Speaking of emails, I just got this one from Joe Wilson:
What is Governor Perdue thinking?
She suggested recently that we shouldn’t hold a Congressional election in 2012 because you might hold your Congressional representatives accountable for the decisions they make.
Isn’t this what our country is all about? Aren’t you supposed to hold your elected officials accountable for the decisions they make?
By holding elections, you have the opportunity to send a message to your leaders, one that can have a very immediate and permanent effect.
This knowledge makes those of us in Congress aware of what our constituents want back home. It keeps us accountable. Without it, we could pass legislation in Washington that only benefited a select few.
That’s not how our country works, no matter how beneficial Gov. Perdue thinks it would be.
Your voice is important, and I consider your will as I cast my vote for any piece of legislation.
Actually, I think the lady had a point. All due respect to the Framers’ wisdom in putting “the people’s House” in perpetual election mode (which sort of got watered down when we started directly electing senators), but I have to wonder… what do we accomplish in these rituals every two years?
You know what will happen in 2012? Joe will raise a whole lot of money through emails such as this one, and the ones in which he exploits his “You Lie!” moment, and he will spend it, and he will be re-elected.
Same thing will happen with Jim Clyburn over in the 6th. I can’t speak to what will happen in the other four SC districts because I don’t observe them as closely, and the incumbents are all so new. So perhaps they are slightly more vulnerable — although probably not Tim Scott.
But Joe’s and Jim’s warchests and the power of incumbency will guarantee that no one credible emerges to run against them, and they will be re-elected.
And yes, I know that Doug and others will say this is why we need term limits. I’m not willing to drop that particular nuclear option on democracy, but we do need something. Because otherwise, these elections pretty much are a waste of time. Except to the political consultants and the media that get the advertising, of course. (See, Wesley, I didn’t just talk about you — I talked about the media, too.)
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Maybe we could look at these elections as a limited sort of economic stimulus. Yeah, that’s the ticket…
We don’t need term limits.
What we need is to let the computers determine political districts based upon numbers of bodies and the locations of those bodies – and nothing more.
Dude — you’re just trying to do my friend Wesley Donehue out of ANY kind of work, aren’t you? It’s my understanding that reapportionment is something he’s heavily involved in as part of his job with the Senate Republicans.
Why do I keep mentioning Wesley? He does these releases for Joe. I think.
And term limits for Congressmen would mean just a two year break from the office. I’d say give them eight years then take a break and do something that gets you back in the real world for awhile. If you are really good and well liked, you just run against the incumbent and beat him/her. Although we all know there will be those crooked politicians who will put a warm body in the seat for the two years and then have that person decide not to run “for personal reasons”.
There would be no harm to democracy by enforcing some turnover every decade.
What’s left for him to do?
Might as well flip to the Democrats and find a way to start reapportioning back the other way all over again if this is just all about make-work.
Certainly it’s not possible to structure districts in the state that would be any more stagnant than what we have today, no?
Though I can’t wrap my mind around a way to do it, wouldn’t it be great if no sitting legislator could EVER run for re-election. I’m convinced that would allow them to legislate instead of politic. It would rip the Tea Party a new one, wouldn’t it?