David Brooks has produced a thought-provoking piece in today's New York Times.  He sums it up in his conclusion:

Neither the United States nor the European model will work again until we rediscover and acknowledge our own natural weaknesses and learn to police rather than lionize our impulses.

The structures our founders put in place - "the checks and balances" - are still there, says Brooks.  It's "We the People," who have lost our way, he suggests.  Perhaps we have lost some of what the founders called "civic virtue."  Perhaps. 

Here is the question:  Are the structures put in place by the founder failing because we have lost our civic virtue or are they failing for possibly another reason?

Brooks writes:

The American decentralized system of checks and balances has transmogrified into a fragmented system that scatters responsibility. Congress is capable of passing laws that give people benefits with borrowed money, but it gridlocks when it tries to impose self-restraint.

Yes, responsibility is scattered, but hasn't that always been true? 

Brooks is certainly correct that today we have a government seemingly incapable of pursuing the enlightened self-interests of the nation.  The founders foresaw the potential for a republic to be captured and destroyed by narrow and short-term interests.  In Federalist #10, Madison called these special and narrow interests, "factions."  Brookes echoes Madison in warning of the danger of citizens merely following their "impulses."

And Brooks is right when he suggests that the entire system of checks and balances was designed to make government more judicious and discourage human nature's worst tenancies.  So what has happened since the founding?  Is it simply a decline in the American character?

For one thing, since the founding, modernity happened.   The founders would not recognize America today, with its vast wealth, complex economy, big powerful federal and state governments, social safety nets, burgeoning population, sophisticated and pervasive communication technologies and information revolution. 

What we as a people have created together is mostly wonderful.  It is mostly a testament to our industrious character.  But such revolutionary change has consequences the founders simply could not have foreseen.  The defenses they built into the system against a government serving only the narrow and short term - the "checks and balances" - have been overwhelmed by modernity.

Today every incentive operating on our political system favors the narrow and short term, exactly contrary to the wishes of the founders.  Career politicians, fixated on two and six-year election cycles, take campaign money from narrowly focused special interests, interests that invest in these politicians for their own benefits.  Interests that oppose certain politicians risk getting punished.  None of this serves the national interest .  It is a systemic failure.  The founders would have us re-enforces the defenses they put in place against special and narrow interests.   They would have us enact a clean elections system and term limits, a very difficult task.

So now we must return to the issue Brooks raises regarding our character as a people.  It's certainly true that as government becomes more distant and dysfunctional, citizens becomes alienated and cynical.  Our democratic muscles atrophy.  Do we retain the civic virtue necessary to build anew the proper defenses against the narrow and short-term interests that are destroying our republic?  Let's hope.

On Satruday former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer made an announcement that probably a lot of reform-minded voters were waiting for.   Roemer promised not to be a spoiler in the 2012 presidential contest. 

Some progressives have worried aloud that a reformer running for President might take votes away from President Obama.  More realistically, since Roemer is a Republican, he would more likely draw from Romney's base and help re-elect the President. 

Whichever the case, Roemer has now put those fears to rest.  In a letter to supporters Roemer stated, "If, during the last month of the campaign I discover I have no realistic chance of winning, I will ask my supporters to vote their conscience or for their second choice so the issue of spoiler can be dropped once and for all."

Roemer debating alongside Obama and Romney would be invaluable to the cause of reform.  Roemer is currently polling at 7%.  To get into the presidential debates he must achieve a threshold of 15%, a goal that seems achievable.

But for Roemer to have that opportunity he first must win the nomination on the Americans Elect ticket, which would put him on the ballot in all fifty states.  Time is running short.  To have a chance of being the Americans nominee, he must get 10,000 votes of support on the Americans Elect web site. 

We don't endorse candidates, but if you think it's important to have a reformer's voice in the presidential debates, then go to Americans Elect, click on Roemer's picture, then click on "show your support," which will lead you through the process of qualifying to vote at Americans Elect.  Unfortunately, the process is a somewhat complicated and involved.  The security measures are probably depressing participation.   Like the fight for reform itself, one must be persistent.

For reformers working on ending the influence money has on government policy – a supposedly nonpartisan issue – where is the line between being a reformer and being a partisan? Those who devote their time and energy to ridding our system of the corrupting influence of special interest money are naturally going to be politically active and likely to have strong feelings about most issues. For these people and groups, where is the line between fighting for core principles and being willing to set aside differences to cooperate on a critical area of agreement?

Those who champion this cause and know that success requires cooperation have a duty to lead by example; especially groups and individuals with high profiles. If money in politics is poisoning everything else, than all other problems are symptoms of this root cause; and thus ending the corrupting influence is really the only thing that matters. Traditional partisan quarrels only benefit the status quo.

People across the political divide are awakening to the fact that the corrupting influence of money is the main cause of government failure. Yet in a polarized environment, cooperation is difficult, even when mutually beneficial.

Peter Schweizer suggests a double standard in the Department of Justice's prosecution of white color crime.  Read here.

In January of this year, Gallop continued its practice of polling Americans on their political ideologies.   As you can see here, the pattern is fairly consistent over time, but in 2012, 40% of all Americans described themselves as "conservative," 35% as "moderate" and 21% as "liberal."

Given that a highly motivated supermajority of voters is needed to enact the kind of sweeping reforms readers of this page know is necessary, then isn't the support of conservatives also necessary?

You wouldn't know it to read and listen to the rhetoric of so-called "reform" organization's, who in this election year seem more interested in defeating Republicans and electing Democrats than they are in real reform.

 Indeed, all of the big reform organizations couldn't alienate conservatives more if they tried.  Some of these groups help our organization in various ways, so out of a sense of diplomacy they will go unnamed.

First, any conservative who is even a little interested in reform has read or heard about Peter Schweizer's book, Throw Them All Out.  Many reform groups have in fact used Schweizer's information on congressional insider stock trading in their advocacy for the recently passed Stock Act.  That legislation was produced as a result of Schweizer's reserach, though he says it does not go far enough.

Is it OK for the White House to intimidate Romney's financial backers?  Read this important piece by Kimberley Strassel.

New York  columnist Tom Friedman recently wrote an interesting piece based on his interview with Francis Fukuyama.  Fukuyama, you may recall, is the author of The End of History in which he reassured us that - with the end of the cold war - democracy would triumph everywhere.  Tyranny was doomed.  Not only is reality forcing a revision in Fukuyama's thesis, but he now tells Friedman that that American government has "a crisis of authority."  Authority?

So what we need then is not more democracy but more authority?  What happened to "the End of History?" 

Yes, we all know American government has become highly dysfunctional.    And Friedman and Fukuyama get it right when they point out that our national government has been reduced to little more than a hoard of special interests vying for money and power.  The Founders expected government to serve broad and long term interests.   Preventing members of Congress from taking campaign cash from special interests would steer government toward serving the national interest, something Friedman only alludes to in this article.

Rather, for the United States today, Fukuyama  and Friedman prescribes changes in the institutional rules of the US government to prevent what has become a "vetocracy."  He and Friedman say we have too many checks and balances, like the Senate filibuster.  Is that really the problem?

The filibuster, while probably often used too casually, can be a pretty good unifying device.  Consider the passage of  the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. "Obamacare."  Everyone knows that the bill was completely partisan.  Not a single Republican voted for it.  It only escaped a Senate Republican filibuster because of a technicality that allowed it to pass through a process called "reconciliation."  The partisan passage of the Affordable Care Act set off a firestorm of ideological warfare that still rages.  But what if the Republicans had been able to block the Democrat healthcare bill, then what?  The President and his party  might then have turned to the bipartisan Wyden- Bennett bill, arguably a superior bill, that would have resulted in a better healthcare law, more ideological peace, and would probably have the President in a better position for reelection today.  The filibuster can be a useful tool, but like many tools, can also cause damage when used recklessly.

Friedman cheers Fukuyama when he calls for "heavy technocratic input."  That kind of tool sounds similar to a sledgehammer. Friedman and Fukuyama favor elitist solutions.  They just can't help themselves.   All of  those interests need to be "managed" in some top-down structure, they seem to suggest.

But the problem is not too much democracy.  Rather, it's not enough democracy.  If our government was led by people more like average Americans - with the same priorities as average Americans, like balanced budgets, good education, clean water and air, a fertile business climate - then we'd have a healthy political system.  Instead we are plagued by career politicians, enabled by special interests, whose primary focus is the maintenance of their own positions and political power.   The filibuster will be used more responsibly when we have term limits and clean elections. 

The claim is often made (especially by political insiders) that the case for money controlling things in Washington is overstated. They claim that in instances where voters make their wishes well known, money doesn’t stand a chance. This is actually true…sort of. But at the same time, nobody is really saying that special interest money literally runs government – it’s more subtle and tougher to pinpoint than that, which is exactly what makes it such a difficult problem to deal with.

On issues where the public is activated and aware, money doesn’t have nearly as much influence as it might otherwise. Under those conditions, it can only nibble at the fringes while lawmakers appease anxious voters. Of course moneyed interests still do okay, either by preventing certain options from being considered (a ‘la the public option, single payer or even tort reform during the health care debates) or by watering down legislation so lawmakers can say they did something without actually doing much of anything (there are countless examples of that).

Even when the public scores a win against a special interest, they are usually thwarted in the end by a captured & compliant regulatory agency who – with the public’s attention elsewhere – implements the new law in special interests’ favor. So yes…people can still win hollow & meaningless victories over moneyed interest when they are fully engaged and able to cow government into not completely selling them out on a specific issue. It’s not exactly as the founders envisioned!

But wait. What about issues where the public isn’t engaged or even aware? Most of what government does takes place far outside the public view. Trade agreements, tax policy, regulatory policy – these and other obscurities are what government spends most of its time on. Absent the public’s attention, special interests and their money generally rule the day.

This isn’t to say that corporations or other special interests conspire to run the government or harm individual citizens; they are just looking out for their own interests with ruthless efficiency. The problem is that the most sure-fire way to profit or succeed is not to work harder, but to rig the game in your favor. Since we allow anyone with enough money to do pretty much exactly that, no one should really be surprised when they take full advantage.

But if someone is winning, that means someone else is losing; and decades of legislation designed to look out for these narrow interests has created a god-awful mess for our country. We now face a tsunami of unforeseen consequences and externalities hammering us from all sides. Yet inexplicably we keep turning to the same system with the same actors indebted to the same special interests which tied this noose around our necks to begin with.

Even though everyone can see where our current trajectory is taking us, those in power continue to do the same things…with predictable results. Politicians are stuck; to challenge the money would take a majority of lawmakers willing to stand up in defiance of the special interests. Since this is so unlikely, everyone just plays along so as not to be the peg which stands up and gets pounded down; and the knot around our collective neck gets tighter and tighter.

Of course, the best solution would be to somehow sever the link between money and policy so that government would be free to act independently; while also being held accountable to act for the greater good. As long as private money funds campaigns however, politicians will do whatever is necessary to ensure they have enough money to succeed. They won’t sell their constituents out and side with a special interest if doing so would harm their public standing; but they will change an “and” to an “or” in a trade agreement; eliminate a cap or limit in a tax exemption; or a million other things far beyond the notice or understanding of the average American. No enemy abroad can hurt us as much as we hurt ourselves by allowing these millions of small, self-inflicted wounds to continue to accumulate.

Ironically, the sort of centralized control by corporations or special interests often used as a straw man by those arguing against reform would actually be preferable to the status quo. If we can’t have a government responsive to its constituents, we’d be better off just letting GE or Nike or Disney run things. At least then there might be some coherence and consistency to our policy.

By placing the power of money in elections above all else, we have made government minimally accountable to voters and it shows. Government is similar to a teenager who we have virtually no control over; who is out driving our car (on our insurance), has our credit card and is using our ID to buy alcohol…but whom we are still 100% accountable for. Whenever we demand to be heard, our government humors us until we are placated; just like a teenager. But this is not accountability, and the reality is we have very little control over what our government does the majority of the time. Until we fix a rigged system, giving ourselves the leverage we need to demand such accountability, we never will.

I am honored to be speaking at Occupy DC on Saturday.  I know that many activists there are focused on overturning Citizens United, so I thought I'd feature some related material on our site.  We have written here before that we think a strategy that centers on reversing Citizens United is a flawed approach to reform.

I also want to point out Larry Lessig's important piece written recently for The Atlantic om the same subject.

And here is some new language, taken from the latest version of our business plan: 

The Citizens United Case

A tangle of competing values, policy questions and partisan politics has emerged from the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision.  "Independent" political cash flows are flooding the system with money from wealthy individuals and special interests.

Progressive reformers are now focusing their attention on overturning Citizens United.  We think this is flawed approach from the points of view of both policy and reform politics.

To overturn Citizen United requires a constitutional amendment, but merely overturning Citizens United does not reform the system.  As progressive Harvard Law reformer Larry Lessig points out, the terrible problem of legislation corrupted by campaign money existed prior to Citizens United.   Why would reformers go to the enormous trouble of passing a constitutional amendment that doesn't really solve the problem?

The motivations behind the campaign to overturn Citizen United seem rooted as much in Democrat and progressive partisan politics as they are in a genuine desire to improve democracy. Progressive reformers are allied with incumbent Democrat politicians who feel threatened by the prospect of large, independent and undisclosed contributions going to potential challengers,  which might actually endanger their holds on office by leveling the playing field at election time.

Importantly, we believe the focus on Citizen United will keep conservatives out of an alliance with progressive reformers.  The ambiguous campaign to eliminate "corporate personhood" makes conservatives suspicious that progressive reformers are really most interested in cutting off cash flows to conservative politicians, silencing conservative voices and undermining the ability of free enterprise to defend itself in the public arena against overbearing government regulation.

At the heart of the debate surrounding Citizens United lies a conflict of sacred values.  There's the right to free speech versus the common need to root the corrupting influence of campaign money out of the legislative process.  To these should be added  a third value - fairness in elections and the need to eliminate incumbent advantage, important goals that are not discussed enough. 

Conservatives care about the problems associated with Citizens United too.  They don't want their lawmakers bought and sold either through independent expenditures or direct contributions.  Like progressives, grassroots conservatives are troubled that a very wealthy small fraction of one percent of all Americans has so much political power through political campaign sponsorship.  But conservatives are also very wary of compromising the First Amendment.   Giving government the right to regulate any kind of speech should trouble all Americans.

The complex issues unleashed by Citizens Untied are hopefully not unsolvable.  Indeed, they must be addressed.  But we should move together to the heart of the corruption and systemic dysfunction  before tackling the thorny and ideologically-charged issues related to Citizens United. 

The President signed the "Stock Act" into law this week.

Passing the Stock Act was probably a good thing, though some say the kind of insider stock trading  (exposed by Peter Schweizer in his book, Throw Them All Out) it's meant to address  has been illegal for years. 

Perhaps now they are signalling that they are really, really serious about policing themselves.

Even with the Stock Act as law, the problems associated with stock ownership by Members of Congress are still there.

Consider the case of House Minority Nancy Pelosi and her stock ownership in Clean Energy Fuels Corporatation (CLNE). 

It's well known that Democrats have been putting the brakes on the development of America's natural gas resources because many environmentalists are concerned that the means of retrieving the gas - a process known as "fracking"- is polluting groundwater. 

But the Pelosi's stake in Clean Energy Fuels suggests that environmentalists are about to be betrayed by the Democrats and that Pelosi and her husband are poised to cash in.

Clean Energy Fuels is positioning itself to own a monopoly of natural gas automotive refueling stations all across the country.  If the government were to ever get behind a serious exploitation  of domestic natural gas - a move essential to energy independence - it would be a bonanza for Clean Energy Fuels, and those who own stock in the company, like Nancy Pelosi and her husband.

No matter where you stand on the issue of fracking (I am for it, with regulation), wouldn't you feel better knowing that the economic self-interests of our law makers were not tied to legislative outcomes?

As documented by Peter Schweizer, the Pelosi's have a history of insider trading and using the power of Nancy's position for personal gain.   Progressive reformers almost never talk or write about the corruption of the Pelosis.   It's too painful for them and it might help elect Republicans.  But in the end, partisan muckraking discredits the cause of reform .

The most important reform offered up in the Stock Act debate was a proposal by Sherrod Brown (D-OH)  and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), which would have forced all members of Congress to place their stock holdings in a blind trust while they serve in office.   It was voted down 26-73.

 (Full Disclosure:  I own shares in CLNE.  You should too, because Nancy Pelosi does)