Too Little, Too Late.

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If only the cartoon pictured to the left wasn't a parody.  While I commend Senator Portman's support for basic human rights, I find it sad that it took him being personally impacted by the issue at hand before he chose to undergo this evolution.  It's a problem of so many in our government because they are so thoroughly insulated from their constituents and the real world in general.

So what's the answer?  I don't know, but if I had to start trying to fix the problems I'd start with term limits for congress.  The average length of service for a member of congress is about 13 years.  For a significant number of them it effectively becomes a lifetime position.  Think about what you were doing thirteen years ago.  Who did you hang out with?  Do you still work in the same place?  How different is your life now?  

Pictured: Average Political Lobbyist

We're shaped by our social circles.  No matter how hard you may try to remain true to principle, your beliefs will gradually shift to resemble that held by your friends and acquaintances  even if it is just to be more sympathetic towards them.  Things should evolve, but thanks to the culture of Washington, after a few years spent among the oligarchy those evolutions rarely prove to be in line with the bulk of the country they are supposed to be representing.  And then there's the special interests.

The job of the lobbyist is to insulate congressmen from their constituents and to substitute their own goals and beliefs for those they represent.  They do it inch by inch.  A little extra for their next campaign in return for a little help making introductions , a little rider added to a bill, or a little give on a vote.  Pretty soon an inch becomes a mile and that senator isn't representing the people he elected any more, he's representing the people who are paying for his next campaign.

What does this have to do with Portman?  It's just another part of the problem.  It took the issue having a face, in this case the face of his son, before he realized just what the real world implications of his stance against gay marriage.  The same thing crops up in the relationship triangle between congressman, constituent, and lobbyist.  

If you contact your congressman you are at best a voice on the other end of the phone, or a few lines of text his secretary reads, or one of 300,000 names on a petition.  While he might care   on some level about you as a voter, how does that compare to how he feels about Bob from Monsanto who took him to lunch yesterday.  The same guy who helped him meet people and find his footing as a freshman, never forgets his kid's birthday?  To the hypothetical congressman Bob has a face, you don't, Bob is a person, an individual, while you are at best a 2 dimensional bit player that he knows he should care about on an intellectual level, but on an emotional level he wouldn't shed a tear for you if you got hit by a bus.  

So in short, run the special interests out of Washington and send congress home after their terms are done.  Make sure they know that when the job is finished they have to go back to being a regular citizen again, won't have a cushy lobbyist position to slide into, and will have to live with the changes (or lack of changes) they make as a private citizen when it is over.