Big day in Congress
Here's what happened in Congress yesterday.
The Gay Marriage Amendment failed today. Hopefully this Amendment is losing steam. But here's where I ashamed to admit that either I don't remember my civics classes like I used to, or my math skills are poorer than I thought. Article says this vote failed, 236-187, 47 votes shy of 2/3's needed. Last year it failed 227-186, or 39 votes shy. How's that work? The bad guys picked up 9 votes and are farther away. Oh, well maybe it's bad journalism.
Also, one of my issues was formally re-intorduced, getting rid of the penny. Almost no chance of it passing, but still, its fun to tilt at windmills.
And of course, a Stem-cell research bill sits on the President's desk awaiting veto.
Gay Marriage and Stem-cells are part of a new-fangled "Contract with America" called "American Values Agenda." I think what it shows is the nation needs more than two parties. An "American Values" party would do well, and would allow government conservatives (Republicans/Libertarians) and big-government social conservatives (AV's) to finally split up, giving constituents of each a real voice in Congress.
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3 comments:
I voted for Nader in '96 and '00. Even a year ago, I'd have said a disciplined, grassroots third party had a shot; today, it seems to me any third party would need a Perot-scale patronage to compete at even a district level, and that those who can afford that level of commitment are much more likely to spend their money and time on the one thing our two-party system provides exceedingly well: "access".
America certainly needs other political parties, but as long as the two we have remain so easily corruptible, why would anyone with a chance waste it reinventing the wheel?
Which is why the best way to get another party is for one of the established ones to split in half. The GOP is perfect. There's no way it can reasonably lay claim that it's both the party of big-government social conservatives and of small government fiscal/legal conservatives. While being two parties, they would still mostly vote the same way and control Congress (and probably for longer), but they would do a better job of actually representing their constituents. It makes sense. The social-conservatives are growing in number, and the fiscal/legal half would immediately swallow the Libertarians. The former GOP would be bigger than the sum of it's parts.
The Dems don't have such an obvious fissure. Possibly between the Unions and the Greenies, but it's just not as stark.
"And the king said, Bring me a sword."
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