Government Shutdown: What's the REAL problem?

The government shutdown is over. Two weeks and 20 billion dollars later, there are several stories coming out of this debacle. Americans are angry at Congress. The Republican party is divided. Obamacare still exists. 

However, buried within each article I’ve read is what I consider the real cause of this debacle and the current political cold war.

Here it is in a New York Times article today entitled Losing a Lot to Get Little:

The worry among many Republicans is that the Tea Party flank will not get the message, mainly because their gerrymandered districts are so conservative they do not have to listen.

From a New Yorker article on the Tea Party caucus who demanded the shutdown:

Through redistricting, Republicans have built themselves a perhaps unbreakable majority in the House. But it has come at a cost of both party discipline and national popularity.

So, what is gerrymandering or redistricting? Let’s go to Wikipedia shall we?

In the process of setting electoral districts, gerrymandering is a practice that attempts to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries to create partisan advantaged districts.

Both parties are guilty of abusing this practice and creating districts that look like Rorschach tests instead of geographic areas.

From Wikipedia.

Whether or not you agree with shutting down the government doesn’t really matter. As a strategy it failed and the 80 members of Congress who put forth this strategy will suffer no electoral consequences because the districts they live are drawn in such a way that they will never have to.

Listen, 60% of Americans want to fire every member of Congress. And yet, 90% of Representatives will be re-elected.

NINETY PERCENT.

From opensecrets.org

This goes way beyond those 80 members. They just made the lesson obvious. When you are held accountable only by voters who wholeheartedly agree with your (sometimes) extreme ideological positions, what interest do you have in compromising? What interest do you have in legislating at all?

I defend Congress. I defend Congress a lot. So often people will yell and scream about how every politician is a crook and we need to kick the whole lot out. I don’t believe that. I don't believe that if we just fired every member of Congress the problem would be solved.

I worked in Congress. Yes, I would argue about 15% of politicians are crooks. Just like 15% of teachers and bankers and garbage men are crooks. It is a political system composed on human beings and human beings aren’t perfect.

More importantly, when put within a system that rewards ideological extremism and punishes compromise, human beings will react accordingly. These men and women want to keep their jobs. They believe in what they do and they want to keep doing it. 

Thanks to gerrymandering too often that means shutting the government down instead of working to make it run properly.

So what do we do?

Several reforms have been proposed. Independent Redistricting Commissions were seen as a solution early on. Under this reform, a bipartisan commission would have to draw the district lines so that each electoral district was competitive. However, many have argued this leaves minorities and smaller interest groups underrepresented.

The Center for Voting and Democracy argues quite convincingly that the winner-takes-all system is the real problem and that proportional representation within districts would lead to fairer results.

What’s proportional representation? Instead of having to win the most votes, representation is divided proportionally and elected officials need only pass a certain threshold to win elected office. 

Let’s say you have a “super district” that sends four members to Congress. Instead of one person having to flip flop and sell out to make the most people in the district (who most likely don’t agree with each other) vote for them, each candidate can honestly and accurately court the proportion of the population that agrees with their positions. He or she only needs to be one of the top four vote-getters to go to Congress, where they will represent a coalition of supporters instead of one ideological group.

Several state and local governments already use proportional representation to elect city commissioners or state representatives so there’s no reason to believe it could work on a wider level.

Honestly, I don't know if this is the right solution. I do know that this endless cycle of Americans hating Congress and repeatedly re-electing their Congressmen and Congresswomen has got to stop. In order to find a real solution, we have to be honest about the problem.  

What are your thoughts? Do you feel fairly represented? Do you hate Congress but love your Congressperson? 

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Another Mother's Perspective on Syria

Photo Credit: djtomic via Compfight cc

I hope that as I write these words, a true diplomatic solution is in progress for Syria.   In the meantime, I think about how conflict in the Middle East has been a given for generations, and I wonder if my two-year-old daughter will ever see an end.  As I think about her, and about how much more efficient and complex and deadly the weapons of the future will be, I hope that we will seize this moment in time to start focusing on the only weapon that I believe can bring true, lasting peace to the Middle East: knowledge.  

For the past few weeks, I have watched countless Facebook friends posting photos: “I’m against war in Syria.”  Undoubtedly, most of them mean “I’m against American military intervention in Syria.”  (And, undoubtedly, a few mean, “What did President Obama say? I’m against that.”).  But, here’s the thing: it sounds like we, as Americans, don’t know that there is already a war in Syria.  That there has been a war in Syria since 2011, and that there were many heinous atrocities and conflicts before 2011.  That the use of chemical weapons might be new, but the slaughtering of innocent people is not.  That this is another chapter in a long, tortured history.  

So, what do I think should happen in Syria? I have no idea because I don’t know enough.  My knowledge of Damascus hearkens back largely to my Sunday School days, and I’m thinking that Sunday School probably presented a somewhat incomplete accounting of socioeconomic circumstances.  This is the problem for all of us: we approach the Middle East the same way over and over and over again because our collective knowledge of the region is wholly inadequate.  It seems highly likely that much of the sustained conflict in that region results from individuals with wholly inadequate understandings of the racial, religious, social, and economic backgrounds of its people drawing artificial lines to divide it up.  

The one thing that I’m clear on is this: if violence could be transformative in the Middle East, the Middle East would already be transformed.  We have tried the same thing over and over, a hundred different ways.  It’s hard for me to imagine how military action in this particular circumstance could do anything but pile on to the death toll.  I understand international norms and red lines.  But it seems to me that norms and lines must give way to reality and impact.   

The President is working hard to explain to us why Syria matters to U.S. national interests.  If Syria matters enough to bomb, it matters enough to study.  If we, as a country, came together to better understand the people and geography of the Middle East, I believe that knowledge would be more powerful and effective than any unmanned drone.

Beth is a mom, wife, sister, friend, and HR executive. She's also on a journey to become a yoga teacher. She likes watermelon, reality television, and politics.

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A mother's thoughts on Syria

Photo Credit: Zoriah via Compfight cc

Congress returns to debate military action in Syria this week. I don’t envy them this task. Like many Americans, I have also been thinking about where I stand on this issue. At first, I was hesitant to share my thoughts. I’m no foreign policy expert. I have no advanced degree in Middle East studies. I have never even travelled to that part of the world. 

And yet - maybe just maybe - there is room for my voice in the cacophony of sound coming from politicians and experts and talking heads. Maybe it is important for all of us to take a moment from our ordinary lives and think about extraordinary situations that seem so far removed from us.

Not so that we can find the “right” answer but so that we give the question the time it deserves.

I don’t think anyone claims to have the “right” answer to the question of military action in Syria. I heard it described for even the most passionate politician as a matter of personal conscience. 

My conscience tells me that the innocent slaughter of 1,500 people cannot be ignored. However, the reality is the United Nations estimates over 100,000 have already lost their lives in this civil war and, while we have far from ignored the situation, we have never threatened military strikes despite the ongoing loss of life.

My conscience tells me that military action is far from a simple solution and that history has taught us removing a violent dictator does not automatically restore peace. However, history has also taught us that ignoring violent dictators is far from a perfect solution as well. 

It would seem that Syria is really a question about how you feel about violence as a solution. If you feel that violence is sometimes required in extreme situations, then it is difficult to argue this is not a situation that reaches those requirements. If you feel that violence is never a solution and only makes matters worse, then your position is clear.

I don’t know how I feel. 

The optimistic side of my nature wants to believe the Gandhi’s and Martin Luther King’s of the world. I want to believe that non-violence is the only real answer. 

In 2003, I wrote an op-ed for my college newspaper where I passionately argued against military action in Iraq.

We must take a collective breath and say that no matter what we will find another way and we must do it for ourselves and for our children. Alexis de Tocqueville said, “All those who seek to destroy the liberty of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means of accomplishing it.” We must remember that and decide as a generation what legacy we will leave the world.

Ten years later, the future generations are no longer an abstract idea. They now sleep in my house and eat at my table and sit in my lap. It is because of them that I am now unwilling to remove any weapon from our arsenal.

It is not out of some fear for my own children that I now see things differently. I have no doubt that my children live in a dangerous and complicated world and any decision Congress makes regarding Syria will not change that. 

It is more for the children already lost. If the roles were reversed and the leader of my country was using chemical weapons to slaughter his people, I would want other countries to come to our defense. I would want them to use violence. I would want them to act. 

I don’t know if this is the right answer. 

I don’t know if there is a right answer.

I just know the question affects us all.

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Flashback Friday: Youthful Politics

Welcome to Flashback Friday, where I delve deep into the piles of my childhood memorabilia so that we can reminisce, laugh at the bad perms, and finally prove that merely throwing away your NKOTB door hanging does not diminish your love for Jordan Knight.

Listen, people. This is not all fun and games and Lisa Frank. It’s time for me to share some darker aspects of my past. I wasn’t always the super-gorgeous, super-smart, super-liberal (and super-humble!) redhead you see now before you.

In fact, the entirety of my childhood and adolescent years I was a Bible-beating, super-judgmental, conservative.

NOW, before any of my gorgeous, smart, conservative friends get their panties in a wad, I am not saying those characteristics always go hand in hand. They just did in 16-year-old Sarah...and I have the Heath Post editorial to prove it.

Here it is in all it’s glory. Future Hillaryland intern and staffer Sarah Stewart Holland calling for President Clinton’s resignation. (Feel FREE to skip past this part. It’s pretty unbearable.)

Our president is going through a crisis. Contrary to popular belief, if our president is going through a crisis then so are we. Our president’s personal life affects his ability to perform his job effectively. Also if we were being truthful, the presidency is not just a job, it is an entire life. For this and other reasons, President Clinton should resign.

President Clinton lied. He came on national television and told this entire country a blatant lie. This in its self is inexcusable. Yet it doesn’t end there. He has had a history of lies, beginning with saying he wasn’t drafted; he just got lucky. Then a draft record was released. Whoops. He said memories of black churches being burned in Arkansas when he was a young boy were “vivid and painful.” There were no black churches burned in Arkansas during that time. Now we move on to bigger lies. For seven months, Clinton vehemently denied an affair with Monica Lewinsky. He used every legal avenue possible to delay and hinder Starr’s investigation, including his office of presidency. He had his wife, his lawyers and his closet advisors and friends go on every public medium to say things he knew were completely false. Finally it came down to a stained blue dress. There was physical evidence and he had NO choice.

This is something that needs to be understood. He did not apologize because he was sorry. He apologized because he had no other choice. Also if he is so “scandal weary” and feels sorry for the American public having to go through all this, why didn’t he admit his guilt seven months ago and save us all the trouble?

Another Clinton contradiction is he says he’s sorry while sending his lawyers out with statements blasting his innocence.

If Clinton does not resign or is not impeached the moral lesson will be sending to younger generations and other countries will be appalling. We will be saying that as long as our money is safe we do not care if the president is running a brothel. That it is acceptable for the moral leader of our country to lie compulsively to his friends, to his wife and daughter and to the entire country. The absolute law enforcer for our country can break the law.

This is unacceptable. Billy Graham issued a statement saying that no man is an island, that ever person’s actions affect us all, the bigger the person the bigger the person’s impact. President Clinton is not a CEO; his job doesn’t end at the end of the day. Someone asked me would I want my personal life spread all over television. No I would not, but I am not the president. He took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend. He also took an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; he lied once he will again. 

Whew. The self-righteousness is SMOTHERING. I had some thoughts, y’all. You can’t really figure out what they are through all the judging and the simplifying and the hyperbole but yeah THOUGHTS. I particularly enjoy my concern for “younger generations.”

A mere two years later I will be protesting in an Old Navy over sweatshop labor and supporting Ralph Nadar for President. A decade later I will be working for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. 

My how things change.

I’d like to think that my swing to other side of the political spectrum taught me not to take it all so seriously. Sadly, I know newly liberal Sarah was as insufferable and rigid as longtime conservative Sarah. 

Over time I’ve tried to learn the difference between passionate defense and sanctimonious judgment but I know I don’t always get it right.

Coincidently, it was Bill Clinton who taught me my most profound lesson on how to walk that line. In 2004, he was on his book tour and had come to D.C. to sign copies of his new autobiography. I had taken turns waiting all day with a group of guys. We were technically past the 3,000 person cutoff but we had a feeling Bill wouldn’t turn us away after waiting all day.

We were right.

He had been shaking hands and signing books for several hours when we got to him and his handlers were pushing us through the line at a rapid pace.

When I finally got up to meet him, I took a deep breath and asked what was his number one piece of advice for someone considering public office.

He stopped the line and looked me directly in the eye. For a few minutes, I was the only person in the room. He told me to go out of my way to meet all different sorts of people - to listen to them, to learn their stories. He told me that people too often see politicians as two-dimensional and that if you can find different ways to relate to people, they are more likely to see you as the human being you are. 

Three years later his wife would give me the same advice. 

Listen. Sixteen-year-old Sarah was doing a lot of talking and not a lot of listening. She hadn’t met enough people or heard enough stories to know the world was bigger and wider and much more complicated then she could possibly understand as she walked the halls of Heath High School. 

I hope to talk with Bill Clinton again someday. I’m going to thank him for the great advice... and apologize for my editorial.

How have your political beliefs changed over time? Do you still believe the same things you did as a kid? 

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I want to run for office.

Since high school, running for higher office has been one of my long-term goals. However, no matter where I am in my life, actually taking the leap into elected office always seems like something I should do in the future - far into the future. When I move home to Kentucky or when I'm more established in my career or when I figure what career I actually want to do or when I have kids or when my kids get older ...

You get the idea.

Watching Kiley Lane Parker's documentary Raising Ms. President made me realize for the first time that maybe I haven't been delaying my dreams because of realistic personal limitations but because of the subtle societal influences that hold women back. 

I'm over on herKentucky today talking about that and a whole lot more with Kiley Lane Parker. I hope you'll check it out. 

I'd love to hear from men and women. Have you ever considered running for political office? If so, what seems to be standing in your way?

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