Leo Linbeck III
Having now had a chance to read Jay Cost’s piece, I have to express strong disagreement with his perspective.
The issue is not the “closed room.” There have always been closed rooms, and they are absolutely necessary for the proper functioning of a democratic republic. Why? Because they lower the cost of changing elected officials.
Think about it. If you want to get rid of a politician, right now the only way to do it is by beating them in an election. But the vast majority of races are in gerrymandered districts, so you have a real problem fighting in general elections. Do you really think that any Republican can beat Charlie Rangel? It has approximately the same odds as Montreal Canadiens winning the World Series.
That means you need to beat incumbents in the primary. But the incumbent politicians control the party, and therefore control the nominating process. And if you do decide to take on an incumbent in the primary, you’ll have the entire party establishment and fighting against you because the parties serve the incumbents. They control the patronage, the fundraising, the staffing, etc.
So, the cost of changing politicians is very high. And high barriers to entry limit competition.
In addition, there’s a psychological dimension as well. A politician will fight tooth and nail to preserve their ego, and nothing is more humiliating to a politician than losing a primary election. They will do anything to avoid that – just look at Charlie Crist, who is willing to leave the party and run as an independent to avoid being beaten in a
primary.
“Smoke-Filled Rooms” are, surprisingly, a way to bring the Ruling Class to heel.
In the 19th Century, the SFR was the way that politicians were kept under control. When a politician stepped out of line, they were summoned to the SFR and told that they were not going to be renominated. They could still “run” for the seat, but they had no chance. Facing such a situation, they always “stepped aside to allow other good party members to have their opportunity to be of service to the nation.” This was possible because the decision was made in private.
This system was also the way in which party leaders maintained their policy of “forced rotation.” This kept parties strong and politicians weak, which meant that elected officials worked for the party, and by extension for the people.
(As an aside: the practice of SFR-driven forced rotation also means that the Congressional Research Service consistently underestimate how often incumbents were unseated in the 19th Century. They do not treat “retirements” as “defeats” in their turnover statistics – they ignore retirements, thus making it look like incumbents lost at about the same rate in the 19th Century as they do today. This is utterly misleading.)
So, I disagree with Cost. The issue with SFRs is not that they are closed. The issue is how its occupants are selected.
When they functioned well, parties had a hierarchical structure. There were block captains, precinct chairs, county leaders, etc. Each level had a say in who represented them at the next level of the party, and a hard-working and dedicated member who was aligned with his neighbors might well rise up high in the party hierarchy, regardless of their social or economic status. So by active involvement of the people, leaders were selected who best represented the people’s views. As a result, they had a legitimacy that was essential to their proper functioning.
This approach also worked well for the American Revolution. Town hall meetings elected delegates to state conventions, which in turn sent representatives to the Continental Congress. Legitimacy flowed up the hierarchy, so that decisions were considered binding, even though the debate and deliberations were conducted in secret. It was precisely through this sort of process that men of talent – Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hancock, Franklin, etc. – were selected. It was not luck that the Founding Fathers were thrown together. The process to select them worked beautifully.
Anyway, parties for the most part functioned well in selecting for leaders who were aligned with the people’s interests, and the party held those leaders accountable for their actions. And both the selection process and the accountability process was private. In fact, a publicly-expressed desire for office was considered a disqualifier.
Where things started going wrong was when business interests figured out ways of corrupting the process for their own benefit. It was this “political capture” process that incensed the American people, and led to the populist spirit that cross-bred with Bismarck’s statism to form the Progressive Movement.
It is a similar outrage today that is fueling the call for defenestration of the Ruling Class. The Federal Government, Big Business, the Academy, and the Mainstream Media have teamed up (both implicitly and explicitly) to undo the American Revolution and re-establish a European feudal order. Bismarck rises again.
Why? For the same reason that Tammany Hall was created: it’s good to be the King.
But to fight back, it is important that we properly diagnose the problem. Being closed is not the problem. And that means that opening up the process won’t fix it. In fact, it will probably make it worse.
The solution is to restore the mediating institution that provided a process for the people to select good leaders, and hold those leaders accountable for their actions. And, like it or not, private meetings are often essential for the proper function of mediating institutions.
One final point. Cost speaks disparagingly of caucuses. But it is worth noting that the only Senate incumbent this cycle who was defeated in the primary was Bob Bennett of Utah, and he lost because the Republican Party there uses a caucus to select their nominee.
Sometimes, the best decisions are made in a SFR, so long as the people in that room are accountable to the people.
L3
Interesting to note is that the constitutional convention was a "smoke filled room" in that the proceedings were entirely secret (to the point of keeping all the windows shuttered despite the sweltering heat).
Some people have suggested using a constitutinal provision (article 5) calling for a convertion to form amendments independent of congress with out realizing that doing so essentially creates a new constitution. This is how we got our present constitution. The constitutional convention was ostensibly a convention to propose amendments to the articles of confederation, for the delegates to write a new constitution was outside the legally authorized scope of the convention, hence the secrecy.
BTW none of the delegates had any intention of amending the articles of confederation. They all knew that they were going to Philadelphia to make something new, despite appearences. Part of was why Washington's participation and election to the chair was considered important was that he was known to the public as a man of character that was not a power seeker... this it was presumed/hoped would confer some retroactive legitimacy on whatever the convention produced... even though it was technically outside the law of the time. But I digress... if we call an article 5 convention in our day we are basically starting over with a new constitution - albeit one influenced by our last constitution.
I am at once opposed to this idea. Partly out of loyalty to the existing constitution but mostly because I dont see how a new constitution that would protect freedom could be formed in todays political environment due to the participation of people with anti-freedom political thoughts and objectives. If those people have a seat at the table they will suck all the oxygen out of the room and the whole endeavor would be doomed.
The process that Leo describes gives me some hope that I may be wrong in my first assessment.
hypothetical: what if the 60-70% if the country that in their cores loves freedom called for an article 5 convention, and what if they used a process like what Leo describes: town hall meetings send delegates to state conventions and state conventions send delegates to the article 5 convention. And what if through the whole process focus is overtly and deliberatley placed on excluding from selection anyone with ties to the existing "overclass" (regardless of conservative bonafides) and sending only freedom-loving people. With 60-70% majorities it may be possible. this would open the door (hypothetically) for a new constitutional convention, composed of the best qualified freedom lovers (others may feel excluded but thats just tough). Then the results of the convention can be circulated and ratified in the states by the same 60-70% majority that sent the delegates in the first place. Ba-da-bing! A new constitution to protect our freedom and no black-hearted politician, money grubbing global-corporatist, or Che-worshiping leftist nut has anything to say about it.
Fact is, for the time being, legitimacy still flows from the people ... and if a majority of fredom-loving americans still exists and decides to peacefuly countenance a change in government stuctures to one that better protects freedom, then the sheer weight of their numbers will carry the day regardless of any opposition.
Essentially what I'm suggesting here is a temporary emergence of one party rule - the freedom party - for just long enough to pull things back from the brink and set them right.
And looky looky ... it all starts back at the same old question ... "whom shall I send?"
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