{"id":13825,"date":"2013-12-05T04:14:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-05T04:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/articles\/making-our-democracy-functional\/"},"modified":"2013-12-05T04:14:00","modified_gmt":"2013-12-05T04:14:00","slug":"making-our-democracy-functional","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/de\/articles\/making-our-democracy-functional\/","title":{"rendered":"Unsere Demokratie funktionsf\u00e4hig machen"},"template":"","class_list":["post-13825","article","type-article","status-publish","hentry","article_type-blog-post"],"acf":{"details":{"summary":"Michael Copps makes the case for reform","featured_image":null,"article_type":1103,"authors":["{\"site_id\":\"1\",\"post_type\":\"person\",\"post_id\":7865}"],"related_issues":false,"related_work":false,"location":null},"sidebar":{"helper_enable_sidebar":false,"helper_media_contact":{"heading":"Media Contact","manually_enter_person":false,"person":null,"name":"","role":"","phone":"","email":""},"helper_links_downloads":{"heading":"Links & Downloads","links":null}},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_wysiwyg":{"content":"

Der ehemalige Pr\u00e4sident Jimmy Carter sagte Der Spiegel<\/em> in July that \"America has no functioning democracy.\" He was speaking in the context of national security surveillance, but I think his statement should get us all thinking about the state of the union in light of the soap-opera Congressional antics that have shut down huge parts of our government. A country beset by serious challenges to our economy, our competitiveness, our growing gap of income inequality, our embarrassing slippage in the global rankings on everything from infant mortality to life expectancy, educational attainment, and healthcare, and our deteriorating physical infrastructure, responds by doing . . . what? By shutting down the government! It reminds me of the old Eddy Arnold ballad, \"Make the World Go Away.\" Well, the world's not going away, but America's place in it might be. And this is no ballad; this is a failure of American democracy.<\/p>

It's no accident, either. I wrote in this space last January: \"Yet not everybody is mourning this myopic preoccupation with fiscal cliffs. In fact, there are those who love them. What better strategy for avoiding all our nation's real-world problems than to create one artificial deadline after another that will keep Washington tied in knots all year long?\"<\/p>

Wasn't it just last January that we began a new Administration with hopes for putting politics aside, even if just for six months, so we could tackle some of these challenges that no one would take on during campaign season? There was talk of immigration reform, fixing our broken voting laws, repairing our roads, bridges, public utilities and airports, making sure every American had access to low-cost, high-speed, opportunity-creating broadband, and making healthcare (passed by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court) actually work. High hopes, but no \"Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant\" in this show.<\/p>

It's ten months later and here is how we're doing: the most dismal Congressional record ever; no appropriations bills passed\" not even one; important national defense installations furloughed; dedicated public servants here and overseas denied a pay-check (read \"the means to live\"); most of the big problems ignored or occasionally punted to some commission designed to substitute the appearance of action for real action; and every day of shut-down adding to the cost of government, further busting the budget, and increasing the national debt. Oh, wait\" that's the next crisis.<\/p>

Vielleicht bringt uns das Zusammentreffen von Haushaltsstreit und Schuldenobergrenzen-Debakel zu einer L\u00f6sung, sodass wir die T\u00fcren der Regierung wieder \u00f6ffnen und uns wieder den Angelegenheiten des Volkes widmen k\u00f6nnen. Aber ich wette, dass jede L\u00f6sung nur vor\u00fcbergehend sein wird, damit diejenigen, die sich der Idee einer Regierung widersetzen, in den kommenden Monaten weitere k\u00fcnstliche Krisen erzeugen und damit Abstimmungen \u00fcber die wirklichen Probleme, mit denen das Land konfrontiert ist, verhindern k\u00f6nnen. Das, meine Freunde, ist ihre Agenda.<\/p>

Let me add that I don't hold just the Congress responsible for this ludicrous situation. During the 2012 campaign, the President didn't talk much about having a Congress that he could work with. Sometimes he made it sound like there was actually considerable bipartisanship going on in Washington. There wasn't. If a President is having real problems with Congress, he needs to campaign on that. This one didn't. Harry Truman called out Congress and told it like it was in 1948. It didn't keep him from getting elected; in fact, it helped. And, yes, the Democrats regained control of both Houses of Congress.<\/p>

Aber es sind nicht nur Pers\u00f6nlichkeiten oder das t\u00e4gliche Auf und Ab der Politik, die uns an den Rand des Abgrunds bringen. Unsere Probleme reichen tiefer. Hier sind meine Kandidaten f\u00fcr das, was Amerika wirklich zur\u00fcckh\u00e4lt:<\/p>

ERSTENS DIE UNVERSCH\u00c4MLICHE ROLLE DES GELD, DAS DEN POLITISCHEN BLUTKREIS VERGIFTET HAT.<\/strong> Revised figures tell us that the total cost of the 2012 elections was some $10 billion. Those dollars fueled races at every level from President to township. Let's focus on Congress, because it is Congress that shut government down. Congress depends on special interest money and its members spend an outrageous amount of their time (day-in and day-out, even on week-ends and during vacations) dialing and schmoozing for dollars when they should be focused on managing government. Money buys elections; money opens doors; money even writes the legislation Congress considers and dictates the favors that are bestowed. I once taught U.S. History and I looked pretty closely at the notorious Gilded Age of the 1880s and 1890s. Believe me, it had nothing on today's Gilded Age in terms of inequalities, tawdry politics, and government-for-sale. Today, almost a year after the campaign, money is still running rampant in Washington, the statehouses, local campaigns, and even the election of judges. Money is paying off campaign debts, opening doors, collecting for past favors, and fueling the 2014 and 2016 election cycles.<\/p>

Until we learn how to limit the power of money in the body politic, we will not cure the failures of our current system. The Supreme Court's decision in B\u00fcrger vereint<\/em> to allow even more special interest spending in our campaigns guarantees us more years of negative, anonymous television ads and more years when the votes of some count a lot more than the votes of the rest of us. And now the Supreme Court is considering a new case\" McCutcheon gegen FEC<\/em>\" that could amount to a Citizens United Teil 2<\/em>. Das Gericht k\u00f6nnte tats\u00e4chlich die Beschr\u00e4nkungen f\u00fcr individuelle Wahlkampfspenden sowie f\u00fcr Wahlkampfausgaben aufheben!<\/p>

We need a Constitutional Amendment to take these decisions away from constant legal challenge. We have had laws like McCain-Feingold to place some limits on campaign spending, but without it being clear that Congress has authority to pass such laws again (admittedly that will also take a more representative Congress), the special interests will continue to win. Sixteen states are now on record calling on Congress to do this. It's time to heed the voice of the people.<\/p>

ZWEITENS: GERRYMANDERING.<\/strong> The current system of drawing electoral districts has taken most of the competition out of our House of Representatives elections. Districts are mostly drawn up by the state legislatures following the decennial census. The lines are politically-driven and designed to favor incumbents over challengers. So the incumbent worries less about a challenge from the other party than about a primary challenge in his own party. The result: Republicans march rightward to ward off the ultras and Democrats trend left. General election outcomes are foreordained. As for the \"Vital Center\" that political scientists used to hold up as democracy's great enabler? Try to find it in Congress.<\/p>

Kalifornien hat einen Weg gefunden, die Wahlkreise neu zu gliedern, indem es die Festlegung der Wahlkreise den Politikern \u00fcberlie\u00df und einer Expertenkommission \u00fcberlie\u00df. Das war ein riesiger Schritt nach vorne. Jeder Staat sollte das tun.<\/p>

DRITTENS: DIE FELIBUSTER-WIRKUNG IM SENAT. <\/strong>Just as gerrymandering has rendered the House irresponsible, so the filibuster renders the Senate ineffective. There is neither rationale nor excuse for a tiny minority's ability to bring the Senate to a halt, especially over matters that were never intended to require a super-majority of 60 votes. The Constitution is clear on which matters require more than a majority for passage\" such things as ratifying treaties and impeaching Presidents\" but no Founding Father envisioned such a requirement for the simple act of bringing an item to the floor for discussion or for approving a President's nominations for agency personnel. During my years working for legendary U.S. Senator Fritz Hollings, and for many generations prior to that, the filibuster was rarely deployed. Legislators worked hard to win votes, fair-and-square. And when they were behind in the vote count, they didn't end-run the Constitution to keep the other side from winning. Many groups, including my colleagues at Common Cause, are working hard to reform the filibuster. They need your help. With a Senate always at the mercy of a little band of willful blockers, decision-making is stymied. Self-government can't survive such paralysis.<\/p>

VIERTENS: DER NIEDERGANG DER MEDIEN UND DES B\u00dcRGERLICHEN DIALOGS. <\/strong> Demokratie erfordert informierte B\u00fcrger. <\/strong>That's never been more true. Our country confronts deadly serious challenges, as mentioned at the outset, and (unlike the board game of Monopoly), there is no \"Get Out of Jail Free\" card in our future. It will require tough decisions, good decisions, informed decisions. Our media is not proving up to the task. Too much news has been shunted aside to make way for infotainment. Too many newsrooms have been shuttered, with opinion-shouters riding high and fact-seeking reporters reduced to seeking jobs. Our investment in real journalism has been, experts tell us, cut nearly in half since the 1990s. We need a thriving press to hold power accountable, to look behind the corporate press release instead of publishing it as news, and to enable a vibrant civic dialogue.<\/p>

Huge media conglomerates have gobbled up hundreds of independent newspaper and broadcast outlets, more often than not cutting the newsroom staffs in order to finance the heavy costs of the merger or purchase transaction. Wall Street's bottom line has displaced the community's public interest as local media disappears. Diversity opinions, indeed whole diversity populations, go uncovered. Public affairs are pushed aside by an \"If it bleeds, it leads\" mentality. Don't get me wrong\" there are numerous broadcasters and editors out there still fighting for local and diverse media, but they are less and less the captains of their own fate and more and more jeopardized by the unforgiving expectations of hedge funds and Wall Street financiers.<\/p>

To make a bad situation worse, years of wrong-headed decisions by government\" especially by the Federal Communications Commission (where I served for more than a decade, often as a dissenter)\" blessed this merger-mania and went on from there to eliminate most of the public interest obligations that broadcasters were expected to carry out in return for their free use of the public airwaves.<\/p>

Ein guter Ausgangspunkt f\u00fcr eine echte Medienreform w\u00e4re, einige dieser Fusionsabkommen abzulehnen. Allein in diesem Jahr summieren sich diese auf zig Milliarden Dollar im Telekommunikations- und Medienbereich. Dann k\u00f6nnte die FCC ernsthaft eine echte Aufsicht im \u00f6ffentlichen Interesse betreiben, wie es ihr gesetzlich vorgeschrieben ist. Sie muss auch Ma\u00dfnahmen ergreifen, um ein offenes Internet zu gew\u00e4hrleisten (das sogenannte Problem der Netzneutralit\u00e4t). Das Internet verspricht nicht nur eine bessere Kommunikation, sondern auch bessere Chancen f\u00fcr alle Amerikaner. Doch es gibt mehr als nur ein paar beunruhigende Anzeichen daf\u00fcr, dass das Internet selbst den gleichen Weg in Richtung Konsolidierung, Gatekeeping und Mangel an politischer Einflussnahme einschl\u00e4gt. Was f\u00fcr eine Trag\u00f6die w\u00e4re es, wenn das gro\u00dfe Versprechen des digitalen Zeitalters Monopolen und Sonderinteressen der Regierung zum Opfer fiele! Das ist von entscheidender Bedeutung: Aufgeschobene Chancen sind verweigerte Chancen.<\/p>

I put this media issue last because it's what I want to end on. To my way of thinking, we won't get very far in meeting those other three challenges\" big money, gerrymandering, and the filibuster\" until we have a news and information infrastructure that presents these challenges to all of us in meaningful way\" not as stories of personalities, horse-races, polling, who's up and who's down, but as substantive challenges to our ability to perform the practical art of self-government. Indeed, we may well have avoided the current government shutdown if the media had done a better job of explaining why the country was heading there in the first place.<\/p>

America needs good government. It needs to limit the influence of money and empower the institutions of democracy. It needs representatives who feel the public interest in their bones. It needs polling places where everyone votes and everyone's vote is equal. And, as much as anything, it needs a media that tells the story of America and that sustains a small \"d\" democratic dialogue that is the only way to restore the Promise of America.<\/p>"}}]},"yoast_head":"\nMaking Our Democracy Functional - Common Cause<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/de\/artikel-2\/making-our-democracy-functional\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Making Our Democracy Functional\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/de\/artikel-2\/making-our-democracy-functional\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Common Cause\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CommonCause\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/CC-Share-Graphic-Main9.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CommonCause\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/articles\/making-our-democracy-functional\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/articles\/making-our-democracy-functional\/\",\"name\":\"Making Our Democracy Functional - 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