Friday, during a meet-the-common-folk swing through Randolph County, my congressmen, Republican Mike Rogers, sat down with my father and me over a basket of fried catfish at Lakeside Market and Grill. (On a side note, Lakeside Market and Grill does not serve hush puppies with their fried catfish. I might cover this blatant violation of Southern catfish etiquette in a later post.) I thought I would blog on our conversation.
I must confess I did not have the foresight to bring a tape recorder to this meeting. Nor did I identify myself as a political blogger. Therefore I will be paraphrasing the congressmen's comments as best I can from memory. I will email a copy of this post to his office and if he feels he was misrepresented in any way, I will be sure to make corrections and post a retraction if necessary.
The conversation started with Dad reminding Rep. Rogers of the working relationship of Reagan and then Speaker of the House, Democrat Tip O'Neal, and asking why the two parties of today were polarized and seemingly so unwilling to work together. Dad, a former nuclear submariner in the Navy, cited nuclear power as a possible similarity the two parties now share. (Nuclear power is an issue Republicans have been championing for years and President Obama has said he is in favor of more nuclear power plants.) Congressman Rogers agreed that Republicans would be glad to help the president in passing legislation to build more nuclear power plants, but said the Democratic leadership recently attached pro-nuclear power legislation to a bill about cap-and-trade, an issue Republicans are strongly opposed to. As a result, Republicans were forced to either vote for nuclear power and cap-and-trade or vote against both. Rogers said most Republicans voted against the bill. The congressman alluded to an issue that I have thought needed to be addressed since I started following politics closely: the ability to attach any language to any piece of legislation. I asked Mr. Rogers why this rule couldn't be changed suggesting the system would work better if each piece of new legislation was required to have a mission statement and no language could be attached to that legislation that was not related to that mission statement. He said he, and many of his colleagues on both sides of the isle, would love for the rules to be amended in such a way. However, he said the House Rules Committee has to sign off on all rule changes and members of the committee were assigned by the party leadership, in particular, the Speaker of the House. He said passing a rule that takes power away from the powerful is very hard, because the powerful have to agree to such a rule change, thus relinquishing some of their power. He also complained that a repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" was attached to an important defense spending bill and Republicans were forced to vote against the bill for that reason. I quipped that Republicans do the same thing when they are in power. He was quick to agree, saying that was how the Bush tax cuts were passed. I asked why they didn't go to the media and in an effort to expose the members of congress that benefit from the status-quo and unethically use the system for their own political gain. He said that the media thinks House rule changes are not sexy enough and therefore are would be uninterested in covering such a story.
Then Dad then brought the conversation to the fact that the FCC has Randolph and Cleburne county in the Atlanta media market despite the fact that most residents of both counties would rather be in the Birmingham market in order to better follow Alabama weather and politics. Rogers agreed that this was a major problem in his district, and said that he and some of his colleagues that represent similar districts across the country have tried every way they could think of to "skin that cat" for a long time. He regretted not having solved the issue, citing bureaucracy at the FCC as the reason. Dad offered a solution and Rogers said he would have his legislative director contact him so Dad could help him put his solution in legislative language.
I must say, I was impressed with Congressman Rogers' candor. He seemed like a nice man genuinely trying to serve the interests of his district. I deliberately didn't bring up any issues that I knew we probably disagreed on, not wanting to engage in a pointless debate.
However, I believe the rule change I alluded to, and the congressman agreed with, would do more to improve our government's effectiveness than almost any other piece of legislation. If passed, politicians would no longer be forced to vote on three different issues with one vote. Politicians on both sides of the isle always seem to campaign on cutting wasteful spending. Think of how much wasteful spending would get cut! That is how wasteful pork programs make it through the system to begin with: by getting attached to more popular pieces of legislation. The amount of language in the recent health care bill that has nothing to do with health care would surprise you. I must say, I disagree with the congressman's assessment of the issue not being sexy enough for the media. I bet if the congressman and his bi-partisan collegues called out the selfish party leadership by name, especially members of their own party, saying they are obviously more concerned with keeping or re-gaining their power than making popular changes that would make congress and the government work better, it would get the media's attention. The framers of the Constitution obviously didn't foresee this problem because, in their day, they were forced to be in the same room when drafting and amending legislation. The media loves to call out crooked politicians that are out of touch of the needs of the voters. I bet the congressman could get the media's attention if he wanted to. I know if I were in congress, I would make this my number one issue. I wouldn't shut up about it. Because I know this ridiculous example of ignoring common sense is the base that the entire house of cards of ineffective governing and partisan bickering rests on.
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