It occurred to me today that we have a vast legislative electioneering industry in America, at every state and national level. We learn much more about candidates for states legislatures and Congress than we want to know, about pranks they played in college, errors or crimes they committed, what kind of sex life they have, how much money they have saved up, and on and on.
But one thing that is almost never mentioned in all this electoral heat and light is a fundamental question: what kind of a legislator will the candidate be?
Imagine this fantasy debate: the candidates are given, a week or so in advance, an imaginary or real problem in their state or at the national level. They are to prepare a piece of legislation to address the problem (they can get help from a lawyer if they want). The legislation is supposed to represent their best effort to solve the problem. Then, at the debate, instead of arguing about Obamacare, they debate the legislation. The goal is to make amendments in such a way that there is a final piece of legislation that might pass the entire body and be signed into law.
It's a little bit like the idea of a moot court, but focused on law-making, which, after all, is the one primary duty of a legislator.
The debate would be televised over the period of a day. Yes, a whole day for a legislative debate.
At the end of this, voters would have a very precise idea of what kind of legislator each candidate is: can they stick to their ideological guns? can they compromise intelligently, giving up relatively little for relatively large gains? are they more interested in ideological consistency or in solving problems? are they intelligent enough to understand what's in a bill and how it can be modified without making it much worse?
Well, that's the idea. Don't you think that that's information voters actually need to have, both about candidates and about the classic processes of legislative debate?
Greg Shenaut