Haven't done a ton of politics here lately, but I read this today and simply could not resist. It's such a dumb, vapid - and, if you've ever read anything by a liberal before - utterly predictable essay that it will take me longer to format the post than to comment on the content.
From the
NYT comes some superdumb, and I'll translate each graf because it's easy: I speak jive.
DURHAM,
N.C. — By Tuesday night about 90 million Americans will have cast
ballots in an election that’s almost certain to create greater partisan
divisions, increase gridlock and render governance of our complex nation
even more difficult. Ninety million sounds like a lot, but that means
that less than 40 percent of the electorate will bother to vote, even
though candidates, advocacy groups and shadowy “super PACs” will have spent more than $1 billion to air more than two million ads to influence the election.
Election money bad.
There
was a time when midterm elections made sense — at our nation’s
founding, the Constitution represented a new form of republican
government, and it was important for at least one body of Congress to be
closely accountable to the people. But especially at a time when
Americans’ confidence in the ability of their government to address
pressing concerns is at a record low, two-year House terms no longer
make any sense. We should get rid of federal midterm elections entirely.
Don't like your medicine? Have more of it then, rube.
There
are few offices, at any level of government, with two-year terms. Here
in Durham, we elect members of the school board and the county sheriff
to terms that are double that length. Moreover, Twitter, ubiquitous
video cameras, 24-hour cable news and a host of other technologies
provide a level of hyper-accountability the framers could not possibly
have imagined. In the modern age, we do not need an election every two
years to communicate voters’ desires to their elected officials.
Modern life is so fast and full, accountability can't keep up, so we ditch it.
But the two-year cycle isn’t just unnecessary; it’s harmful to American politics.
Politics and the bedbugs that populate it would be less shitty if we just lie back and count ceiling tiles until it's over.
The
main impact of the midterm election in the modern era has been to
weaken the president, the only government official (other than the
powerless vice president) elected by the entire nation. Since the end of
World War II, the president’s party has on average lost 25 seats in the
House and about 4 in the Senate as a result of the midterms. This is a
bipartisan phenomenon — Democratic presidents have lost an average of 31
House seats and between 4 to 5 Senate seats in midterms; Republican
presidents have lost 20 and 3 seats, respectively.
Leave Britney alone!
The
realities of the modern election cycle are that we spend almost two
years selecting a president with a well-developed agenda, but then, less
than two years after the inauguration, the midterm election cripples
that same president’s ability to advance that agenda.
If you don't like your president's agenda, you get to keep your president's agenda.
These
effects are compounded by our grotesque campaign finance system. House
members in competitive races have raised, on average, $2.6 million for
the 2014 midterm. That amounts to $3,600 raised a day — seven days a
week, 52 weeks a year. Surveys show that members spend up to 70 percent
of their time fund-raising during an election year. Two years later,
they’ll have to do it all again.
Market economics bad.
Much
of this money is sought from either highly partisan wealthy individuals
or entities with vested interests before Congress. Eliminating midterms
would double the amount of time House members could focus on governing
and make them less dependent on their donor base.
As time increases, time to raise money does
not increase.
Another
quirk is that, during midterm elections, the electorate has been
whiter, wealthier, older and more educated than during presidential
elections. Biennial elections require our representatives to take this
into account, appealing to one set of voters for two years, then a very
different electorate two years later.
There’s
an obvious, simple fix, though. The government should, through a
constitutional amendment, extend the term of House members to four years
and adjust the term of senators to either four or eight years, so that
all elected federal officials would be chosen during presidential
election years. Doing so would relieve some (though, of course, not all)
of the systemic gridlock afflicting the federal government and provide
members of Congress with the ability to focus more time and energy on
governance instead of electioneering.
Our Federal government was not designed by the Founding Fathers, it was sneezed onto a sleeve by accident.
This
adjustment would also give Congress the breathing space to consider
longer-term challenges facing the nation — such as entitlement spending,
immigration and climate change — that are either too complex or
politically toxic to tackle within a two-year election cycle.
Government should do more.
To
offset the impact of longer congressional terms, this reform might be
coupled with term limits that would cap an individual’s total
congressional service at, say, 24 years, about the average for a member
of Congress today. This would provide members enough time to build
experience in the job, but also limit the effects of incumbency and
ensure the circulation of new blood in the system.
Giving politicians more time and power to dig in combined with decreasing the number of elections will increase turnover.
The
framers included an amendment process in the Constitution so our nation
could adjust the system to meet the demands of a changing world. Surely
they would not be pleased with the dysfunction, partisan acrimony and
public dissatisfaction that plague modern politics. Eliminating the
midterm elections would be one small step to fixing our broken system.
That amendment part is still pretty cool though.
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