Issue 2.15
This past week we saw a shift of power in the US Senate and some interesting changes in the US House of Representatives. As the newly elected Congress-people were sworn in, they began to organize the leadership of each group and to reform the committees and who are chosen to be the leaders of each committee in Congress.
All this choosing is done in a “democratic” way. In other words, the person in charge of setting the agenda in the Senate is the “Majority Leader” chosen by the members of the Senate by a vote. This is almost always the person decided on by the political party with the most members in the Senate. Before the election, the Democrats were in the majority. After the election the Republicans had more Senators so the new Senate Majority Leader is Mitch McConnell, chosen by a majority of the Senators but only after being chosen as the leader of the Senators who are Republican. The actual President of the Senate is the Vice-President of the United States, but his role is largely symbolic. He only actually votes to break a deadlock in case of a tie vote.
In the House of Representatives, it seems that Congressman Boehner will continue as the leader there, in spite of a number of representatives that do not like his style and a recent poll showing a majority of Republican voters don’t want him as the leader. Again, it comes down to whether a majority of the members of Congress will vote for him to retain his position as Speaker of the House.
In each branch of the Congress there are many committees that consider or create bills before they are presented to the full Senate or House for consideration and a vote. Each of these committees also have a chairman that has great power over what legislation is considered and what is passed on for a vote to possibly become law. The individual parties (R & D) assign members to these committees and the members of each committee vote on who will be their leader. The party with more members gets to put one more person in the committee than the party with the second most members in Congress or the Senate. That usually automatically means a member of the party “in power” will be the chairperson of that committee. There have been exceptions to this and there have been a couple of times when the parties were evenly split or complicated by third party or independent members which had to choose which party they would vote with for leadership purposes. This is where a third party candidate can make a real difference when elected.
The last few years have been a time of entrenched power plays by both parties – often at the expense of the country and the citizens. As the new leadership takes office, please contact your representatives and those leaders and ask them to serve the people over their party – not the other way around. Then stay aware and hold them accountable to do so.
Lynn West is a thinker, a teacher and a patriot. You can reach him through email at forgingthefuture2021@gmail.com or through this newspaper. Liberty is a state of being which must be continually created. These articles can help all of us discover the ways we can contribute to that outcome.