Realities of FISA and other votes

In a recent thread concerning the telecommunications company immunities it was stated that the House of Representatives is "our firewall" against these transgressions of the oligarchy.  And this particular characterization is of great importance and substance in exemplifying the role of the House of Representatives and our own responsibilities. The Senate was originally conceived as a bulwark against the populism that would characterize the more representative and more democratic House of Representatives. But there is also a countervailing defensive mechanism at work in the House.  The House serves not only as the bastion of popular legislation in the positive sense but as our bulwark against the onslaught of oligarchy that ensues from the more plutocratic Senate and the more aristocratic latter day (P)residency. The House of Representatives is the "People's House".  And our bicameral legislature is part of the "checks and balances" sought in the design of our government.

It costs 16-20 MILLION dollars to run an effective campaign to unseat a Senator.  That kind of money is raised from very large financial giants like the telcos that are in fear of lawsuits. (It is important to understand that the "Swift Boat" campaign did not use one dime of Republican campaign funds.  The Supremes have ruled that Freedom of speech will not allow political ads to be stopped and thus, campaign finance reform is of limited utility.) The House is only 5 million dollars per seat but the power of the purchased vote is significantly less.  Essentially, buying a House member is less expensive but also less valuable for malicious purposes.  It seems quite telling that the vote value maps so well into the cost of candidacy. In the Senate a purchased vote will have a 1/100th power rating while a House member will have only a 1/435th power rating.

If the "cost" of a representative/vote was the only force at work then the House would also be of little value in enforcing the will of the people as opposed to the will of the overlords; the budget for malfeasance being similar in the two cases.  Fortunately, however, there are additional forces at work (or there should be additional forces at work) that act in favor of the majority as opposed to the oligarchy.  As more House members would need to be corrupted so as to finance a malicious singular purpose, then the conspiratorial circle must be increased.  Improper designs tend to be checked in due proportion to the number of conspirators necessary to their purpose.  More importantly, it is axiomatic that the representative nature of any given representative will vary inversely with the size of the group bring represented and with the frequency with which the representative must stand for re-election.

"A government is republican in proportion as every member composing it has his equal voice in the direction of its concerns: not indeed in person, which would be impracticable beyond the limits of a city or small township, but by representatives chosen by himself and responsible to him at short periods." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.

And that small 'r' is not an accident.  There is absolutely nothing about the current Republican Party that is "republican" as that term was understood in the period between 1778 and 1850.

James Madison eloquently expressed the effects of group/constituency/electoral-district size on the likely outcome of elections in the early 1800's:

"Large districts are manifestly favorable to the election of persons of general respectability, and of probable attachment to the rights of property, over competitors depending on the personal solicitations practicable on a contracted theater."

And while that may seem a reasonable safeguard for the rights of those who have earned  their wealth and station it also says that as the size of the electoral bodies become larger the control of wealth and power is enhanced.  Madison, whether he likes it or not, tells us that power and station based on ownership will always commanded more respect and wield more control over the "hearts and minds" of the populous than the representatives of smaller groupings.  The problem, of course, is that such "authoritative" opinion may well prevail even when it is not actually in the best interests of the whole. To bring this into focus it is fair to say that a well positioned "authority" figure elected every six years instead of every two can orate and bloviate around the facts in a way that can offset any group of lesser known and less powerful "singers of the truth".  (why am I thinking of Harry Ried?)

These observations are very important as we focus our efforts and employ the benefits of smaller electoral groups and frequent elections in the House as versus the intransigence of the larger groups and less frequent elections characterizing the Senate.  For the most part the Kos people seem to understand the basic nature of community action and the effect of constituent opinion on the conduct of representatives.  That is why here on the Daily Kos we have the constant "beating of the drums" to "Call or write your representatives on this issue".  But it seems that the calls to Senators are pushed even more than the calls to the House members.  This is a terrible mistake in that your House representative is much more subject to your/our will and shared opinions than are the Senator(s). And this is true due to electoral district (group) size as well as the frequency of elections. It is axiomatic that the smaller the group being represented, the more acute must be the "likeness" of the representative to those being represented.  Nowhere is this more the case than in the economic condition of the people; the divide between the haves and the have-not's.  The haves being the lesser of the population are yet in command of the Senate because the Senate is not apportioned on population.  And this larger grouping and exaltation in station will ever represent the powerful and wealthy few more handily than will the more diverse representatives of the common people manifested in OUR House of Representatives.

This Senatorial advantage of the wealthy and powerful can, however,  be overcome by the empathy of the representatives in the House and the knowledge of these House members that their constituents can remove them from office much more easily (and less expensively) than they might remove the more august members in the Senate. There is no better discussion of this essential fact than that found in the writings of the anti-federalists
and the response to their charges of "aristocratic intent" from James Madison during the period of Constitutional ratification. But all of these long winded arguments are summarized quite well by the simple axiom on group size offered above.

This "control by the people" arising from smaller electoral group size is obvious even within the reality of political parties in our complex representative equation.  The parties do, in fact, represent yet another barrier against the populist and democratic tendencies of the people.  While it may well be that the existence of the Democratic party is a necessary evil in thwarting the  authoritarian nature of the latter day Republican Party, there is danger for freedom and equality of opportunity in any organized and powerful grouping. The very name "Democratic Party" is inappropriate because parties will curtail true republicanism/representative democracy. In every organization there will be the tendency of the members for self gratification and aggrandizement and the tendency to self preservation and advancement in the pyramid of power. That is the nature of human beings and their organizations.  This is the "ego".  It is not "evil".  It just is.  The cure for this tendency is always and forever the same.  It will always be an expansion of the representation toward a higher level of democracy; a measured increase in the people oriented democratic nature of the institution that does not encroach upon that boundary that would create "mob rule".

While the Senate may well be able to prevent the trampling of the rights of the minority wealthy by the "mob rule mentality" of the populous, this same defensive mechanism should work in reverse in OUR House when the minority wealthy (or the minority powerful) move to enhance their lawful control over the rights and freedoms of the majority or to enrich themselves from the public coffers and/or escape rightful taxation and accountability.  It is designed to be OUR House of Representatives.  It is not designed to be the House of power for the Lobby, the Parties, or any other special interest or group. And to the extent that the House does not serve it is because we have allowed our representation to be curtailed by BOTH of the political parties.  In 1921 the REPUBLICAN government (The House, The Senate, and the (P)residency all controlled by the Republican Party), failed for the first time in history to reapportion the membership of the House based on the decennial census. And having gotten away with it they then legislated a cap to the membership of the House at 425 members and instituted gerrymandering and power politics by removing any requirements for equally populated and compact districts.  According to the records however, the Democrats of the day were also supportive of this insult to representative government.  This single piece of legislation along with the 17th amendment represents that era where true representation of the people was lost and the rule of "The Oligarchy" through larger and more monetarily controlled electoral groups took over.  We had better use what is left as best we can and try to make it better.  Stay on your representative in the House on every issue and work to remove any member that is not comporting himself or herself with due regard for the will of the constituency.  This is the part that the far left doesn't like and the part that those who resent the "Blue Dog Democrats" find indigestible.  They refuse to acknowledge democracy and representative government and they seek to disenfranchise those who do not agree with their particular views.  Jefferson said it best:

"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education."

We must "engage" those who have not yet seen the light.  If you fear what your neighbor will do in that voting both then I suggest that you educate, inform, and accommodate. And if this does not work then your neighbor is most probably a member of some irrational minority.  Such minorities will not threaten the will of the majority where education and the light of truth are shown. Disenfranchisement is a mainstay of the latter day Republican Party.  This is so because they are in the minority and they know it.