Voting for Names, Not Legislation

There are so many problems with the men and women we have elected to both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, a problem that is amplified at least 50 times in state legislatures and who knows how many times at the local level. Aside from the fact that we no longer elect leaders, rather poll-watching, trend-following, unthinking followers, the vast majority of proposed legislation is never read by those who vote on these proposals. Congressmen and women rely on several “alternatives to reading” from following the dictates of party leaders to relying on summaries provided by Congressional staffers. But there is one even more pernicious method employ by these “purported leaders,” a system that plays right into the hands of weak-minded- constituents whose political choices are determined solely by titles and slogans; they vote for bills based on their name, a weakness that clearly drives sponsoring legislators into clever naming decisions to enhance the likelihood of passage.

The most infamous culprit, a massive USA Patriot Act (over 300 pages) was introduced on October 23, 2001 and was passed on October 26, 2001 in the House by 357 to 66 (of 435) and in the Senate by 98 to 1. While parts of the legislation had been around for a while, proposed and rejected by various committees, the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 got administration staffers, mostly under the leadership of Vice President Richard Cheney, cutting, pasting and drafting to implement the previously failed legislative elements into a broad new bill with sweeping powers: “The title of the Act is a ten letter acronym (or more correctly, a backronym) (USA PATRIOT), which stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. The Act dramatically reduced restrictions on law enforcement agencies' ability to search telephone, e-mail communications, medical, financial, and other records; eased restrictions on foreign intelligence gathering within the United States; expanded the Secretary of the Treasury’s authority to regulate financial transactions, particularly those involving foreign individuals and entities; and broadened the discretion of law enforcement and immigration authorities in detaining and deporting immigrants suspected of terrorism-related acts. The act also expanded the definition of terrorism to include domestic terrorism, thus enlarging the number of activities to which the USA PATRIOT Act’s expanded law enforcement power s can be applied.” Wikipedia.

Think of an opposing candidate in an ensuing election accusing his or her opponent of being profoundly unpatriotic by voting against the “Patriot Act,” in spite of the fact that huge portions of that legislation were repeatedly declared obviously violative of the United States Constitution by federal courts across the land, decisions that were supported by the Supreme Court. The fact is, not one Congressman or woman read that statute before the voted on it, even though it was the most important law to pass Congress in years. And when you look at the overwhelming number of legislators who swept this bill into office without reading its contents, it is clear something is very wrong with government.

The Defense of Marriage Act was passed in 1996, and once again a name made sense to lots of Congresspeople: the House passed it 342 to 67, and the Senate voted 85 to 14 in support before it was signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton. How could you vote against marriage? That would be totally un-American! The statute defines “marriage” as a “legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife”; similarly, it defines “spouse” as “a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.” It was clearly aimed at those embracing gay rights and single sex marriage, the real agenda. An equally “artfully” named bill has now been proposed by Senator Diane Feinstein (D- Cal) called the Respect for Marriage Act, aimed at repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, legislation with strong presidential support.

But the point to all this is not the thrust of the underlying law, but the use of labels that can inflame, falsely motivate, misdirect, mislabel and market substantive issues of dire importance to the American people. Remember laws like “Taft-Hartley” or “Dodd-Frank,” where at least the bills didn’t market themselves in the title, being based instead on the names of the sponsoring legislators. Or how about the simple numbering system so many states use for complete neutrality? Regardless of your political point of view, wouldn’t you prefer neutral titles that would at least make legislators try and find out what they are really voting for?

I’m Peter Dekom, and both “common sense” and “obviously wrong” appear to be two concepts that have been de facto repealed by our Congress.