The 18 Percent Congress

By David Swanson

If you were a member of Congress, wouldn't you behave completely differently from how most members of Congress behave? I mean, if you had not gone through the process required to become a congress member, but just suddenly became one tomorrow, wouldn't you behave as though you had an ounce of decency? Wouldn't you take your responsibility at least as seriously as your power and your ego? Wouldn't you at a bare minimum seek to represent the wishes of the majority of your constituents, the way you were taught in elementary school a representative is supposed to represent? I have to assume you would, as I assume I would, as I assume a majority of Americans would.

If I were a member of Congress, I would be constantly polling my constituents to find out their views of an issue. And if I felt passionately that they were wrong, I would seek to persuade them. If I could not persuade them, I would vote their view rather than my own. My own view would be suspect in my own mind, not that of a majority of my constituents living outside the Beltway and its influences. And if my constituents' views were too unpopular with moneyed interests to bring in the funds needed to reelect me, then I just wouldn't be reelected. But, of course, all of us with that attitude will never be elected in the first place.

There are people (18 percent of the country) who approve of Congress right now. That's a smaller percentage than believe in UFOs. I'm not going to try to explain it. The other 82 percent are of more interest. Some of them simply oppose anything run by Democrats. Some of them are fed up with the Democrats' refusal to stand up to the Republicans. Some blame the Republicans even though they're the minority. Others find little of any use in either party, but are passionate about the growing gulf between Congress and the people it supposedly represents.

Congressman Jerrold Nadler recently told some of his constituents that he knows that a majority of them want Bush and Cheney impeached, but that he doesn't think they've thought it through, that they would come to regret it and blame him for it if he acted on their demands. But if we don't have a public that is capable of thinking things through, then we have a bigger problem on our hands than even a criminal president and vice president. Nadler would seem to have given up on the idea of a democracy, not in Iraq but here in the United States. If he has an argument for why impeachment is a bad idea, he should make it publicly. Then he should poll his constituents. If he hasn't changed their mind, then he should act on their wishes. I guarantee they would not blame him for doing so.
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