Can Washington change? - various experts discuss political reform - Cover Story

Reason, August-Sept, 1996 by Christopher Cox, Ed Crane, Steven Hayward, Susanne Lohmann, William H. Mellor, III, Grover G. Norquist, John J. Pitney, Jr., Randy T. Simmons

Jonathan Rauch says probably not. We asked a group of experts, inside and outside Washington, whether he's right.

Christopher Cox

Yes, Washington can change. But it will require the election of enough people who wish to change it. In 1994, two-thirds of the U.S. Senate was exempt from facing the voters. Especially since the Senate requires a 60 percent vote to accomplish anything even remotely controversial, it's rather plain that the same group that has devoted itself to the care and feeding of Leviathan for two generations is still in a position to stave off reform.

Meanwhile, the Republican majority in the House is the slimmest of any party in nearly 40 years. And even if only the editors of REASON and their immediate families composed the majority in both the House and Senate, there's still the small matter of Bill Clinton, the 43 percent solution left over from 1992. By vetoing anything and everything that cuts government, he effectively commands two-thirds of the votes in both chambers.

While America has no party willing to call itself socialist, we do have an admitted socialist in the House (Bernie Sanders of Vermont) who votes with the Democratic Party 97 percent of the time. This telling fact reveals the Democrats to be America's closet socialists. Unfortunately for them, as the 20th century draws to a close their ideology has suffered global defeat. Its leading state practitioners are dead or in denial: The Soviet Union collapsed under socialism's weight, while communist China pretends to the world that it is a free country in order to avoid defending the indefensible. Save for America's universities and the likes of Fidel Castro and Gennady Zyuganov, there is no one left to stand up for socialism.

Hence there is no longer a future for the party that has controlled our government in Washington by hook and crook for my entire lifetime. To survive this long, they have had to employ professional bait-and-switch artists like Bill Clinton. It can't last. It might not even survive the next election.

Christopher Cox (chriscox@hr.house.gov) is a member of Congress from California's 47th District and chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee.

Ed Crane

There are, of course, reasons for the systemic growth of government. The tyranny of the status quo, concentrated benefits and diffuse costs, "public choice" self-interest on the part of politicians and bureaucrats, all lead to a government growth imperative. Yet Americans clearly desire less government - much less. The single strongest piece of evidence for that proposition is that 80 percent of them support term limits. It's hard to believe that Americans overwhelmingly prefer a citizen legislature over one populated with professional politicians because they believe it will bring them more government.

And term limits are one of two essentially process-oriented changes that I believe can radically change the culture inside the Beltway and lead to a dramatic downsizing of the federal leviathan. The other is the elimination of campaign contribution limit's.

Term limits are key because they will fundamentally change the way Washington works. That's why a Gallup poll showed that a majority of congressional aides, corporate lobbyists, and federal bureaucrats oppose term limits. The most common argument for term limits is Lord Acton's dictum that power tends to corrupt. True. The less time in Washington a congressman spends, the better. A more powerful argument is that term limits solve an adverse selection problem: Simply put, the wrong people tend to seek office in the first place.

Today, a potential citizen legislator sees few open seats, knows that odds are 10-1 he'll lose against an incumbent, and that even if he did win he'd have to serve a long time to have much influence. Real term limits - six years in the House - would change that dynamic. A culture that accepted people serving for just one term would likely develop, allowing Congress to revisit the mountain of bad laws that are currently protected by careerists. The common sense of a citizen legislature would give us Medical Savings Accounts, privatized Social Security, a repeal of the income tax, and much more.

Finally, for citizen participation to flourish in politics and for the two parties to feel some outside competition we should eliminate contribution limits to federal campaigns, have full disclosure, and create an open, dynamic political system. Such a system will challenge incumbents and allow individuals who are not career politicians or professional "activists" to effectively make their case to the American people.

Under the current system we're spending less than $3.00 per eligible voter per election cycle on congressional races. That's not enough, given the huge impact Congress currently has on our lives. Unlimited contributions will also take away the artificial bias the Federal Election Campaign Act has created in favor of the media. Why should Katherine Graham, Garry Trudeau, or Rush Limbaugh give the equivalent of millions of dollars in support of their candidate or cause when we're limited to $1,000? If the answer is the First Amendment, well, it's meant for all of us, not just the media.