Word: congression
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...Congress may well have trouble passing ambitious legislation these days, but they remain masters at summoning indignation. As a piece of political theater, the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Tuesday into Toyota's troubles had everything you could hope for: testy exchanges, Clintonian hairsplitting, obnoxious grandstanding, tearful testimony and even multiple references to Marisa Tomei's automotive wizardry in My Cousin Vinny. But the spectacle failed to untangle the knottiest question looming over the proceedings: whether Toyota has definitively pinpointed the problem causing its cars to accelerate out of control...
...term limits won't fix Congress...
...Given last year's experience, it seems likely that Reid will again move to limit amendments. But doing so is a controversial move that angers Republicans, who have used it as Exhibit A of how Democrats in Congress aren't extending the bipartisan olive branch pushed by President Barack Obama. "Standard Harry Reid," says Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican. "No bipartisanship. Just ram it through. Just pick off a few Republicans. That's been their strategy from the beginning." (Watch a video about why Harry Reid encouraged Barack Obama to run for President...
...America's power expanded from a ragtag collection of 13 colonies to the world's only superpower, so too did the responsibilities of the legislative branch. No longer can members of Congress convene for a few months in the spring while spending the rest of the year on their farms. The greater power has added bureaucracy and it often takes the clout and leverage of an elder statesman to push through legislation: just look at the prolific careers of Ted Kennedy or Everett Dirksen...
Currently 15 state legislatures and 36 governors are subject to term limits. "The experience in states, including California, has been negative: assembly members look to run for the state senate or Congress, Senators look for congressional seats, or lawmakers look out for cushy jobs in the private sector afterward, thus giving more power to the permanent staff. Bad idea," says Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and co-author of The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track...