little apparent correlation between presidential election
successes and congressional support.
In 1992, Clinton, who had just won 43% of the popular vote, entered
office with larger majorities in both houses of Congress than any Republican
President has had since the 1920’s. Carter, a majority winner of the popular
vote with 50.1% got one of the largest congressional majorities in our
history. Among recent Democrats, only Truman and
Clinton have had to face Congresses dominated by the other party, and neither
of those Presidents won a majority of the popular vote. Among the five recent Republicans were
three winners of landslide reelections (Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan) and
none of them got a Republican Congress with his new term. Do American consciously vote against
leadership and for partisan conflict, or are other factors shaping our
election results? I.W.Parkins |
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Congress Road
to Chaos It takes a bizarre partisanship for the
majority of 110th. Congress to suppose that their modest victory
(in an election attended by nearly 30 million fewer American voters than
elected the 109th. (Two years earlier) mandates major changes in the nations
direction. The evidence suggests more
clearly that many Americans are alienated and confused about how their
government does, or does not, work. Congress has come to believe that
oversight of the Executive and Judicial Branches is it’s most
important function. And, the resulting
conflicts
do win media attention. Meanwhile,
Congress focuses too little of its attention on providing our country with
effective laws for dealing with immigration,
energy needs, etc. Even more
significantly, Congress fails to approve timely, manageable, and “clean”
budgets. If the United States is to
survive and to prosper, it cannot afford a Legislative Branch that neglects
its own primary, and most constructive, powers while it interferes in
time-consuming and other damaging ways with the Executive and Judicial
Branches. No simple reform will remedy what has
become a systemic and institutional failure of Congress. The problem extends beyond the short
comings of individual members and practices.
Congress must be reconstituted to be both closer to the American
people and more respectful of the other branches. Anything less is just more pavement on the
road to chaos. I.W. Parkins |
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RECONSTITUTE CONGRESS DISASSEMBLE THE
HOUSE By Ivan W. Parkins One concern of those who
drafted the Constitution of the United States was that representatives should
not have such small constituencies that the office would fail to attract able
candidates. Even so, Chairman of the
Convention, George Washington, called for a minimum constituency of 30,000
instead of the already approved 40,000.
This was his only suggestion regarding details of the Constitution and
it was adopted. THE FEDERALIST, No. 51 states
that “dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the
government.” No. 52 adds “… it is particularly essential that ..” the
representative “… have an immediate dependence on and an intimate sympathy
with the people.” Now, with the congressional
districts having average populations of about
690,000, and with only 524,160 minutes in a year, we face a very
different situation. All Representatives,
whatever their origins, become members of the upper class by virtue of their
salaries and perks alone. The long
sessions and increasing details of
their involvement in nearly all matters of government, keep their minds and
bodies within the confines of the “Beltway” most of the time. National journalists, pollsters, lobbyists,
and congressional staff members, along with legislative “earmarks,” get them
reelected. Meanwhile, it is literally
impossible for them to allot one minute of their time per year to each
constituent. The House
was intended to reflect changes in public opinion. It too often
reflects entrenched political power and privilege. My proposal, now very
old and not so much forgotten as dissed, i.e. never widely considered, was
"Let's Disassemble the House,"--the title of my article in SOUTH
ATLANTIC QUARTERLY, Spring 1960. The legally fixed number of the United
States Representatives is now 435, far more than the Framers, and I, believed
to be practical for a legislative assembly. But, with our vastly
expanded national population and improvements in communication, wouldn't it
be possible, now, for much more numerous representatives to operate
separately, from their several districts? And, wouldn't the
representatives then be much more directly dependent on and sympathetic with
their constituents? My submission of that to a couple
of dozen political scientists, some acquaintances and some not, produced
several and mostly similar responses. My idea was declared to be
original, interesting, logical, and sound in its description of
Congress. But, it was unlikely to be accepted and unworkable.
Such comments came from senior people at Harvard, Cornell, Miami of Ohio, and
the Legislative Reference Service of the Library of Congress. My chief
reply, now, would be that the present House looks less effective and our
population and communications improvements continue to grow. A much larger number of
disassembled representatives would be a very practical defense if our
nation's capital were to be destroyed. It should also provide a
suitable base for nominating presidential candidates--as the earliest Congresses
did. It should reduce the need for vast media advertising and the money
to pay for that. Most of all, it should encourage more extensive and
meaningful involvement of "the people" in major policy decisions. Our representatives should
be much more numerous; they should spend most of their working time in their
districts; and they should have infrequent, but authoritative votes on major
public issues. In order to add that to
the Constitution, I suggest the following:
(See the proposed amendment, “Disassemble the House,” ) |
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Front Page |
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Inside This Issue
Front Page
Archive 2008
Archive 2009 Disassemble
the House The
Political Long View Media
Bias Book
Reviews War
and Their Costs Broken
Congress Dividing
America Dividing
America, Part two Disinformation,
Liberal Ideology The
Supreme Court and Judiciary Environmentalism
The
Presidency, Part One The
Presidency, Part Two |
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CONGRESS IS THE CRISIS By Ivan W. Parkins The inability of Congress to resolve
itself into a body that can distinguish quickly between photo ops and a
crisis, and to respond to the latter appropriately, should produce a public
demand for an end to Congress, as we have known it. The world-wide reach and velocity of
communications, economic transactions, and violent attacks now requires
political responses that are many times faster than those of two centuries
ago. Unfortunately, the authors of our
Constitution, in their foresight regarding its change, seem not to have
contemplated that the very structure of Congress itself might be what most
required overhaul. The amending
process is unduly, but not totally, dependent upon Congress. More than half a century ago, when I
first suggested to young college students a reconstruction of Congress, some
of them questioned the difficulty of any such change. I replied, then, that I did not expect it
to become possible soon, but thought that by the end of the twentieth century
we would face a situation in which either the American people would force a
reconstitution of Congress or Congress would destroy the nation as we had
known it. Obviously, I was impatient,
but recent events lead me to believe that I erred by only a decade. Few things were more clear in 1787-9 than that the ‘Framers’ expected the
Representatives to live in active association with their constituents. Now, Representatives live, mostly, in
Washington and contact their constituents chiefly thru aides and commercial
media. In that, they are much like
Senators and Presidents. Furthermore, all three are chosen by similar
processes of election. Regarding the
original Constitution’s provisions for separation and balance, little except
confusion remains. And, Presidents,
being much more in the media/public eye, are arguably closer to the people
than Representatives are. What our Founding Fathers borrowed and
invented has been allowed to become a musty monument to some distinguished
ideas. It now serves neither the ideal
of a People’s Government nor the more urgent needs of a Great Nation. . |
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Naked Emperors Newt Gingrich’s
revolution, taking over the House of Representatives in the elections of
1994, can not be appreciated unless one first understands that for an
unprecedented time, 40 years or twenty Congresses, the Democrats had held
firm control of the House. They took
it from Eisenhower’s Republicans in 1954 by a margin of 29 votes, and 29
votes was the smallest margin of their control for 40 years. In seven Congresses the Democrats
controlled the House by 100 votes or more.
None of the Republican advantages in the six years (1995-2001)
following the Gingrich’s victory was by a margin as large as 29 votes. Scot Faulkner’s book Naked Emperors details his effort as
first-ever chief administrative officer of the House to correct the
management problems left by 40 years of Democrat majorities. Faulkner had no legislative authority; his
job was to oversee how 800 million
dollars was spent and how 13,000 employees served the needs of House
Members. For starters, a private
accounting firm called in to do an audit quit, the records were simply too
few and poorly kept for auditing. The reform met with strong
resistance. Why should any Member not
be happy with a bank where his checks would be cashed and no one had
authority to demand that he make deposits?
Recent media stories had forced release of names of the 303 Members
(both parties) who were taking advantage of that. The largest such individual “indebtedness
totaled nearly $600,000. Contracts for services and supplies were
often missing. Apparently, they were
let as political favors and evidence had been destroyed. Thousands of lobbyists and journalists had
passes to enter the Capitol Building after the hours available to mere
citizens. Faulkner’s book is very specific about
persons, times, places, and other details.
Obviously, he is presenting his report of his work. Not so obviously, because poorly publicized,
that work attracted dozens of foreign officials, including at least one
Russian anxious to learn of how to provide better services to a legislative
body. He and his management team
achieved at least one real First, The first reduction of a House budget in
the Twentieth century. Some of this makes dull reading. But, it is worth at least a quick skim by
any citizen serious about voting in the 2008 elections. Some of the Congresspersons involved are
still there, and they have more seniority and power. Should we now trust the party that had
40 years of solid majorities in the House prior to 1995, and now is in control again,
to oversee the management and budgets of our government’s other branches? I.W.
Parkins |
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THE FAILURE OF THE PEOPLE’S HOUSE,
CONGRESS See the full
proposal: DISASSEMBLE THE HOUSE |
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……...More on the Bailout A Congressperson has referred to the “Bailout” as a bag of dung left on
the peoples' steps. In fact, the
federal government (all elective branches) has promoted sub-prime mortgages
since at least 1977, often by popular means.
Clearly, there have been abuses. Fed Chairman Greenspan warned of the
danger publicly several years ago.
Now the American and World economies are in danger. All Members of Congress are part of the
crew; it does not become them to seek to be first in the life-boats. |