Daily Agitator

Professor’s Classroom

Subject:  American Government

For way too long I have listened to this politician and that politician stand on the Constitution to oppose or defend an issue….it is most tiring because none of these “people’s representatives” have actually read the document….bu that is for another post….right now I want to discuss the battles being waged in the Congress today…..health reform…energy…..financial regulation…war….all the fun stuff that writers want to tackle in pursuit of the Pulitzer…….

Almost every 7th grader can tell you that there is 3 branches of government in the US:  Executive, Judicial and Legislative…for the sake of this post I will focusing in on the Legislative branch of our government.

With all the debate in Congress there are a few stages that every bill must go through:

1. Bill introduction 2. Referral to committee(s) 3. Committee hearings 4. Committee mark-up 5. Committee report 6. Scheduling legislation 7. House: special rules, suspension of the rules, or privileged matter 8. Senate: unanimous consent agreements or motions to proceed 9. Floor debate 10. Floor amendment

11. Vote on final passage 12. Reconciling differences between the house and senate 13. Amendments between the houses, or 14. Conference committee negotiations 15. Floor debate on conference report 16. Floor vote on conference report 17. Conference version presented to the president

18. President signs into law or allows bill to become law without his signature 19. President vetoes bill 20. First chamber vote on overriding veto 21. Second chamber vote on overriding veto 22. Bill becomes law if 2/3 vote to override is achieved in both chambers 23. Bill fails to become law if one chamber fails to override

Now that we have the stages of a bill…let us talk about the present day debate going on in Washington……to me there is NO substantial debate from the opposition, only obstructionism……is there NO compromise just partisan bickering…..there is NOTHING remotely being done in the name of the American people…..

There are somethings that are a must for the passing of a bill:

After a problem is identified, potential policy solutions are formulated. Elected officials, interest groups and citizens participate in discussions and debates. Alternative solutions are compared and critiqued. Where there is consensus (or at least majority support) for one of the policy alternatives, it is adopted, generally through the passage of legislation.

Now you have the process…now ask yourself, is this anything like what it happening in the health reform debate, for example?  The answer is simple…..NO!

Why?  There is NO discussion just name calling and slogan slinging……the people are NOT part of the debate….there are NO alternative solutions being discussed……in short the whole debate is one sided with the one side arguing with itself…..

This is NOT what was imagined by the “Fathers” of the Constitution….Madison wrote the direction of the Congress in Federalist 52:

As it is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that the [Congress] should have an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people.

The present day Congress is a FAR cry from what Madison foresaw….and because of that misdirection I believe that the Congress is acting in an unconstitutional manner…..there is NO debate just obstructionism…that is not how it was intended to work……now we come back to Federalist #10……partisan BS!