Limitless Politicians

Following a journey across the nascent United States, French author, Alexis de Tocqueville, predicted in his seminal "Democracy in America" that our experiment in self-government would survive only until politicians discover that they can bribe the people with their own money.

This, despite the elaborate precautions incorporated by the framers into our radical, new constitutionally-limited republic.

Their brilliant system of "checks and balances" included, for instance, restraining the power of the executive branch of government by having the runner-up in the presidential election become vice president (and President of the Senate -- a position of even greater importance than Speaker of the House.)

Limiting the legislative branch -- which they regarded as the fundamental repository of legitimate governmental authority -- proved to be more problematic. When the states, dramatically different in size and population, became gridlocked over how best to protect themselves against their potentially dictatorial sisters, they finally resolved the issue by creating a two body legislature. One house was apportioned by population and popularly elected. The other provided equal representation among them by having its members appointed two each by the several state legislatures. This inspired solution history now calls "The Great Compromise."

Both of these restrictions, as well as others too numerous to list here, were ultimately undone. President and vice president soon ran as a "ticket" with the latter having long ago abandoned his constitutionally prescribed duty, serving only in a ceremonial capacity. Senators are now elected rather than appointed, thereby reflecting the whims or passions of the moment rather than the more measured and long-range concerns of the individual states they ostensibly represent.

Now, Michigan never even made any attempt to divide executive power, electing governor and lieutenant governor together from the beginning. We did, however, mimic the bi-cameral legislature, though this is a classic example of the triumph of form over substance. In fact one can't help but wonder about debate at the time as to precisely what separate, political subdivisions the two bodies were intended to represent.

As a result of the systematic deconstruction -- at both national and state level -- of nearly all circumscriptions of political power, a century after Tocqueville, American journalist, H.L. Mencken, acknowledged the fulfillment of his prophecy when he noted: "Government is a broker in pillage and every election is sort of an advance auction of stolen goods."

This sad state of affairs having become increasingly apparent, there have been numerous recent efforts at political reform (though not so much as a whisper that we might consider simply returning to the system designed by Mr. Madison, et.al.)

These fixes have included the contemporary term limits movement -- a check against perpetual incumbency which was, incidentally, strongly advocated by Thomas Jefferson and considered but discarded as unnecessary by the drafters at the constitutional convention.

This particular reform has appeared on 18 state-wide ballots since the beginning of the decade (three quarters of the states, in fact, where citizen initiative is an available recourse against legislative intransigence) including, of course, Michigan. It has been enacted in all 18.

Passed here in 1992, this is the first election in our state wherein term limits have come into play. And the impact has been noticeable, if less than entirely salutary.

Incumbents are being forced out of 64 of the 110 House seats. As a consequence nearly 500 hopefuls competed to replace them in the just completed primary.

But as history has repeatedly demonstrated, power always seeks to unshackle itself and find some way to circumvent any restrictions placed on it. And five of the contestants in this month's primary were women seeking the seat being vacated by their term-limited spouses. Another four presumably share some other familial relationship as they share both surname and home address. Two more have the same surname but different addresses within the same state rep district.

In addition many more career politicians have simply sought the jobs of other career politicians, including Burton Leland who will likely end up in the Senate and (in an especially cute maneuver) Joseph Palamara who is attempting to swap positions with Wayne County Commissioner William O'Neill.

One can't help but wonder what it will take to get these leeches to go out into the real world and get a job actually producing some good or service their fellow citizens want to voluntarily buy, rather than continuing to merely redistribute the wealth created by others.

As for our chief executive (and his conjoined lieutenant), Governor Engler has decided that his own importance to the state compels him to set aside his earlier campaign pledge to voluntarily limit himself to two terms. The legal force to make him give up power will not take effect until the 2002 election.

Now, the Libertarian Party, in order to protect its ballot status against the state's arbitrary "Top of Ticket" rule, chose not to nominate any candidate for governor in the 1998 election. Instead, the party unilaterally implemented an election reform proposal long promoted in its platform by nominating "None of the Above" for governor.

This was essentially a symbolic gesture since, unfortunately, current election law will not permit certification of such a nomination for the ballot.

Too bad. Given the major party nominees, I suspect that right about now the voters of Michigan would dearly love to have "None of the Above" as an option in the gubernatorial race.

But, then, as Mr. Mencken also observed: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it... good and hard."

Tim O'Brien is the Executive Director of the Libertarian Party of Michigan.