A Revolutionary Reform

Republicans, even if they win both houses of Congress, will have limited power to actually undo the damage of the Obama Administration's use of the Democrat's heady majorities in Congress since 2011. Nominal control of the Senate will not even translate into Republican power to bring measures to a vote, because Democrats can filibuster any measures proposed by Republicans. The Republican majorities may reach 55 seats in the Senate and, perhaps, 270 seats in the House--if the election is a perfect storm for Republicans--but even that will not allow the override of an Obama veto.

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So what can Republicans do which will really reflect revolutionary change? The much-maligned Contract With America, which was limited only to Republicans who signed the document and who were running for seats in the House of Representatives, provides some clues. The Contract With America is often considered to have failed, but as the Heritage Foundations points out: "One of the revolutionary elements of the Contract is the fact that it actually was implemented as promised." That is because the Contract With America did not guarantee that reforms would be implemented--Newt Gingrich pointed out that he could not even guarantee that the reforms would pass the House. He noted that the Republican majority might be wafer thin. But Gingrich promised to bring each of the ten measures in the Contract With America to a vote. In fact, nine of the ten reforms in the Contract passed the House. Only the proposed constitutional amendment to establish term limits for members of Congress, and it failed only because it required a two-thirds majority. Most of the reforms passed by huge majorities, because voting on the reforms had been blocked by Democrat House leaders and the reforms themselves were very popular. Consider four of the ten items in the Contract:

• THIRD, cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third;
• FOURTH, limit the terms of all committee chairs;
• FIFTH, ban the casting of proxy votes in committee;
• SIXTH, require committee meetings to be open to the public;

Republicans did all those things, and did them quickly and with strong bipartisan support. Would that work today? Absolutely: Distrust of Congress is extraordinarily high, almost at historic levels. Truly reforming Congress would be fantastically popular with the voters. When Republicans take control of Congress, they will need to do something truly radical to show America that they are serious about ending the entrenched, smug, insulated, and self-serving attitude of Congress. Like what? Like this: abolish all congressional committees and subcommittees; allow a limited period to offer amendments to any bill; then require that the full text of the bill be unchanged and public for two weeks before an up or down House vote on the bill. This is a reform that House Republicans could do in a single vote at the beginning of the next Congress--Democrats would have no power to stop this reform from being quickly, dramatically implemented. Legislative committees and subcommittees are a source of vast mischief in our national legislature. House members jockey to earn coveted membership on certain powerful committees or subcommittees, which magnifies their power and influence. But do these committees do anything good? The answer is "yes" only if citizens consider that convoluted, huge, undecipherable legislative language helps insure good laws. The complexity of these bills is almost always a means for some important committee members to extract a special benefit for constituents and friends. Do House members on powerful committees really know so much more than other legislators or the average voter? Think of our very ordinary knowledge displayed by many members of Congress. These men and women are not particularly well informed, not particularly bright, and not particularly wise. The argument that committees are needed to handle very complex legislation should be answered with the response that good laws do not need to be fantastically complex and, moreover, congressional staffers and lay experts can always help in the drafting of bills before the bills are brought up for a vote. The beauty of this reform is that House Democrats would be placed in the position of voting by roll call for keeping the corrupt and Byzantine structure of congressional committees (which they would not be running anyway) or joining Republicans in an important Republican reform. House votes on bills could actually be examined and discussed by the voters before the House voted on measures. That would mean that well-crafted, popular Republican reforms could pass the House by huge majorities, and only Democrat obstructionism in the Senate or a presidential veto could stop the reforms. This would place Democrats on the defensive for the next two years, and it would transform the operations of Congress: A Revolutionary Reform.

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