Our Tax Dollars Hard At Work

Why Michigan Should Have a Part Time Legislature

How often do we actually get to meet with our elected legislatures?  For that matter, how often do we see them work, other than on television when there is a publicity event scheduled by Lansing?  Following this questioning, how often do the elected people actually spend in a legislative session, and how much money do they spend during their time in office, in expenses, just to represent the people?  These questions are not asked enough to make a positive difference, or change in government.  People should be asking, more often, about what our legislature is doing, and how they are doing it, in regards to how they represent us, and how they spend our tax dollars.  Our state legislature is designed to represent all of the people of Michigan, and not just a few who’ve had their complaints make it all the way to Lansing. 

What really happens in Lansing is that you elect a person to represent your district or region, for full time work.  That means that they work about as much as primary or secondary education teachers, as it relates to sessions of congress.  They show up about 250-275 days a year.  They do work hard at getting the right people to endorse the right bill through the right method to go to the right committee, and this goes on and on, in the process to get a bill to go to the executive department.  You can see where this is going.  They arguably do work a full time job and therefore deserve a full time paycheck.  Our legislatures work at least five days a week, then go home to their constituents and loved ones on the weekends when congress is in session.

This is when, they argue, they have the time to meet with their people, only on the weekends and on the days that congress is not in session.  When congress is in session, our elected officials have an expense budget, so that they can get their offices to get things done, from everything to paperwork, to fine dining.  Imagine if you had an expense account to socialize, to get people to understand your job, because your boss really didn’t know what you did?  That is exactly what our congressmen and women do. 

They are also meeting with the big player constituents, interest groups as most people would call them, to receive favorable “charities”, to ensure that the big constituents can get a bill that nobody knows about, which very few people understand, passed into action as a bill to the executive department.  So, too define it, big interest groups meet with our representatives to ensure that our representatives pass bills that are favorable to big interest groups only. 

So, since the lawmakers are doing lunches, dinners and meetings to discuss bills, when do they really have time to talk to us regular folks?  Just on their time off, unless some unknown person is lucky enough to catch their congressman’s eye on a bill that needs to be passed anyway, or when they are running for re-election.  It really is difficult then, for our representatives to meet with us.  They have a lot of different things going on, because their priorities are not focused on us.  Shouldn’t their priorities be on us, the state budget, during these recessionary times, and not just the money, expenses and politics as a lifelong government bureaucrat? 

Well, what if they dedicated all of their time to meeting with us as individuals?  Would it be any better?  It could because we the people would have more of a say in how the state government would work, as far as where the tax dollars go, and from where we collect our tax dollars.  Do you realize that we, as in our government, just laid off over one thousand public safety (state police) officers?  Did we have much of a say in that?  Not really.  Granted, hard decisions had to be made.  But is there another way to do this?  I believe that there is another way.

Michigan state legislatures (as in both house and senate) should be placed on a part time job basis.  The main point is not because of the current economic recession that has brought Michigan to a standstill.  The State Government could save a lot of money and be more viable as a representative government over the long run.  It should be proposed that the legislatures work out of their offices and homes in their representing districts via online meetings and other social networking secure computer pathways.  It will make our government more efficient as it relates to; representing our people, time and money.

The concept of making our government more efficient; as it relates to representing our people, time and money is simple.  First, set up secure computer intranet connections throughout our congressman’s home and district office.  Next, pass a law that makes a congress meet on a part time basis, as needed (let the lawyers haggle over that concept).  Not full time, Monday through Friday, 5 days a week.  Let the congress figure out, but mandate that they meet 3-4 months, possibly throughout the summer, to meet face to face, and when they have a yearly budget to pass.  The rest of the time, they can meet in their little groups, on line. 

For instance, Joe Representative, from Detroit, can work out of his home and office, 2-4 days a week, for three weeks out of the month, for 4 months a year.  All he does is meet with constituents at either his home or office.  He also goes to Lansing for the summer term, and that’s all.  During his work time, at his Detroit office, he is meeting online in say, the senate budget appropriations committee, which has its’ own network on the internet government website, where he sits in on a two hour network meeting to discuss ways to kill “the fatted calve” or whatever they do in their bill subcommittee meetings.  They draft and clean up legislation for the summer, or for emergency hearings We can let the attorneys figure out how the computer people can do open and closed networking for the public internet, to allow the public to see the representatives on line or not..  The rest of his work week, he can spend, meeting with his constituents, hearing good news, and receiving criticism on how well “his” legislature does business for Michigan as a whole. 

Once the internet system is in place, and the representative’s staff is trained up, the government can function a lot smoother, more time, money and people efficient, the way that our founding fathers thought that it would.  We have all the “know how” needed to make this happen in our state.  This possible solution will give our representatives more time to listen to us, and less time to spend, currying favors from and to big special interest groups, giving us a more representative government, and one that’s more fiscally conservative as far as it relates to the expense of running a state government. 

If you think that this is not possible, because it would cost too much money, just ask your representative what his base salary is, what the cost of his/her healthcare is, what his yearly annual expense budget is like, and what the expense is, of operating Lansing for one continuous year.  Then, combine it by all the members of both houses of our state congress.  Sounds like a lot of money to most people, isn’t it?  It is a certainty that within a short period of time, the government could save that money back, or at least enough for the 1,000 police officers they let go.    When this part-time work, computer plan, can be a success, then people will be able to ask, more often, about what our legislature is doing, and how they are doing it, in regards to how they represent us, and how they spend our tax dollars.