Congress can change, really!

another century, similar views -- from the Library of Congress

Murphys, Ca  -- About the only thing U.S. citizens agree upon these days is that Congress is awful.
Not as in “awe-inspiring,” but as in “terrible.”
Congress is less popular than the media.
Congress is even less popular than the President.
We all have different reasons for disliking Congress, or our congressional representative, but at least we can all agree they collectively do a lousy job.

So, I think it is time to reform Congress, and it should not be too hard to do. Change a few laws.  Change a few rules.

Here are a few ideas and reforms that kept me awake last night, and I would appreciate it if you who read this will take the time to express your opinion, either in the comments section below, or on Facebook, or on a local soap box. Just speak up.

1.  Let’s get serious about time limits for the House and Senate. I propose two four-year terms for House representatives, and two six year terms for the U.S. Senate.  These suggestions are not unique: President Eisenhower begged us to make this change as he ended his tenure in office. He cited the same reasons we would:  every congressman is always running for reelection and therefore does not devote time and energy to the job at hand. They are too busy pandering to would-be voters to do what is right and necessary.
You can pick your own example, but there are many. We have way too many old white guys (like me) making decisions. Let the younger folks have a shot.

2.  Change the congressional pay to be less of an incentive. Today the House members get a base salary of $174,000. The average U.S. wage earner makes $44, 321.67. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and  pay them twice what most of use make: around $88,000 per year should be about right. (The first representatives got $6 a day, but only for days they worked.) You may have noticed that Congressmen are mostly rich, averaging a million dollars a year from private and public sources. That’s one reason they don’t act like normal people.

3. We want our elected officials to reflect us, right? So let’s limit the trappings of power that we now spend billions on. Start by limiting every representative to one secretary/administrative assistant, and one staff member, and one taxpayer funded office in Washington and one in the district.  You will note that I have eliminated every “spokesman” we now pay with tax dollars. Let the congressmen we elect speak for themselves.
Have you ever asked your congressman how many people work for him?
Has he ever answered you?

4.  Require representatives to actually work five days a week, 48 weeks a year. I’d be generous and give them the 4 weeks vacation, so long as they pay for travel and accommodations  themselves. That means they have to keep office hours either in Washington or at home districts, just like normal people.

5. Ban all gifts worth more than $25 to  representatives, and staff. They don’t need all those freebies and it looks bad. Stinks, actually.

6. We all understand that running for office takes money, and since we want to be fair, let’s have the same rule apply to all officials: contributions can come from anywhere so long as they do not exceed $25 and the name and employer of the donor are public record.

7. Congressmen complain that they have so little time and so many people want to see them, so let’s help them by setting a rule that says the priority for an appointment goes to a person from their district, second priority to individuals from their state, and last priority to representatives of corporations or organizations (we call them lobbyist).  And to make everyone have a chance, let’s limit all visits to 30 minutes for people they represent, and 15 for lobbyist, whether they are from the corporate timber company or the Sierra Club. Fair's fair.

8. Congressmen need a travel allowance (they actually have a generous one already), so we will let them keep enough to pay for four trips back to the district every year, but ban anyone else paying for or providing transportation. No corporate jets. No limos in New York City. No trips to ski resorts or Hawaii for “consultations.”

9. No relatives on the congressional payroll, any time, anywhere.

10. Since our elected officials are working for our interests, and we are paying them, we need to make sure everything they do while in office is open and visible to the public. That means all correspondence (national security is exempt) is available, all meetings are logged and subjects disclosed, and if minutes are kept, they should be made available to the public, at a charge not to exceed the per page cost at the closest Kinko print shop. Yes, that means e-mails and Facebook postings when done on government time.


This list could go on and on, and surely you have some ideas of your own. Feel free to add them, or challenge these.

Jack Nelson -- RIP

Jack Nelson, reporter


Camp Connell, CA -- Democracy lost a friend when Jack Nelson passed away at age 80 this week.
Jack was a newspaper reporter, the type that movies should be made about. Honest. Tough. Uncompromising. Caring.
He hated dishonesty, particularly in public officials, and spent his long productive lifetime trying hard to make sure the public knew the facts of every situation so they could judge for themselves who deserved to be elected, or not.
Eulogies will be in the Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere, but here is a brief picture of the Jack Nelson I knew.
When I was a 20-year-old reporting intern at the Atlanta Journal, Jack had just won a Pulitzer Prize for the Atlanta Constitution, then our rival newspaper. The prize was for reporting on abuses at the state-run mental hospital, a series of stories that got sleazy officials fired and won better treatment for sick people under government control.
Jack took time to meet and be supportive of the younger reporters, and spent an afternoon or two over beer across the street from the newspaper answering our questions about how good reporting was done. When he suspected voter rolls were faked in one Georgia County, he took the voter lists to the local cemeteries where he found a lot of dead voters. Despite threats to his personal safety he wrote stories about crooked sheriffs running speed traps to catch Florida-bound tourists, complete with hidden speed limit signs and cash-only fines.
When I went back to school for my senior year studying journalism, a handful of had the nerve to write and ask him if he could come speak to a new chapter of the student journalism association. Jack got into his car and drove from Atlanta to Tuscaloosa, made the requested speech, and encouraged our small group. He made it clear he was just a hard-working reporter who wanted to dig out and tell the truth.
He spent a long rewarding life doing just that.
Jack left the Atlanta newspapers to be the Southern-based writer for the Los Angeles Times, and later Washington Bureau Chief.
A decade after our first meeting, I was a bureau chief covering the announcement by George C. Wallace that he would make a run for President of the United States when Wallace stopped in mid-speech and said something like this: "Why all those pointy-headed bicycle-riding college professors think my campaign is not important, but there in the back of the room is Yankee reporter Jack Nelson from the ultra-liberal Losss Angell-ese Times writing down every word I say!"
Jack, a native Southerner who knew Wallace for the hypocrite he was, just smiled at the Alabama governor, took his notes, and went back to write another straight-as-an-arrow story about what the ex-governor said and did, without a hint of his own feelings.
He didn't tolerate hypocrites or fools, but he let the truth tell the tale.

We're all better off for having know Jack and benefited from his work.

A week for the ISMISOB* sign

Things have been pretty quiet here in Camp Connell, my home town. But that doesn't mean nothing at all has been happening.

-- The governor announced, and the legislature may go along with, shutting down 80% of the state parks to save money in the budget crunch. He acts like parks don't employ real people-- just scientists, interpreters, law enforcers, and maintenance folks. Here in one of the smaller counties in the biggest state the local park draws 300,000 tourists a year and generates more than double the expenses in the local economy. Everybody is mad at him about something, and now I am joining the angry throng. What can he be thinking?

-- The weather has been unusual for the first week of June. Temps in the 40s in the morning, with a fair amount of rain, even thunder and lightening. I think I lived in this part of the world almost ten years before I ever heard the sound of thunder. What's up with that? Can I blame this on George Bush and the GOP?

-- Thinking about the state park, and the weather, I was on volunteer duty yesterday on the slightly wet trail through the giant Sequoias when I noticed that some visitor left a just-emptied beer bottle hidden under a bench, rather than take it to a trash or recycle bin. His mother raised an idiot. Enjoy nature and dump your trash for folks to admire?

-- We supported the national economic recovery this week by purchasing a brand new car. It's another Subaru Forester, the best snow/ice vehicle for the mountains. And then I discovered they put bigger and fancier wheels on the new car and our almost-brand-new snow tires won't fit. Zapped by the fashion mavens of the auto industry. Why would they do that?

-- Went to a musical today at the historical Fallon Playhouse in Columbia State Park (another place that may close) to see a performance about the Andrews Sisters. Lots of music, dance, attractive young women who sing well, and a very funny man (the only male in the play). The costumes were great. The dancing right on the mark. The singing was absolutely first rate, and the humor had the entire audience rocking. But I made the mistake of reading two reviews in local newspapers. They were luke warm, pointing out that the audience was older (which it almost always is), and even though it was pretty good, the audience (being older, I assume) didn't leap to its collective feet and make the house thump. Don't these part-time reviewers understand there actually was good music before Eminem?

-- A right-wing loudmouth, who didn't notice how the last national election turned out, is trying to take over local websites that report news. He comments on every item regarding state or national government, usually quoting misinformation heard on talk radio and insulting elected officials by accusing them of being Marxist Commie Pinkos. Anyone who disagrees he calls a fool, and he is getting uglier all the time. It has the effect of spoiling useful public forums. He also is testing my boundless belief in unlimited free speech, but I'll stick with it so far. What sort of manners do you suppose he has at the dinner table?

He would certainly qualify for the "ISMISOB" award.

Many years ago my wife and another woman worked in a Cape Canaveral NASA office dominated by older males who thought they were very important. When the men got out of line and the ladies who did the real work could not take it any more, the women had a little ceremony. They delivered a brass and wooden plaque with "ISMISOB" stamped on the face to the egregious offender. It took the guys a while to figure out that the initials stood for "Inconsiderate Self Made Insufferable Son Of a Bitch."*
They got the message.

I have to be very careful not to move from the "merely grouchy" category to something deserving a plaque.

(Added late: I just learned some numbers this morning that REALLY make me grouchy. From the New York Times:
"According to a 2008 survey of physician salaries by the American Medical Group Association, their average annual salary is $201,555, versus $356,166 for a general surgeon and $614,536 for a neurological surgeon."
Now THAT explains a lot about why we have a health care problem.)