Основы политической системы США (стр. 11 )

Assignment: “Money is the mother’s milk of politics,” said Tip O’Neill, Speaker of the House of Representatives in the ment on these words and express your opinion on the role of the lobbyists.

THE HUMAN SIDE OF CONGRESS

Representative Jim Wright

Representative Jim Wright (D-Tex.), a member of the House of Representatives since 1954, describes the “nuts and bolts” of Congressional decision making – people and personalities. As majority leader, a post he has held since 1977, he works with the speaker and with committee chairmen to oversee party strategy and control the flow of legislation.

After thirty years as a member of Congress, I am not an objective observer. I believe Congress is the most fascinating human institution in the world. It is beyond question the most criticized legislative assembly on earth, and yet it is the most honored. It can rise to heights of sparkling statesmanship, and it can sink to levels of crass mediocrity. In both postures, it is supremely interesting – because it is human. The story of Congress is the story of people.

Congress is a microcosm of the nation. It is a distillate of our strengths and weaknesses, our virtues and our faults. It is a heterogeneous collection of opinionated human beings. On the whole, members are slightly better educated and considerably more ambitious than the average American citizen. But members of Congress reflect the same human frailties and possess the same range of human emotions as their constituents.

Senators and representatives are individualists, not easily stereotyped or categorized. If there is a single thread of similarity that unites most, it is that they are driven in their work. The average member of Congress works longer and harder than do members of any other professional or business group I have ever observed. The average one of my colleagues probably spends from twelve to fourteen hours on work in an average day. If a member of Congress were to expend the same amount of energy and time in furthering any soundly conceived business venture, I have no doubt that he or she would become rich.

A member of Congress is not some inanimate cog in a self-propelling legislative wheel. He or she is a turner of the wheel, a decider – along with others – of the direction the vehicle will take. True, there is a mechanical process that makes the car function. It needs gasoline. It needs a battery, a working engine, tires, and a universal joint. But knowing the mechanics of a motor – important as that knowledge is – does not tell us where the car is going. Its direction and ultimate destination depend upon who is behind the wheel.

That is why careful students of Congress will do well to pay attention to the personalities of decision makers. They will reflect on backgrounds, personal philosophies, religious persuasions, and economic and educational experiences of members of Congress.

These elements determine how well legislators interact with their colleagues and how much they comprehend and even care about different issues. Constituency pressures and interests, political party affiliation, and results of public opinion polls are important factors, but not infallible prognosticators when it comes to understanding how the Congress operates.

It is instructive to ponder how the typical member of Congress sees the job. It includes more than just passing laws. I would suggest that a US representative is a tripartite personality.

In the first place, members of Congress are required to be ombudsmen for their constituents. A less dignified term might be errand boy. A widow does not receive her survivor benefit check in the mail. A college wants to apply for a federal grant. A student cannot find a bank for a student loan. One person wants out of the military service; another wants an emergency leave.

The average representative may receive two hundred letters a day. Forty percent of them will deal with the individual problems of citizens enmeshed in the coils of government and looking to their representative as their intercessor.

The ombudsman role should not be despised. If it takes a disproportionate share of representatives’ time, it keeps them close to real people with real needs. If citizens are entitled to go through doors that they simply cannot find in the bureaucratic maze, by leading citizens to those doors, representatives perform necessary functions. Were government ever to become so remote and aloof that the average citizen had no intercessor it would be a sad thing indeed.

In a second role, members of Congress serve as traveling salesmen for their districts. Each tries to see that his or her slice of America gets its share of the action. Members try to direct federal projects into their cities, contracts to their factories, and grants to their local institutions of learning. Anything that promotes business or employment opportunities in a member’s district is fair game to be pursued with vigor.

The late Senator Robert Kerr (D-Okla.), ranking Democrat on both Public Works and Finance Committees, once was being chided by Senator Albert Gore (D-Tenn.). Gore gently upbraided Kerr for using his powerful posts to promote dams, highways, and public buildings for Oklahoma, while writing tax laws with “unintended benefits” for Oklahomans.

Kerr replied that he wanted to offer only “one slight correction in the otherwise excellent recitation” of his colleague. “That is the point,” said Kerr, “at which my friend refers to these as “unintended benefits”. I want him to know that they are fully intended benefits. While I am a senator of the United States, I am a senator from and for the state of Oklahoma. I am not ashamed of that; I am proud of that.”

Scorn the “pork barrel” function as they may, purists in political science cannot wish it away. It is inherent in human nature. From the clash of conflicting parochial and economic interests, the Congress synthesizes an amalgam that serves the nation as a whole.

In the third role, representatives are often statesmen. There is conviction among members, and courage. If the law makers, on the average, did not usually vote as most of their constituents found acceptable, they probably would not be very good representatives for their districts. They might not be representatives at all for very long.

But occasions arise in the life of each when by reason of conviction deeply held or information not widely known, a law maker is impelled to vote in ways that are al least temporarily unpopular. This is when the mettle of the person is tested. A southerner voting for civil rights two decades ago, a midwesterner supporting the Panama Canal Treaty, someone from the Bible Belt resisting constituent pressures to breach the wall between church and state – these are examples of personal principle under pressure.

In 1956, then Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson was in a fight for his political life on the Texas home front. Antagonists portrayed him as a turncoat, a traitor to the southern case, a tool of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). Powerful epithets two years after Brown v. Board of Education!

Johnson never waivered. “I am not going to demagogue on that issue,” he once said to me. “If I have to try to prove that I hate Negroes in order to win, then I will just not win.” It was a matter of conscience.

All of the above – a mixture of servitude and conviction, servility and courage – combine to make up the human mosaic of the Сongressional decision-making process. Lyndon Johnson was a master of that process not because he knew the procedures better than others, but because he had an instinctive “feel” for people. He was persuasive with his colleagues because he understood them. He knew what made them tick, collectively and individually.

As House Majority Leader, I am constantly trying to meld together a majority out of an assortment of minorities. It is often frustrating but always fascinating. Building coalitions in Congress is like being a peacemaker within a family. One must know the concerns and needs of the members and must be sensitive to their opinions and the uniqueness of their individual personalities. Sometimes I see my role as a combination parish priest, evangelist, and part-time prophet. Harmony among this mixture of strong-willed individualists is an elusive grail. Sometimes you cannot find it at all, but it is fun trying.

NOTES:

(From 1987 to 1989, Jim Wright was Speaker of the House of Representatives. This interview was given when he was House Majority Leader.)

(D-Tex.): Democrat/Texas.

pork barrel: refers to the practice of using political office to further the interests of one’s supporters.

Panama Canal Treaty: in the Panama Canal Treaties, ratified under President Carter, the United States agreed to hand over the canal to the Republic of Panama on December 31, 1999, and to make the canal a neutral waterway open to all shipping after 1999.

Bible Belt: those sections of the US, chiefly in the South and the Midwest, noted for religious fundamentalism.

NAACP: civil rights organization, founded in 1909.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954): This case was the first successful challenge to segregation of blacks and whites. The Supreme Court ruled that maintaining separate but equal schools for blacks and whites was unconstitutional.

Assignment: Answer the following questions:

1.  Does Congress really represent a cross-section of the American people?

2.  How does a member of Congress compare with the average American citizen?

3.  Is a member of Congress an active factor in the decision-making process or is he/she only part of a machine?

4.  Members of Congress are subject to all kinds of pressure from their constituencies, their parties, the opinion polls, and their own convictions. How can they possibly represent such conflicting interests?

5.  How much time does a member of Congress devote to the actual needs of his/her constituents?

6.  What can a member of Congress in Washington do for his/her home district?