More Is Less
By Adam Graham (02/23/04)
A few columns back, I wrote that democracy isn’t a magic cure-all abroad. Free markets, a religious and moral people, as well an armed people are essential to liberty.
At home, democracy is touted as synonymous with freedom, liberty, and justice. The more Democracy there is, the more control people have over their government.
Yet, America’s founding fathers didn’t create a Democracy, they created a representative Republic. We’ve created more Democracy, but do the people really have the power? I would say that the increase in Democracy has led to a decrease in freedom and a decrease in the ability people have to influence their government.
The Founder’s Vision
The founders envisioned a government that “derived its just powers from the consent of the governed.” The consent of the governed did come indirectly in some cases. While the House of Representatives and the State Legislatures were elected directly by the people, the Senate and the Presidency were elected indirectly. Why?
The Senate was elected by the State Legislatures so that it would represent the interests of the several states. In addition, the hope of the founders was that a Senate elected by the representatives of all the people in a state would bring with it men of deep thought and integrity who could be trusted with the weighty matters the Constitution gave to the Senate.
The President was elected by the electoral college, which in turn was chosen by the State Legislature. In the case of the Presidency, a candidate needed a Majority of the electoral votes to win. This was thought to guarantee a candidate who would have broad support from the people and who had been vetted by the State legislature which chose his electors.
By giving so much power to the State Legislatures, the Constitution gave a great deal of power to the people. The people who chose the Senate and the President were those closest to the people. People could speak to their legislator and persuade them one way or another. While not as democratic as today’s system, the people had plenty of clout in their government.
More Democratic Government
Changes came to the founder’s vision with the Presidency in the 1820s and the Senate in the early 20th Century.
The transitioning of the Presidency from a position chosen by state legislators to one chosen by the people of the several states was in many ways, inevitable. Political parties were not part of the plan when the Constitution came into effect but competing philosophies and personalities guaranteed it.
The first thing to suffer was the quality of our Presidents. If you think about the line-up of our first six Presidents, despite their faults, you’d be hard pressed to find a group of better statesmen who served as President. While Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams all exuded courage, integrity, and leadership skills in their lives, the Presidency became a place for mediocre men like Martin Van Buren, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, and Andrew Johnson.
The more political the presidency became, the harder it was to find great leaders to do the job. Scandal became more common and Presidents became more bound to individual political parties than the good of the nation as a whole. Machine bosses in metropolitan areas could stop the election of a President.
As for the Senate, it remained the body the Founding Fathers intended for quite a while. However, the fact that Lincoln and Douglas debated showed that the Senate was itself moving towards becoming more democratic and it became complete with the passage of the 17th Amendment which made Senators directly elected.
Since that time, the Senate has changed drastically. It is no longer an august body of statesmen beholden to the will of their states and representing their interests. They are politicians who are more beholden to special interest groups than any others in the United States.
A House race in most places can still be run for under $1 million, but try and run a Senate race for that. If it’s a serious race, the odds are that even in a very small state each candidate will be spending millions upon millions. With the high cost of Senate races, a competitive race in a small state can provide loads of opportunities for fat cats to flex their political muscle.
The work of government has suffered. In “A National Party No More,” Miller quotes Former Senator David Boren (D-OK) who said, “The schedule is set on the basis of when we have to be in recess so people can go to fund-raisers instead of working here to solve problems.”
Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) responded, “We are kept busy running around the country, holding out our hats and our tin cups…Do members vote their mantra, their own hearts, their own consciences? This is a rhetorical question. Everyone in here knows that members do not vote their own mind and their own consciences on many issues, recognizing that the great body politic out there is not organized and represented, because we are so busy presenting the view of those who contribute to us in many instances, and voting against what we know in our heart is best.”
The honest observation of someone who has provided so much pork to his constituents that he needn’t worry about re-election is telling. But, most have focused on the large amount of money in politics as the disease and not the symptom. Were the Senate still chosen by the State legislatures, it would be a much different body. The current process, particularly in larger states creates media friendly candidates who are vacuous holes or shills. The Senate isn’t the body it used to be, because it’s not run the way it was originally intended to be run.
Another great example is our Presidential Primary system. Before Presidential Primaries, political conventions were raucous affairs where great principles and ideas were expounded and debated. The delegates were chosen at the State Conventions by the party faithful.
The coming of Presidential Primaries has changed that. Under the expansion of democracy, Democrats and Independents are thought to be good arbiters of who the Republican nominee for President will be!
The Primary system could be workable if it were not for a rush for fairness. For a decade or more, the complaint has been that Iowa and New Hampshire have too much influence over who picks the president. States were promised huge amounts of influence and access to Presidential Candidates which was only guaranteed to early primary states.
So caucuses are rarely done anymore. By the end of the month, 20 states will have voted in one form or another. Have the people of these states been heard? How many Michiganers, Washingtonians, and Oklahomans pressed the flesh of a Presidential Candidate? Few, if any. It’s arguable that as states have moved up their primaries, their influence has decreased from what it was at one time.
Can anyone argue that California’s early primary gives it more influence in Presidential politics in 2004 than it’s late primary did in 1976? Can Michigan voting in February match the power of North Carolina when it voted for Reagan in May nearly three decades ago?
Who has gained from this growth of democracy? Big media, big labor, and big money. The grassroots activists, the people who make our parties work have been shut out of the process. People are not given a chance to make an informed choice or to focus on the race, they are instead treated to a mass media assault which is concerned with the horse race and whose in and whose out. Activists get treated to manipulative assaults on their fears by party bosses who tell them who the winner is going to be and who they must vote for at the risk of losing to the other side.
In 2000, the Republican and Democratic nominees were decided in early March on Super Tuesday when John McCain and Bill Bradley dropped out. That looks like a full vetting process compared to John Kerry’s early February anointing after nine primaries. Ronald Reagan’s 1976 comeback could not happen today and that’s just the way the establishment wants it.
Over the past 100 years, false prophets have come promising us more choice, more liberty, and more control over our government. Instead, we’ve been given more corruption, less choice, and more special interest control.
It’s time for people to wake up and realize that Democracy doesn’t mean freedom and send a message to the world: We don’t want $30 million Senate races or Senators who are bought and paid for by special interests. We don’t want a candidate to have to raise $60 million by January 1 to be competitive for the presidency. We want a two party system where the members of the two parties choose their nominees. We want a media that reports on elections, not one that determines the outcome.
In short, we don’t want a Democracy, we want the Republic of our founder’s dreams. We want our freedom back and control of our government back. We must be determined that we will, by the grace of God, take it back.
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