Posted on 10/05/2015 8:24:50 AM PDT by Kaslin
A member of Congress estimated to me that out of 84-86 new GOP members who swept the House in the GOP takeover of 2010, there are only about only four to five left who remain conservative. It is a well-known fact that candidates running for Congress as conservatives frequently become moderates; compromising on many issues they vowed to stand principled on.
There are several discernible explanations why: It’s easy to get support when you’re promising Santa Claus goodies, you get more favorable coverage from the left-leaning media (and hence better reelection chances), you get invited to all the cool cocktail parties, and the “old guard” in Congress is less likely to target you and remove you from committees for challenging their compromising.
There is another, almost invisible reason. It comes down to future employment. Many members of Congress are career politicians, and have few other job options after they leave outside of lobbying. But what is lobbying? It usually involves representing a special interest group that wants more money from government. This often is anathema to conservative interests. Conservatives who vote against special interests while in Congress end up on a “lobbying blacklist.” No one will hire them afterward. Associations like the the music industry, movie industry or realtors’ associations turn up their noses at them.
A small handful of conservatives in Congress are able to find adequate alternative future employment like Jim DeMint, who is now president of the Heritage Foundation. But there is only one Heritage Foundation. Most jobs in the nonprofit sector don’t pay very well. Many conservative members of Congress are average people, with student loan debt, families and bills to pay. An expensive campaign and two years in Congress or so can leave a member of Congress close to broke if they don’t have any big special interests funding them. Conservatives are more likely to be self-made than the wealthy liberals in Congress, not born into wealth. There is a perception that Congress is full of millionaires, but they are disproportionately Democrats and half are not millionaires.
The ways former members of Congress can make a living post-service has dried up in the modern era. Writing books pays less these days, as people buy fewer books and obtain their information online instead. Speaker fees have gone down, as there are plenty of social media exhibitionists willing to speak for free instead; everyone is a political pundit now. Same with media, only a handful of former conservative politicians like Sarah Palin get paying positions with media outlets; the vast majority of former electeds are expected to appear without pay.
It creates an incentive to either remain in Congress for a long time, or start adjusting your votes in order to ensure future employment when you leave. The closer members get to retirement, the more likely they’ll become surrender monkeys. Conservatives wonder why Republicans keep caving on votes to subsidize corn-based ethanol or reauthorize the extension of the Export-Import Bank. Well, they’re natural lobbying positions to move to after they resign.
Adding to the pressure are the associated PAC contributions. Members of Congress who vote against funding special interests find their campaign contributions dry up. The ones who stop bad deals, resource misallocation and crazy special tax credits are punished.
So conservatives are not just punished while in office, but punished once they leave. They find it difficult to land somewhere they can use their political skill set. Whereas moderates who give away things find open doors everywhere. Ultimately, it comes down to follow the money; the reformers versus the institutionalists who control the money. If you’re a moderate, willing to subsidize industries, give tax breaks to special interests, and support crony capitalism, then the money flows. The unfortunate ramifications of this are a distortion of the economy.
Conservatives everywhere should be alarmed, because this problem goes far beyond Congress, affecting conservatives throughout all aspects of society. The principled ones are shunned by mainstream groups, shut out of plum leadership positions and employment. Can you imagine an outspoken conservative becoming CEO of Apple? Of course not. Powerful corporate interests are able to use their pocketbooks to silence conservatives. Conservatives would love for Republican CEOs to speak out politically — but they don’t dare for fear of retaliation. Despite the fact that 52 percent of CEOs are Republicans and only two percent are Democrat or Libertarian, the top Fortune 500 CEOs contribute substantially more to Democrats.
How can we solve this problem? Conservative organizations and news outlets need to look out for these members of Congress and give them preferences when it comes to hiring. If members know they have a principled organization willing to hire them after they leave, they will be less susceptible to the pressure to compromise as electeds. It’s time to start providing a safe haven for our own — we got your back.
My eyes must be playing tricks on me.
When I read the title, my eyes substituted “monsters” for moderates.
If the federal gov’t didn’t take so much money from taxpayers for things they don’t have any co institutional power over, for redistribution to States and local governments that do their bidding, a lot of this wouldn’t happen. If a representative doesn’t bring back enough of this ransom money to his/her district, that is a co consideration in elections.
THAT ... I could ALMOST live with... but they are not Moderates... they are all out Liberals most of the time.
That's the great thing about prostitution.
You have it ... You sell it... YOU STILL HAVE IT!
They sell themselves JUST like whores.... over and over and over AGAIN!
This is somewhat insightful but flawed. All members of Congress are paid $174,000 per year and receive a LIFETIME pension for serving only one term in Congress.
The lifetime pension should be done away with and the only thing that should be substituted are enticements similar to what the military offer: cancellation of student loan debt, one year’s pay upon vacating membership, mandatory hireback provisions for members that left an employed position and so on.
The goal is to get members out of the mindset that they are set for life, that they feel compelled to stay in Congress because the perks are so good, etc.
They need to understand that they’ll remain employed if they remain conservative and that they won’t if they don’t. And they need to believe it.
I don’t think term limits would solve this. K Street could recruit/hire these people after 8 yrs. as easily as they do after 20.
Part of the term limit would be a moratorium on being hired by donors.
Rubio didn’t sell out after he got elected—he sold out so he could get elected.
Yeah! And to think that I voted for the bastard. won’t happen again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. This time, each piece of Republican literature I receive soliciting votes, I plan to look up the website or email address to contact them and explain why I will not be voting for them. Will they care? Probably not. But when they see Democrats collecting payoffs and bribes that could have been theirs.....
I put it to you that the answer, in addition to term limits, is a generous salary - but no retirement benefits - and a minimum age requirement of 35 yrs - for any significant political office.The objective is to make public service - not “public service” - an option for competent people who already have a life.
Temporary public service. Not a career.
The author of this article missed the target - by several miles.
It is impossible for a Congressman or Senator to even attempt to do his duty without a staff. And, the staff does a lot more than answer the phone, open the mail, and greet visitors. In fact, the staff writes most of the legislation and tells the Congressman/Senator all the good and bad things about legislation written by other Congressmen/Senators.
So, where do you get effective staffers? The first pool is from your predecessor if he was from the same political party. The second pool is from ex-staffers who remained in the D.C. area the last time your party held that particular seat. The final source are recent graduates from the various schools in the D.C. area. Please note - NONE of the these staffers, the real power behind the legislative system, came from the district/state that elected the new conservative Congressman/Senator. They come from “inside the beltway” with all of attributes that that implies.
Proof of my position occurred immediately after the 1994 “Republican Revolution”. CNN was interviewing an outgoing Democratic staffer about all the problems he was facing now that he was out of a job. The follow questions revealed that the Congressman in question has lost his first reelection bid but the staff had worked as a staffer for a Democratic Congressman for over a decade.
Want to ensure a Conservative remains a Conservative when he goes to D.C.? Make him select his political staff from the same pool that elected him. Will that slow things down because they aren’t professional staffers? Well, to quote one Herman Cain; “You have been trying professional politicians for the last several years - how’s that working out for you?”
After all, who'd want a professional politician, like James Madison?
You are full of it Alert
A good article that expands on the folly of conservative involvement in electoral politics. Here we have reason #1 in a little more detail: the politicians are bought and paid for. We all probably realize that, but this article gives a little more of the “how.”
Electoral politics is a suckers game for conservatives.
James Madison did about as much actual hands-on farming as I do.
As a Floridian, I’ve known about RINO Rubio for some time. He likes liberal ideas. He’s just recently started to show some of them off. For a long time I’ve watched Marco, but he hasn’t been around as long as your two Tennessee Twin RINOs, Corker and LAMAR! Do you love them both as much as you love RINO Rubio? Or do you just have a special thing for him?
Which recent one of Marco’s lib ideas is your favorite, amnesty or #Blacklivesmatter (illegal and hispanic lives too, but no one else’s matters)? I might just steal your little alert gif and use it to ping you every time Marco comes out with another one of his lib loving ideas. Hang on to your wallet. He has plenty more.
Sorry, nice try, see § 3 ....
ACU, while somewhat polluted by RiNOism these last few years (so that a good ACU rating doesn't mean what it did 15 years ago), rates legislators down to the State Lege level.
Consulting them, I found that Sarah Davis, my Texas House representative, has an ACU rating of only 44 and a lamentable habit of voting with the liberal-RiNO speaker of the Texas House (who was actually elected with more 'Rat votes than Republican, so he is really a DemonRatican). Sarah ranks as the weakest Republican in the state legislature.
The only clue we had beforehand that she was one of Them, was the slick, glossy campaign flyers we were bombed with in the mail. Glossy flyers bespeak Money, and Money is the Antichrist in republican politics.
Their ratings are meaningless when all the damage takes plase offstage in the leadup to voting. And as you know, they only vote conservastive when they cannot win.
Which the GOP has set up via leadership to ensure they can’t. End result being very undeserved vote ratings when there is Far, far more to the story.
People need to do their homework for themselves, not rely on rigged ratings.
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