Expertise Costs Money

 

An interesting article from one of Tony Wikrent's Week-end Round-ups at Ian Welsh's blog:  "Monopoly Round-Up" by Matt Stoller ...

In 1995, the Republican Party took control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Led by Newt Gingrich and a small group of right-wing politicians who called themselves “Jihadists,” these men sought to revamp a legislative chamber held by the Democrats since 1949.

Gingrich was an intellectual, as were some of his colleagues. When he first was elected in 1978 as part of what was known as the “New Right,” every young Republican candidate was obsessively reading Robert Bork’s The Antitrust Paradox. In 1995, his goal wasn’t just to pass legislation, but to fundamentally re-gear Congress so it could no longer serve as the brains for the Democratic Party, as it had for the last half century. That was an institutional task, and he set about restructuring the institutions.

First to go was the Office of Technology Assessment, a nonpartisan think tank that conducted long-term studies on important scientific and engineering topics, like how to decommission the Space Shuttle or early warnings on climate change. Gingrich also slashed Congressional staff by a third, eliminated dozens of subcommittees, and killed budgets for the legislative service organizations that helped specific groups of members, like the Black Caucus, the Caucus on Women’s Issues, the Environment and Energy Study Conference, and so forth. Most importantly, the Democratic Study Group, a network of staff and members who organized the rhythm of the House, disappeared.

...

The effect was revolutionary. From 1949 to 1995, there was immense institutional knowledge within Congress. There were staffers who know everything there was to know about the Mississippi River and could go toe-to-toe with the Army Corps of Engineers on reclamation projects. There were dozens of staff who understood the Post Office. The Antitrust Subcommittee had a swath of antitrust lawyers who could investigate industries and develop litigation. 

When I was in the archives, I found that members of Congress like Wright Patman worked insanely hard, and were rewarded for it. Patman started working early and ended his day very late, reading books, publishing reports, and sending queries to figure how the banks worked. His lead investigator had a stack of blank subpoenas and a travel budget, and could just go anywhere he wanted to track down evidence. His people were confident they could do as good a job as the bankers in running powerful institutions, and so they could negotiate effectively.

But you don’t have to go back to the 1930s, just watch a Congressional hearing on C-Span from the early 1990s. The level of substantive knowledge is at an entirely different level than it is today. In 1995, Gingrich struck the death blow to that culture, and the House was soon staffed by 25-year-olds.

  

I don't agree with everything in the article, from the tone to the analyses.  I also don't think that the victories of corporations against legislation is the result of the deliberate lobotomization of the USA's federal legislative branch.  Much of this is just brazen corruption, based on stupid, transparently selfish, corrupt arguments, being rubber-stamped by a totally bought-and-paid-for political class.

That having been said, 21st Century societies are complex and effective regulation requires knowledgeable legislators. 

That was one of my motivations for giving citizens paid positions on public-sector committees.  If I were the God-Emperor of Canada, all public institutions would be managed by committees with one-third of the membership representing the public, one-third representing the workers in that sector, and one-third representing the government of the day.

Anyone could put their name in.  There would be no actual campaigning.  The electorate will be expected to have looked at the list and done their own research.  Naive, I'm sure.  But an organized Left could effectively meet any corporatist usurpers.