ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - The Minnesota Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered that Democrat Al Franken be certified as the winner of the state's long-running Senate race.
The high court rejected a legal challenge from Republican Norm Coleman, whose options for regaining the Senate seat are dwindling.
Justices said Franken is entitled to the election certificate he needs to assume office. With Franken and the usual backing of two independents, Democrats will have a big enough majority to overcome Republican filibusters.
-Associated Press
While I personally didn't really care who won between Franken and Coleman, my problem with the whole thing is this...
Why do we have re-elections? Why do we even have elections?
Before you start gawking at my claim, think about it for a second... Everyone says that politics are corrupt and that politicians only care about themselves and not the country itself, while this may or may not be true depending on what politician your talking about, there has to be some validity to it because there have been talks about a corrupt government for a while now.
But what makes politicians so selfish? What makes them vote on laws that will only get them more votes and not what's better for the country? Why can two senators spend millions on court fees and re-counting ballots, when there is a recession going on and American companies and banks are going under left and right?
The answer is the re-election.
Read more after the break
Think about a political world, where there is no re-election...There would be less campaigning, less money spent on winning over voters and more attention and money spent on helping out the country. In my political science class we had a whole unit on campaign finance and the trends going on in politics. Barack spent over 744 million dollars in his last campaign and McCain was at 350 million , both were record high amounts that shattered the Bush/Kerry campaign and all the elections prior. The trend is undeniably headed towards record highs each and every new election cycle. This isn't Obama's or McCain's fault, it's how the system is set up.
Political parties can't afford to lose a senate set, let alone a chance to have their respective party in the White House. They want to have dominance in all parts of the government and so campaigning and re-elections have been the means in which these parties try and get as many Democrats, Republicans to win their respective election as possible. Politicians will say and vote for what the voter wants to hear, not what the nation needs. This is where the problem lies, why not take out re-elections so that once your in office you can focus on your nation or state as opposed to your campaign or approval rating.
A rebuttal to this argument is "Well then we won't have experienced officials in office." That's why I say no re-elections and that if you win a government position you can run for a higher position after your term is up. So there still would be elections (after all we are America and we all believe in voting) the only difference is, there would be no second term, or no re-running for the same position. This way we would have new blood in all our new elections and once people got in office they wouldn't campaign for the same position and they wouldn't worry about campaigning as much.
Just think of this election both Obama and McCain were new to the presidency, and the nation responded by having a record high of voter registration and the nation was buzzing about the election on election night. This would happen every time because there would be two new candidates in the election every time!
This Franken/Coleman thing, just made me realize how stupid our system is, these two have been bickering and fighting for over eight months! Minnesota just has not been represented as well as other states in the senate while this has been going on. Why does this happen! Why is so much effort put into campaigning and "hanging chads", when the real problem is the economy, the Middle East, world hunger, etc?
I don't know... I just had to get this off my chest, and I know a lot of people will probably disagree with this (and I hope you do) and I hope you write back in the comment section about what you think, and I'll try my best to stand up for my argument.
Also, I'm glad this whole Franken/Coleman debacle is finally over, now they can finally worry about Minnesota and the United States, I hope Franken does well and can get caught up on everything he missed while he was in court...
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15 comments:
I think it's hardly fair to call most politicians selfish considering the nature of their work is public service. Many U.S. politicians devote their entire working careers to try and better the county, state or country they live in and then the most well known politicians start charities once they've retired.
The reason Franken/Coleman and pretty much all politicians spend so much on campaigns is because if one decides not to, the other candidate will continue to spend. And these men and women care deeply for our country and want their specific views to be represented, so they do all they can to win. I think the solution to this is some sort of cap on campaign spending.
i might have a biased opinion and all, but i think that you are disregarding how important it is to have the public represented in an election (that is the point of a democracy right?). without recounts, the intangibles (such as errors in handcounting and missing ballots) go unnoticed, uncorrected, and eventually the public is wronged.
there's no denying the recount is expensive, but what is even more expensive is taking a recount to court. after the initial recounts when franken came out on top (this was around new years i believe), franken could have been seated, had coleman not decided to file a lawsuit. although i'm sure franken would have done the same if coleman came out on top after the recount - that is where i find the flaw of the system. im pretty sure that the lawsuit is where most of the state money is/was spent.
I agree with you that the recount system should be relooked at, but i dont think it is feasible/possible/democratic to eliminate the recound altogether. after all, elections are about the voters choice.
nice html bytheway
Rueben- I didn't mean to call most politicians, i just wanted to say that there is talk about them being selfish and money/power hungry... sorry if I made it sound like I think all politicians are like that (i don't)
eyeD- Im not saying we shouldn't have elections, I totally think we should 100%, just no re-elections aka having someone run for the exact same position as last term, this will lead to new blood and ideas every election......
as far as recounting goes I agree, it's taking it to court is what I have a problem with, obviously I want the candidate that the public picked to be the eventual winner...hopefully we can find a more efficient/cheaper way of voting
The way I see it, the system worked to prefection. Minnesota law states anytime a statewide election is decided by less than half of a percent an automatic recount is necessary. This point was proven by the reversal of the outcome, shifting from Coleman to Franken as the winner. Coleman had every right to challenge this ruling, and appeal it to as high of a court as he desired(including the US Supreme Court, if he chose to do so). The real moral dilemme lies in the decision to challenge ruling. There comes a certain point when both parties know what the outcome is going to be and all you're doing is prolonging the results. Everyone in there right minds were pretty certain Al Franken had won the election around early February and by mid April when the canvassing board declared Franken the winner, there was no doubt Franken would win. The blame falls squarely on the shoulders of Norm Coleman and his decision to prolong the inevitable. At the end of the day though, the system correctly chose the winner and Al Franken will be our senator. And his election is a big deal not only because we finally have two senators representing us, but because he is the 60th democrat in the senate...reaching the philibuster proof majority. No matter your politics, the outcome of this election will make a huge difference in the policies that are to be implemented in this nation. This affects all of us.
As far as re-elections are concerned, I think its silly to banish the concept. The idea mentioned is the concept of putting a one term limit on every rank of public office. The presidency has a term limit of 2 terms of 4 years each. Four as opposed to 8 years makes a huge different in the direction a nation heads. Often times a president uses his fitst term building relations with foreign nations, and his second term passing serious policy decision affection relations with the nations. Example being Clinton and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Also this concept of one term and then move on to the next higher office is very flawed. After the House of Representatives the next highest office is the Senate. After one two year term in the H of R, 335 of our 435 experienced politicians would be unable to use their experience because they wouldn't be able to run for office. After completing six years in the Senate, 99 of 100 experienced senators will be jobless because the next highest office is president.
I would like to hear a counter-arguement.
Great post, btw. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for your comment Aamir...
I'm not as concerned about the re-count, I think that we should always make sure the person that recieved the most votes (or wins the electoral college as the case was in Bush/Gore election in 2000) wins and is the eventual person that is placed in the office.
As far as the higher office everytime you run goes, you have an extremely good poin there (and I probably didn't think it through enough lol) but basically my thought process with that is that I'm sick of politicians voting on bills or making laws based on how the voters will react and if that saying yes to bill X will get them more votes and keep them in office, when really they should be worry about bettering the group of people that they are governing, even if it could possibly be an unpopular choice among the voters... What if we made a term 6 (or even 8) years instead of 4, then that would give them ample time to make relationships with foreign nations and make decisions, while at the same time not have the pressure of re-running in the back of the president's head (and worry about approval ratings and waht voters are saying) the whole time he is in office, so he can focus on getting stuff done for the nation as opposed to getting stuff ready for himself or his (or her) respecitve party.
Also, it's not that I don't want our politicians to not worry about their approval rating and to not listen to the voters at all... I want them to listen to the common person, I just rather have a respected politician make a decision as opposed to a big group of (hypothetically) uneducated people that just care about one issue and will only vote for someone if they vote in the right way for that group of people. Do you get what I'm saying there? Kind of hard to put into words...
All in all, I just feel like we spend way to much money, time, and effort on elections than we should/could. We should find a way where elections don't matter as much as much as what a politician can do once he is office. Just think Jesse Ventura/Arnold Schwezzenegar have won big time elections, when really are they qualified? Granted they actually weren't as bad as people thought, but they still are unqualified (in my eyes at least)
I don't know, there is a lot of stuff that bugs me about American Politics in general, while I'm extremely happy that we can vote, protest, and what not, it's just frustrating that things like letting Coleman let this drag on so long when there are huge problems and issues that need to be addressed, or having Ventura/Arnold winning elections happens...
And the worst part is, I have no real ideas on how to fix all the problems I see, so I guess it's just a waste even trying to explain my annoyances with the gov't system...
Sorry for the long post... Keep the convo going...
Also, mad props to Aamir checking proacktive all the way from DC! Thanks man, it means a lot to have loyal readers (and commenters!)
I get the gist of what you're saying. And the idea of an 8 year presidential term is pretty intriguing and worth giving a thought to, the counter arguement to that is what if it become obvious that the election of the president was an obvious mistake early on in his term? Then you're stuck with him for another 6-7 years. The 4 year terms are supposed to prevent that. (emphasis on supposed considering the re-election of George W. Bush)
Also how a president reacts to public opinion and how congress people react are very different. For Senators and Members of the House, voting a certain way to get re-elected and voting a certain way according to represent the people who elected you there is for the most part the same thing. If the people in your state or district don't like the way you serve them/vote for certain issue, you won't be relected because you're not representing them.
I'm not saying our system is perfect however. The one thing that hasn't been mentioned that I do take issue with is the how campaign donations affects votes. A certain lobby group that raises a large amount of money for a candidate during the election can put pressure on the candidate to vote a certain way once he is elected. This doesn't represent the people.
This ties in to the numbers you provided earlier about the 2008 elections. Barack Obama spent $744 million dollars in the 2008 elections. He was the first major modern presidential candidate to accept zero contributions from Political Action Committees (PACS), pretty much lobbies that look to buy votes. All of the money raised were private contributions. And 95% percent of his campain contributions were from households contributing $100 or less. This shows that the money he spent on the campaing isnt coming from taxpayer money, or corporations buying votes...that was money from people who donated to their ability to elect who they believed should be president.
Also, Jesse Ventura ran an extremely inexpensive campain. I don't know if you guys are too young to remember his TV ads, but they were literally action figures talking to each other. Ventura won because he had a strong message, he was an excellent speaker and Minnesotans belived he was going to provide a change from partisan politics (which he did in many ways). If electing him was a mistake, it wasn't the fault of our system but the misjudgement of the people of Minnesota. If anything, the Ventura election showed why our system is so great. It showed anyone can do it, you don't have to be a career politician with a ton of campaign money.
At the end of the day, I do believe we have a pretty good system. There are always improvements that can be made. I just spend like 20 minutes on proacktive at work lolololol...
peace yo!
I didnt read everyones comments, but i thought id throw an opinion in...
I like the idea of limiting all offices to one term. This eliminates career politicians and turns the job into a public service or duty (kind of like jury duty), from what i know, this is what our founding fathers intended..
this would change things from a politicians agenda that is tying to be sold to the population costing billions of dollars to needing to work together to find a common agenda and being elected to office is a call for you to serve and impliment that agenda the best you can.
This also i feel would eliminate big companies from gaining too much leverage in our government because there would be noway to keep that leverage for a long enough time.
This is a huge flaw in our system in my opinion, every thing from oil companies to food companies are controlling our government way to heavily and not in our best interest at all. This i feel could easily be fixed with single terms.
A great movie that reveals a lot of what's happening is Food Inc.
Aamir I hear what you're saying, but i don't believe there should be career politicians in the first place. thats why im for Franken, from what i understand he's not really a career politician
So Ion, does this mean that there should be no such thing as a career in politics? Would this mean that offices of public service would be filled with professionals from other fields? Would one get elected for onr term, serve, and then go back to assume your previous profession?
This would also mean that we would permanantly have inexperienced leaders who don't know how to work with one another. Learning how to negotiate and bargain and truly get things done amongst another 534 members of congress (who all think they are the shit and are never wrong) comes with years of experience. No bills would pass, things would get done extremely slowly. Experience goes a long ways on capitol hill.
Ion,
I like your idea, and I feel like it would help in reducing the potential for corruption within government. But at the same time I envision a lot of negative side effects that would come as a result of politicians holding only one term (especially the president).
If we did make this limitation, experience in the political world would be extremely hard to come by. Someone running for, say, the presidency, could only possibly have so many years under his/her belt in the government. While this is what we're going through right now with Obama and his relatively short career in politics, history has shown that more often than not the politicians with the most experience are most effective in achieving their ends. Forcing politicians into only one term would effectively double the amount of politicians cycling through our government, resulting in many inexperienced people landing jobs that have a large impact on the well-being of our country. Although it would seem a little more democratic to cap officers at one term, there is a reason why we allow incumbents and 2nd terms: not many people are fit to run (or assist in running) a country. Even the founding fathers noted that the general public is not fit to run their own country.
Secondly, there is still a (and maybe even a larger) risk of poor politics if we limited terms. Some politicians toward the end of their terms nowadays will try to push personal agendas that they benefit from, simply because there is not much risk as to losing their position or standing in the government. What keeps many others from doing that is the prospect of their future career or second term in office...taking this prospect away would only reduce the amount of responsibility felt throughout government, and may just end up worsening the problem that we try to fix by limiting office to one term.
It's a difficult topic because there are so many different ways politicians could react and adapt to law changes...one term would've certainly helped 4 years ago, but in 1936 it allowed one of the greatest presidents of our time, FDR, to continue to pull america out of the great depression.
lol i like all of these ideas...maybe we should just form a proacktive political team. haha
wow Aamir and I posted at the same time
Btw, I'd like to point out that FDR served three 4 years terms and was elected to a fourth term in which he died. If it wasn't for his 12 year presidency, crucial social programs that have changed the landscape of American society such as the New Deal would be unlikely to have passed.
Yeah good point Noble J about the whole them just messing around at the end of thier term because there would be no penalty...
Like Aamir said we have a pretty damn good system and there will always be corruption and self interest no matter what system we run...(lets face it money runs pretty much everything these days)
... So it's real nitpicky for us to do this but still fun nonetheless.
i agree pacman.. you got money, you get things you're way.. people who don't have money think they're getting what they want, but it's all just playing into the plan of the people who have money.. little pesamistic lol
pessimistic but true (sadly)
Didn't read all those posts (haven't read that many words all summer) but politics achieves its goal when voters vote, soley on which candidate is most in line with his or her own ideas. If everyone did this the two party system would be eliminated. If people educated themselves on each politicians views advertising and lobbying would be unecessary. Moral of the story if you are gonna vote its as simple as going to an unbiased website and comparing each candidates platforms.
-delveries
(stupid box wont let me type in my name below)
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