On Tuesday, Nebraska Republican Sen. Ben Sasse spoke at Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing. He made some good points, but he got one thing very wrong.
Sasse addressed the democracy-defeating reality of Washington’s bureaucracy:
“How do we get to place where the legislature decided to give away its power? We’ve been doing it for a long time. Over the course of the last century, but especially since the 1930’s and then ramping up since the 1960’s, a whole lot of the responsibility in this body has been kicked to a bunch of alphabet soup bureaucracies. All the acronyms that people know about their government — or don’t know about their government — are the place where most actual policymaking — kind of, in a way, lawmaking — is happening right now. This is not what Schoolhouse Rock says. There is no verse in Schoolhouse rock that says, “Give a whole bunch of power to the alphabet soup agencies, and let them decide what the governance decision should be for the people. Because the people don’t have any way to fire the bureaucrats. “
Well said. One cause for the pass-off, says Sasse, is congressional laziness:
“And so, what we mostly do around this body is not pass laws; what we mostly do is decide to give permission to the secretary or the administrator of bureaucracy X, Y, or Z, to make law-like regulations. That’s mostly what we do here. We go home and pretend we make laws. No — we don’t. We write giant pieces of legislation — 1200 pages, 1500 pages long — that people haven’t read, filled with all these terms that are undefined, and we say the secretary of such-and-such, shall promulgate rules that do the rest of our dang jobs. That’s why there’s so many fights, about the executive branch and about the judiciary, because this body rarely finishes its work.”
Perhaps more profoundly, the senator pointed out the selfishness of legislators who care more about keeping their seats than the task they were elected to perform:
“[T]he real reason, at the end of the day, that this institution punts most of its power to executive branch agencies is because it’s a convenient way for legislators…to be able to avoid taking responsibility for controversial and often unpopular decisions. If people want to get re-elected over and over again, and that’s your highest goal…if your biggest longterm thought around here is about your own incumbency, then actually giving away your power is a pretty good strategy. … And so, at the end of the day, a lot of the power delegation that happens from this branch is because the Congress has decided to self-neuter.”
I agree wholeheartedly, and I am very much in favor of congressional term limits. As I see it, the fact that limits don’t exist is whole proof of the houses’ corrupt disposition. If a congressperson — Sasse or anyone else — really wants to dissect the system and castigate efforts which favor re-election over a purity of lawmaking, he or she must address term limits.
There was one contention expressed by Sasse, however, of which I took most particular notice. And it goes to the heart of, I believe, the greatest problem in American politics, among both Democrats and Republicans. In the GOP, it is a betrayal of what I hold as perhaps the most essential conservative principle aside from the notion of liberty:
“In our system, the legislative branch is supposed to be the center of our politics. … It’s not. Why not? Because, for the last century — and increasing by the decaded right now — more and more, legislative authority is delegated to the executive branch every year. Both parties do it. The legislature is impotent.”
Oh, how I wish he was right. I wish the legislature was impotent. I wish Congress was about as potent as a depressed, morbidly obese, heart-diseased 98-year-old alcoholic smoker with atherosclerosis, diabetes, Parkinson’s, sleep apnea, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and a prostate the size of a cantaloupe. I wish.
And here’s why:
Sasse claimed, “In our system, [Congress] is supposed to be the center of our politics.” NO. It’s NOT. The center of our politics is supposed to be the STATES. The center of our politics is supposed to be that there is no center of our politics. Our nation was founded on the idea of a federation. An association of individual states, which have their own legislature and their own autonomy. And under that constitutional plan, the federal government has very little power, making all of Sasse’s criticim of Congress — though I agree with it — much less important.
The tenth amendment:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
That is supposed to be a central tenet of conservatism, a view of government which is supposed to be represented by the Republican Party. Because it’s supposed to be the tenet of America.
Congress shouldn’t avoid legislating in order to facilitate incumbency, true; legislators shouldn’t preserve unlimited terms in order to maintain their positions, as I see it; but most of all, neither of those issues should be so substantial, deference being paid to our nation’s founding document and the way our government is supposed to work. It’s the ultimate competition in the marketplace, which those with R’s attached to their names are supposed to relish: each state has its own independent laws, and the best way of life will win out over time.
Do I expect any change to come from such a discussion? Does any amount of armchair politicking affect the system? Is it as useless as complaining about a lack of congressional term limits?
Perhaps.
As it exists in human nature, power is something to be gained, never relinquished. And politics is a grand study of human nature.
But it’s my nature to give my opinion.
I’m Alex Parker, and that’s what I think.
How about you?
Thank you for reading! Please sound off in the Comments section below.
For something totally different, please check out my articles on drag queens & your kids, Jimmy Carter & impeachment, and getting over yourself.
Find all my RedState work here.
And follow Alex Parker on Twitter and Facebook.
The post Supreme Court: Ben Sasse & the Republican Party v. Conservatism appeared first on RedState.