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Democrat Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson said during an Armed Services Committee hearing in late March, 2010 that Guam would be in danger were more US troops sent there. “My fear that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize,” he said in all seriousness. “We don’t anticipate that,” responded Adm. Robert Willard.

Did Hank Johnson's constituents want their representative in the U.S. House of Representatives to be at least nominally educated?  Lest one replies with "of course," it could also be that people may want their represenatives to be like them, or at least to reflect what they value. It could be that Rep. Johnson's district was inhabited by people who didn't value education. My hometown is such a place. Going to graduate school is tantamount to evading the real world. The implication is that investing in one's education is to waste one's time on something of little value. Of course, you can't fight ignorance or change people's values where they are convinced that they are correct.  It is perhaps not a surprise that representatives could be found in government having that mentality where it is common among constituents.

It is also true that larger the electorate, the less it can make an informed decision regarding the candidates campaigning to represent it. This is why the delegates to the US Constitutional Convention said there is more democracy at the level of state legislatures (e.g., more retail, less wholesale, politics). The EU Parliament has almost 800 reps (newly expanded, though I understand not yet filled), yet is not twice the US population, so the electorates per rep are smaller. However, a governmental body so large is apt to be cumbersome. The state governments in the EU, like those in the US, have smaller districts for their legislative lower houses (and perhaps their senates as well). In smaller districts, the candidates and the elected representative are more apt to be known by a given voter (or by someone the voter knows). Two (or even three) degrees of separation are better than relying on tv commercials, which are geared to presenting a given candidate as he or she wants to be seen. A viable republic ought not rely on a candidate’s preferred self-presentation because judgments in governance involve the actual person–hence the voters ought to know it.

A major implication from my reasoning here is that both American and European state governments ought not allow the balance of power to shift too much to the US and EU level, respectively. On the last day of the U.S. Constitutional Convention, George Washington, who had kept quiet throughout in his role in presiding, asked the delegates if they would make one change. Rather than a U.S. House representative to represent at least 40,000 inhabitants, the minimum should be 30,000 because that would allow for greater democracy. Of course, the setting of a minimum is far different than a maximum; the average district population has never been 30,000.  At the turn of the twenty-first century, it was more than 600,000.  The constitutional delegates would have thought such an arrangement to evince an aristocrisy, there being so few representatives relative to the population. The average citizen's voice would surely be lost, the designers of the U.S. constitution would be wont to say.  I suspect their response would be not just to send more power back to the state governments, but also to urge many of the large and medium states into federal systems themselves. Particularly where a state is heterogeneous, it makes sense for it to have a federal system with states ranging from large metro areas to four or five counties (as in Germany, whose Lander span from Bremen to Bavaria).  Unsere grosse Staaten sollten von Deutschland lernen. It could be that in modernity, the West has grown too accustomed to larger and larger electorates.  Has the E.U., for example, set any limit to its expansion from the vantage point of its democracy deficit?  Furthermore, has the U.S. tackled the problem of how to reconcile the large districts in the U.S. House with the problem of that body itself having too many members?  If it continues to be assumed that Congress can and should legislate on virtually anything, the tradeoff between representation and the size of the House must be addressed.

In 2009, Congress appropriated $16 billion in earmarks. In March of 2010, that the House eliminated earmarks to for-profit companies. However, enterprising managers soon found a way to get around the restriction. I contend that figuring ways to get around restrictions is the default in corporate responses to regulations where the latter cannot be used for strategic advantage.

In Marcy Kaptur’s (D-OH) district, a defense contracting company incorporated a nonprofit organization, the Great Lakes Research Center, at the same address and doing the same work. The center received earmarks of $10.4 million to sell the Pentagon small hollow metal spheres for body armor. Kaptur, who had received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the owner’s family and the company’s lobbyists told the media that the center “met the requirements of the Reform.” If this is true, the reform was in effect nugatory—so one might ask: why did the House go to the trouble unless for the short-term PR benefit? There is a deeper problem in even the appearance of a conflict of interest wherein a lawmaker has a role, whether direct or indirect, in money going to an organization that has contributed to the lawmaker’s campaign. Even if not intended, the conflict of interest should be sufficient as a red-light, yet as long as money is not being used by the company’s owner for personal use, such conflicts of interest are typically ignored.  I contend, however, that both types are equally sordid and hence that we should be on guard for them both.  If I am correct, there is an unduly lax and restrictive attitude in the US toward institutional conflicts of interest. This lapse has in turn enabled corruption in the Congress.

Source: Eric Lipton and Ron Nixon, “Companies Find Ways to Bypass Earmarks Ban,” NYT (7/5/10), 1A.

See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/us/politics/05earmarks.html?_r=1&hpw

In March, 2010, leaders of the US House Appropriations Committee (chaired by Rep. David Obey (D-WI)), banned ear-marks to for-profit companies. Had the ban on for-profit earmarks been in place in 2009, it would have meant the elimination of about 1,000 awards worth a total of about $1.7 billion. Many of those earmarks went to military contractors for projects in lawmakers’ home districts. The decision ends a practice that has steered billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to companies and set off corruption scandals. So far, though, the Senate is not joining in. House Democrats had tried to reach an agreement with their counterparts to ban for-profit earmarks, but the senators balked, Congressional officials said. With the Senate including for-profit earmarks in its budget bills and the House excluding them, negotiators from each body will have to determine which earmarks, if any, would make it into a final bill sent to the White House for approval. So it is possible that businesses could continue to get no-bid government contracts. According to the Office of Congressional Ethics, there is a “widespread perception” among the private-sector recipients of earmarks that giving political contributions to lawmakers on the panel helped secure the grants. It is possible that this assumption could survive from future ear-marks (via conference committee negotiations)  even as the House leaders are percieved as having solved the problem.  In other words, the corporate political contributions continue even as the House incumbants campaign on having solved the problem in the House.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/us/politics/11earmark.html?ref=us

In the U.S. Constitutional Convention, Governeur Morris said on July 2, 1787, that the “Rich will strive to establish their dominion & enslave the rest. They always did. They always will. The proper security [against] them is to form them into a separate interest.” (Madison, p. 233) By this he meant the U.S. Senate. The democratic principle in the U.S. House and the aristocratic spirit in the U.S. Senate “will then controul each other.” (Madison, p. 233) Having the State Legislatures appoint their U.S. Senators—as was the case until 1913—would defeat the independence of the Senate, and hence its function as a check on the excesses of democracy in the U.S. House.  Such excesses had just been evinced in Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts, wherein the legislature there had sided with the former soldiers who had not been paid for their service but were still to make payments on their debts.

In other words, one of the purposes of the U.S. Senate as originally envisioned was to protect property (including creditor interests). The assumption was that the representative democracy of the U.S. House would favor the lower classes.  Although the amounts spent on Senatorial campaigns in the early twenty-first century practially guarantee that the seats would defend the interests of the rich, that the Senators are elected by citizens rather than appointed by State governments must compromise the U.S. Senate as a check on the democratic excesses in the U.S. House. Even as this check has been enervated, the protection of wealth function endures.  Indeed, given Shaws’ Rebellion the check on excess democracy is really just the protection of property, which is practially guaranteed anyway by the amounts needed to run for the U.S. Senate.  Not surprisingly, in 2010 the medium wealth of a U.S. Senator was roughly $2.8 million. It is worth quoting from Governeur Morris again—this time from July 19 in Convention. “Wealth tends to corrupt the mind & to nourish its lvoe of power, and to stimulate it to oppression.” (Madison, p. 323)  As the number of electors per member of the U.S. House has increased, even that body could be said to evince a moneyed aristocracy.  The question may thus be raised: Is there a sufficient check against the rich in the national legislature?

Governeur Morris claimed in convention that the U.S. President “should be the guardian of the people, even of the lower classes” on account of the wealth-interest in the U.S. Senate. (Madison, p. 322). However, if the wealth interest has gained a foothold in the U.S. House and even in the presidency itself, that check may well be insufficient and nugatory. A return of domestic functions of government to those of the respective States could perhaps evince a greater weight for what Morris calls “the Mass of the people.” (Madison, p. 323)  At the very least, the lower houses of the State governments are not dominated by the rich. This was precisely what the delegates of the convention wanted to check, and the creation of a general government was their solution. It is no wonder that it has become top-heavy both at the expense of federalism and the poor.

Source: James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987

For general information on the U.S. Constitutional Convention, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_Convention_(United_States)

On January 5, 2011, John Boehner was sworn in as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. He had promised to decentralize the power that had been so tightly held by the previous Speaker and others further back.  Indeed, it had been Gingrich's micromanaging of Boehner in 1995 that may well have prompted Boehner to want to give more power to lower-level party leaders and committee chairs. Boehner even promised to better provide for the minority party in that proceedings would be more open and fair.  Of course, obstructionism, favoritism, and in general the realities of governing may force the Speaker to consolidate power. The exigencies of his position may well trump any bad memories of having been one of the low men on the totem pole.  It is in the nature of <i>human</i> nature to identify with the present at the expense of the past. Adding to these factors, consolidating power into a few select hands may seem necessary to getting the trains to run on time.

Indeed, Boehner might be tempted to add trains. Noting the inherent difficulty in having one legislature governing an empire-scale union, the anti-federalist (and pro-commerce) Agrippa of Massachusetts wrote in 1787, "A diversity of produce, wants and interests, produces commerce, and commerce, where there is a common, equal and moderate authority to preside, produces friendship." (Agrippa, Letter 8, 4.6.30). Agrippa was bemoaning the consolidation that he feared would ensue from the powers granted by the U.S. Constitution to Congress (at the expense of the state governments). Agrippa was by in large right. The dual-sovereignty in American federalism has largely been eclipsed by decades of encroachments by the general government. It would have taken self-discipline for Congress not to have encroached when it could. Similarly, self-discipline is required for a Speaker of the House, which is a constitutional office, to preside, which is to say, to look to the overall interest of the whole rather than to engage in partisanship.  

In spite of his asseverations to return some power to the states and to decentralize his power in the House, Speaker Boehner is apt to reverse himself in practice. Should he do so, he might find that his tenure is shorter rather than longer, for those who clutch most to power tend to see it slip through their hands faster than otherwise. Despite pushing through a lot of big legislation, both Speakers Gingrich and Pelosi lost their Speakerships relatively quickly. The nature of power may well be paradoxical: those who love it most may well be least equipped to manage it.

Sources: Naftali Bendavid and Patrick O'Conner, "New Speaker Vows to Share Power--a Tricky Proposition," <i></i>Wall Street Journal<i></i>, January 4, 2011, pp. A1, A6.
Agrippa, in Herbert J. Storing, ed., The Anti-Federalist, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985, p. 243

In the New York convention for ratifying the U.S. Constitution, Melancton Smith favored having the state legislatures rotating their U.S. Senators rather than keeping the same men in the Senate for life. "It is a circumstance strongly in favor of rotation, that it will have a tendency to diffuse a more general spirit of emulation, and to bring forward into office the genius and abilities of the continent. If the office is to be perpetually confined to a few, other men of equal talents and virtue, but not possessed of so extensive an influence, may be discouraged from aspiring to it." (Storing, p. 348)  This argument could easily be applied to the people electing U.S. Senators. To be sure, Smith also said, "It is a maxim with me, that every man employed in a high office by the people, should from time to time return to them, that he may be in a situation to satisfy them with respect to his conduct and the measures of administration." (Storing, p. 348) Term limits limit this maxim. Such a limit may be worthwhile anyway because incumbants can enjoy such advantages of office (e.g., fundraising) that the will of the people could be warped or hindered after an elected official has become entrenched in office.

In general terms, the anti-federalist writers in 1788 viewed both the U.S. House and the Senate as aristocratic on account of the relatively few legislators relative to the population represented.  The anti-federalists were looking at 65 House reps representing a total U.S. population of 3 million; in 2010 by contrast, there were 435 House representatives out of a population of 310 million.  In other words, the average congressional district has increased populationwise, with the implication being that the democratic body of the Congress is even less democratic and more aristocratic.  The overwhelming tendency for incumbants to be re-elected (should they wish) can be explained by the increasing aristocratic nature of the body.  The anti-federalists looked out at the 2,000 representatives in the state houses as being more representative and responsive to the electorate than the 65 U.S. House representatives could be to their constituents. The critics of the proposed constitution advocated stronger firewalls against encroachments by the general (U.S.) government, for less representation in their eyes translated into fewer powers being justifiable in the U.S. Government. Smith observed in New York's ratifying convention that “a complete representation would make the legislature too numerous; and therefore, it is our duty to limit the powers, and form checks on the government, in proportion to the smallness of the number.” (Storing, p. 345) In 2010, 10,000 reps would have been necessary to meet the 30,000 inhabitants per House representative as per the bench-mark that George Washington had proposed on the last day of the constitutional convention. Adding to the problem in the difference between 434 and 10,000, the U.S. Government has practically consolidated power at the expense of our State governments. In other words, the U.S. House is more aristocratic--perhaps not far from the aristocratic U.S. Senate--even as the powers of Congress have vastly increased. 

In short, we have unwittingly been putting more power in the hands of a legislature that the anti-federalists viewed as aristocratic even in 1788.  Because expanding the House size is not advisable and returning some of the federal government's power to the state governments is not likely, term limits may well be worth the cost in terms of popular sovereignty (i.e., the people being able to reelect the incumbant).  To be sure, such a reform would only be as a patch on an old tire that is severely out of balance.

The basic problem both of federalism and representation facing the United States at the time of this writing is the lack of balance in power, and thus of a government-on-government check, on account of encroachments by the U.S. Government. This matter is distinct and does not reduce to the question of limited government, for transferring some domains from the U.S. Government to the state governments does not necessarily mean "less government."  Indeed, it could mean more government where people want it, as government closer to the people may enjoy greater confidence. In other words, one could expect both "more" and "less" government--depending on the state.  Vermont could have a single-payer health insurance system while Texas relies exclusively on private insurance companies.  For the rest of us: why not tolerate this, if it is in line with the greater representation that is at the state level?  The U.S. Government would be freed up to concentrate on areas that the states cannot reach and on providing a check on abuses by the states.

Source: Melancton Smith, Speech Delivered at the New York Ratifying Convention of the U. S. Constitution, June 23, 1788, in Herbert J. Storing, ed., The Anti-Federalist, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.