Thursday 19 September 2013
...The HuffPollster (click here) aggregate has Congress's approval rating up to 20%. It's not just one outlier poll, either. CBS/NY-Times, CNN, Gallup and Reason-Rupe have Congress' approval at its highest this year....
Congress increased their approval rating when they refused to declare another war in Syria. Today they are at a rating lower than only a few weeks ago. They don't care about what the American people value unless it serves their individual political purposes.
10/01/2013 @ 2:45PM
After several years of Congress’ approval rating (click here) slumming in the 20s and the teens, a new CNN/ORC poll places the approval rating for Congress at a record low of 10%.
In a healthy democracy, logic would dictate that a legislature shouldn’t have such low approval ratings over the period of multiple election cycles. So why is this happening?...
The reason the USA Government is not acting as if it were sincerely a democracy is because Congress gives itself the right to act against the USA Constitution.
Published on Tuesday, October 01 2013 08:25
Written by Zogby
...1. The Constitution vs. Congressional Rules (click here) – it appears that in an effort to protect the rights of the minority in both houses of Congress, we have forgotten about the rights of a majority. In the Senate, what used to take a simple majority vote to pass now requires a super-majority of 60 members. What was rarely used by members was their cherished right to filibuster. Today filibusters are standard operating procedure. In the House, we now have the so-called “Hastert Rule” which means that no bill passes that body without majority support of the majority party. Congress is supposed to pass legislation not run an obstacle course.
2. National Community vs. Local LOCM 0% Rights – the Founding Fathers knew that the principles of the American Revolution could not be sustained without a central government that fostered a bond among diverse states and cultures. They sought to build a national community out of a temporary coalition of colonies, economies, races, and creeds. But in order for this to work, the states had to give up some functions for the good of the whole. The tension between efforts to build this national community and the rights of states has been a constant in our history from the beginning. We fought a Civil War over it. By and large there has been a successful balance. But today the talk is not about a nation and community but about “my district”. It seems that some would deny legislation passed by Congress, signed by a President elected twice by majorities, and ratified by the Supreme Court on the basis of what “the voters in my district want”. This is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind.
3. Electoral Legitimacy – when Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan were elected, they faced spirited opposition but ultimate acquiescence from the “loyal opposition”. Presidential elections are the ultimate voice of our national community. It doesn’t matter if there is a relatively low voter turnout (as in the 1980 victory of Reagan), a high voter turnout but close result (as in John F. Kennedy’s win in 1960), or the very high voter turnouts in both 2008 and 2012 (which gave Barack Obama majorities). There have been quibbles about voter fraud, losses in the electoral college, elections too close to call. But the point is that in a democracy, someone wins and someone loses. Losers have duties and responsibilities. Opposition is one of them; obstructionism never is.
