Job Security
Nationally job security will be an existential crisis in just a few years. For elected officials, especially republicans, the crisis starts now with state primary campaigns for the 2020 election. Donald has about 40% of the national vote and much more in red and purple states. Talk about bribery! Donald holds the Republican Party hostage by keeping his base actively charged as a key group in republican primaries. In short, the republican candidates will perform gross, irrational and un-American behavior to secure Donald’s base during primaries in an effort to sustain their lucrative, elected careers.
Something is wrong. Elected officials are supposed to be subject to citizen discard as history moves on. As of this moment, there are 79 members of Congress that have been in office for at least 20 years, and there are 16 members of Congress that have been in office for at least 30 years.
There are identifiable reasons for an elected official to consider their election a career for life. First, of course, is the combination of money and power; a nice job if one can keep it even though in reality the home district continually evolves culturally, fiscally and industrially. The second reason is the role of lobbying, which would rather keep subservient (AKA bought) representatives in place. The third reason is that being a member of Congress provides prestige and access to higher social class experiences and a fat benefits package to boot – a nice life.
What has happened over time is that the spirit of representing one’s own people has disappeared as a purpose for being an elected official. While Donald et al are damaging the US on a daily basis, it should be relatively easy to deny a second term for one individual in government. But that would not change a decrepit and outmoded government that is useless in the roiling twenty-first century.
What must change generally is the age of elected officials in Congress. There is a notable difference in the House of Representatives as younger candidates are beginning to win elections. Alas, the Senate, with its six year term, remains a calcified legislative body. It is the remnants of Reagan economics dating back to the 1980s, a policy that has fed the separation of wealthy versus poor.
Mitch McConnell, the republican, the longest-serving U.S. senator for Kentucky in history, and the longest-serving Republican U.S. Senate Leader in history, and 77 years old, has done his best to make the Judicial Branch as conservative as possible – not to mention his total, absolute stonewall of dozens of important House bills that gather dust in his office – legislation relevant to the twenty-first century.
But the Judicial Branch must enforce legislation passed by Congress, which may be a way of neutralizing Mitch’s efforts – if Congress can, in fact, pass cogent legislation. The whole point is the US Senate must lose its republican majority. No easy task since the lightly populated districts across America are aware that their undue dominance in politics will disappear if Congress becomes truly representative of appropriate amounts of population.
The Constitutional changes to help repair imbalanced representation will be to eliminate the Electoral College, remove gerrymandering, add term limits and reapportion the Senate based on population. However, these are constitutional battles that must be fought by Congress and the Judicial Branch. The job of voters is to elect modern, of the moment citizens who understand these changes must occur if the US will survive the twenty-first century – nay, even the next ten years!
The job voters have, and that includes every party, every independent and every economic class, is to vote out the irrelevant Reagan republicans that still hold the Senate in their grasp. Even more important than Donald, is to make the Senate democratic.
Ancient Mariner