Tag: Rep. John Dingell

Categories
ideological culture term limits

Hating the Senate

House, Democrat, John Dingell

The longest-​serving politician in Congress — ever — thinks he has the perfect reform to put American government back on track.

Former House Democrat John Dingell wants to abolish the Senate.

According to him, the United States should go unicameral.

The ancient bicameral tradition — which goes back to Sumer — is so old hat. He thinks that, these days, “in a nation of more than 325 million and 37 additional states, not only is that structure antiquated, it’s downright dangerous.”

Dangerous? Well, he has always hated the Senate. He sees it as a place where “good bills go to die.”

His new book explains this at length, but I confess: it would go against my principles to put any money into that man’s pocket by buying The Dean: The Best Seat in the House (2018). He almost personifies everything I’m against. His very career is an atrocity. In 1955, John Jr. took over the House seat from his father, a 22-​year incumbent, and then six decades later, in 2015, basically bestowed it on his wife.

That’s 86 years and counting.

How many times did he swear to uphold the Constitution? And yet he doesn’t seem to understand that Article V, governing the amendment process, establishes one specific limitation: “no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.”

Jettisoning the U.S. Senate would seem to be such a deprivation.

The opposite of this Dingelldorf reform would be more in keeping with the spirit of our system: term limits.

To keep anything like a John Dingell Sixty-​year Stretch from ever occurring again.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Photo credit: University of Michigan

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Categories
incumbents

A Dingell of a Century

Let’s celebrate longevity. But should we specifically cheer one solitary person holding a seat of power for 60 years? Or rejoice over a single family maintaining a vise grip on a political position for a whopping 81 cycles around the Sun?

And … should that federal office continue to be filled by hereditary succession via the advantages of incumbency?

For 100 years? More?

Rep. John Dingell (D‑Mich.), 87, just announced his retirement after occupying a congressional perch for 59 years, the longest in history. He won a special election back in 1955, when the seat’s previous occupant, his father, passed away.

This “master legislator,” as an always-​objective Washington Post news story called him, stated he was leaving because Congress had become “obnoxious.”

Trust me, we feel your pain, Mr. Dingell.

The Natural Resources Defense Council’s David Goldston told the New York Times that the “truly distressing thing” about Dingell and several multi-​decade career politicians departing Congress “is that they’re the ones who know how to negotiate, know how to legislate, know how to get things done.”

Really? Then, why didn’t he help prevent the nation from sinking 5,600 percent deeper into debt, from $318 billion to almost $18 trillion during those last six decades?

Deadline Detroit notes that in response to praise from “fellow politicians, friends and media outlets … online commentators are having a field day ripping Dingell, his legacy, and even his wife, Debbie, who is widely expected to replace him.”

It turns out that Mrs. Dingell, occupation lobbyist, has indeed officially announced she will run for her husband’s seat, obnoxious as it no doubt is.

Can America survive a century of rule by Dingells?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.