Political Games - Where the fuck’s the reset button?

I’ve frequently bitched here and elsewhere that Republicans need to clean up their own house (see my piece on the DeLay Rule below). And I’m certainly not going to shutup about it either. It’s something that needs to be done. However, I am not a Republican. Neither am I a Democrat, but, being “left”, they are the party I support in my 2-party system (2 rocks because it’s twice the choices of one!). And, since I promised in a post and in comments, here’s my bitching about the corruption from the left side of the aisle.

As noted in this excellent post which does some c&p of Ronnie Earle’s letter to the NYT (which, btw, is worth reading), there was this little nugget at the end: “It’s actually a travesty that Dem rules don’t require its leaders to step down from their posts if indicted.” The poster also suggests, as I did a week or so ago, that the Dems should actually adopt the rule (hell, stricter rules!) than the one the GOP just abandoned. The better piece, however, comes from Josh Marshall. I would also recommend reading the post he links in the beginning of his post. But here’s one part which stands out:

Before 1994 and, to a lesser degree, before 2000, Democrats simply weren’t in a position to adopt a genuine reform agenda because they were too implicated in the institutional corruption, the money chase, that is modern Washington. They could want change in some abstract way and they push for it at the margins. But their way of doing business on the Hill and in Washington generally was inseparable from it. It’s how they ran Congress; it was how they raised their money to win elections; their friends (and that means personal and professional friends) who’d already cycled into the lobbying sector made their money from it; and many or most of them expected eventually to do the same.

I know this paints with a broad brush; and in some ways it may paint an ungenerous picture. But it is in most respects accurate.

For some years after 1994 congressional Democrats understandably acted as though they were the natural majority just temporarily displaced. So all those tendencies remained. And, as I noted above, to a lesser degree, they persisted through 2000 because holding the White House created parallel dynamics.

The rest of his post is great too. This is something we can do. So here’s my suggestion: pick 4 local congressional representatives from each party, and your 2 senators, and email them telling them your opinions about the way they’re running business right now. Tell them what you want to see done. Tell them you don’t want just caucus rules but, more importantly, and as noted in the DailyKos piece I linked up top, congressional rules to curtail both parties. I can only bitch and complain to the Republicans and try to get fair-minded people from the other side of the spectrum to push ethics reform; I can actually influence the minority party right now. After all, the party elite is a bunch of scumbags there too:

How can our representatives in Congress hold themselves accountable when they fear little electoral retribution? Even those in the minority hold enough perks that it’s against their interest to push for a more competitive congressional map. In California, Democrats used the 2000 redistricting process to shore up their own cushy incumbent asses, rather than draw a map that could potentially send more Democrats to Washington. And if they stayed in the minority? Didn’t matter, so long as their jobs remained safe and sound.

So minority Dems work to protect their own fiefdoms. Majority Republicans toss aside all trappings of integrity and ethics to work the system to their advantage. And there’s really ultimately little the voters can do about it.

Democracy indeed.

Indeed.

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