Disappointmen

This election season has been a great disappointment to me. What I see is a system that is so far from the dream of government the society that our forefathers envisioned by our founding fathers. Obama has only been able to serve abou 2 1/2 -3 years of his second term in office. Since the middle of last year, Congress has been virtually out of session because members became involved in supporting their positions for the next election. Substantive bills related to signiicant issues facing our country that have been proposed are sent to committee, and never brought to the floor. They stay in Committee so that most of the members of Congress are not fuly aware of their contents. These comittees are, of course, bi-partisan, but generally include senior members of Congress. These committee members then decide whether the bill is to be presented to Congress. Simple bills, like renaming a post office or dedicating a highway the "So and So Memorial Highway", can be passed along to Congress rather quickly, but bills of more susbtantive nature - generally bills related to immgration policies, or term limits, or mminimum wage, or gun control, or the Federal budget - remain in committee. The issue seems to be that if they are brught to a vote, there would be a record available to constituents of how the person they elected to represent them voted. This can be a serious problem in the months preceding an election. Congressmen seem to fear that if their constituents see how they actually voted on an issue, they may not feel that their concerns are being represented. Major bills are often not brought to the floor until one party or the other is sure they have enough votes promised to pass or defeat the bill in question. No longer is there debate on the floor by those supporting or opposing the bill. If there were, those comments and opinions would become part of the federal register which is available to everyone, so constituents back home can know what is transpiring in the great halls of Congress. This is a far cry from the dream of our forefathers. They envisioed a representative democracy where candidates would reach out to the people they wanted to represent, listen to their opinions and ideas, present their own views on what the government should be doing. Bills would be brought to the floor of the Senate or House of Representatives and would be debated on the floor and then voted upon. These activities would all be recorded in the Federal Register as a public record available to anyone who wanted to look for it. This is a far cry from today. Today.the only things you will find are votes on items like the naming of Post Offices. The only time you will find a record of the vote on any substantive issue is after it has been decided behind closed doors. This is certainly a far cry from the vision of how a representative democracy would appear.