Posted on 08/02/2002 4:05:28 PM PDT by vannrox
| SEVEN SURPRISING THINGS | ||
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Think you know about what goes on in Congress? Check out our exclusive Seven Surprising Things About Congress |
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1.Members of Congress never read the bills they vote on.
It's true. Almost never do Members of Congress actually read the bills they vote on. You know why? The bill itself doesn't really tell you a damn thing about what the bill actually does. Take a look at this actual bill from 1997. Seems harmless enough, right? These little 165 words are actually a $1.7 billion change in law, but you wouldn't know it just from reading the bill. You see, a bill doesn't actually say in plain English what it does because most bills tinker with this section or that section of current law. You have to know what the original law is to make the change.
2.Gekko's Rule: It's all about bucks, the rest is just conversation.
Ninety-nine percent of the time the reason someone walks through the door of a Congressional office, it's about - like everything else in life -money. Either they want more money for something, or want to keep what money they have. Organizations always want a Congressman/woman's or Senator's support for a project - meaning they want money so they don't have to raise it locally. Even advocacy oriented groups pick ideas to promote that will boost membership and increase revenues. Once you accept that everything's about bucks, and try to follow the money, it makes Congress much more understandable (but not any more noble).
Usually the money angle is cloaked in other words. Take the current HMO debate, for example. Physicians have been sick of dealing with insurance companies who tell them what they can and can't do by refusing to pay them for certain things. Physicians want to be able to practice anyway they want (and get reimbursed for anything they want). HMOs know they'll have to pay physicians tons more if these HMO reform bills pass, so they're fighting them tooth and nail. See, isn't it easy? Follow the money.
3.Members of Congress don't know what they voting on until they're voting on it.
Members of Congress rarely hang out on the floor of the House or the Senate unless they are very, very interested in a certain issue or they are trying to avoid doing something on their schedule. As a result, they never really know what's going on the floor until a vote is called. Why not? The floor is a fairly boring place (you've seen C-Span, haven't you?) To learn more about The Walk and how most members of Congress vote, see the "What Are They Thinking?" book.
4.Members of Congress, by and large, work very hard.
I know, this sounds crazy. It's American as apple pie to believe that most members of Congress are lazy SOBs who like to suck off the public teat and go on junkets to Hawaii. In reality, it's pretty damn hard to be in Congress and not work your butt-off. See "Inside Congress - What They Do Everyday."
5.In Congress, no one ever thinks about the national interest.
People always think that a person in Congress considers himself or herself a "national politician" and is thinking about the future of all America. Baloney. They only have one constituency - their own. National politics does not exist, particularly in the House of Representatives. Senators, further away from the next election, can be more deliberative, but you can be damn sure they're going to represent their citizens' interests over the interests of another state. Does this mean they'll never take any controversial stands? No. Does it mean that they'll only pander to people to get votes? Kind of. But isn't that the whole point of representative democracy?
6.People who vote count more than people who don't.
The bottom line in American politics is that votes still beat money. Elected officials are addicted to votes like a crack addict that can't get off the rock - you can never have too much. So if you are someone from a group who consistently votes, you get more respect. Who are some of the groups who vote? Seniors is one example. Who doesn't vote? Poor people or young people.
Within each party, there are groups that tend to show up and vote for the home team. For Republicans, it's small business (insurance in particular) and other small businesses, religious conservatives). Democrats tend to do well with unions, gays and lesbian organizations, and consumer groups. These voting blocks are important within each party, and their views are considered a priority because they vote.
7.Scratching backs is the only way.
If Congress were about being the smartest, maybe scratching backs wouldn't be as important. But that's not what Congress is about. People who think they can go to Congress with a "better idea" and make big changes are fooling themselves. Congress is not about being smarter than everyone else. It's about persistence. There are so many people working on similar things that you can be damn sure that if you thought of a great idea, most of the time someone else has already thought of it. If it was easy, someone else already did it. To get ahead you have to persist longer and harder than anyone else, make people think you will never go away, and then they will deal with you. And to work with all these other people, you have to get along. |
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That's awfully clever to sneak something like that.
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