Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Assuaging terror in the Congress Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 17:03:26 EST Message-ID: \SE A;NATION;PRUDEN ON POLITICS \HD Assuaging terror in the Congress \BY Wesley Pruden \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES Inconsistency is the American voter's middle name, and some of our congressmen are trying to find comfort in the inconsistency of the voter's consistent contempt of Congress. Fourteen states enacted limits on how much time congressmen can have in Washington to pile up their perks and other plunder, but these same states sent 74 incumbents - three senators and 71 House members - back to Washington with more than 12 years already in time and grade. "What it says is, we may dislike the institution as a whole, but we love our individual member of Congress," intones Vic Kamber, a Democratic political consultant (Washingtonspeak for lobbyist, flack and fixer), who advised term-limit opponents in several states. (His clients lost every time.) "With deficits, scandals, sex, bounced checks, people are generally frustrated with this institution," he says. "Somebody gave them the ability to whip Congress, and it was called 'term limits.' " True enough, but this time it goes farther than that because Congress itself, with its institutional venality, is an unwitting accomplice in an attempt to establish a permanent congressional castration ritual. Voters have become cynical (or well-educated, depending on point of view) about congressmen, and figure that if a man or woman is lucky enough to get a congressional seat he ought to steal enough in 12 years and give someone else a chance. If a mighty revival of repentance suddenly breaks out in Congress, with robbers and thieves hitting the sawdust trail with persuasive renunciation of million-dollar pensions and the perks that would shame a sultan, the term-limits movement might stall. But that won't happen. Shari Williams, director of the term-limits group called "Americans Back in Charge," is more polite than that, as befits a lady, arguing that the movement is not determined so much to "kick the rascals out" as to make congressmen more responsive to the people who put them there, much in the way of the farmer who hit the mule between the eyes with a two-by-four just to get his attention. "We are for sound, reasonable, responsive government," she says. "It's not that we're trying to move incumbents out. We are trying to get rid of a system that favors them. The problem isn't the faces. But the system encourages them to listen to [special-treatment groups] and to start thinking about re-election the very next day." Mr. Kamber, who as a consultant to congressmen is paid to find reasons why everybody really loves his clients despite the loathing in which they are universally held, naturally attributes the lopsided majorities for term limits merely to the inability of Congress to mobilize to resist discipline from the grassroots. "Those 14 states [cheated] themselves," he says. "If I were New York, I'd love it. Florida's dead in the water. California's dead in the water. They are not going to have any clout in this Congress or any Congress in the future." A political consultant gets paid for savvy like this? California could elect only goats and ducks to Congress and still be heard, so great is the clout of its numbers. Florida, too. And what congressmen can't bear to think about is that the term-limitation movement will inevitably lead to an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, restricting congressional plunder and piracy everywhere. Mr. Kamber's clients are being told that if they can hold on for just a little longer, the trouble, like the first stage of an unmentionable social disease, will go away. "There's no question the momentum is with them for the moment," he says, but that's likely to change once Bill Clinton arrives at the White House to make everything sweet again. "Six months from now who's going to remember term limits when we're in the midst of health care reform? Once gridlock is alleviated, that's going to undercut the impetus for term limits." Term limits, he argues, do not guarantee that "we're not gonna have crooks, bozos, and stupid people elected to office." No doubt, but term limits will furnish hope to the awakening American voter that at last there's a way to limit the damage inflicted by somebody else's bozo. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM