The Making of America is about the world’s greatest political success formula. In a little over a century, this formula allowed a small segment of the human family — less than 6 percent — to become the richest nation on earth. It allowed them to originate more than half of the world’s total production and enjoy the highest standard of living in the history of the world.”

“But Americans have more to share than their wealth. They have the world’s greatest political success formula to share. In this respect they have been at fault. They have been too self-conscious about their system and its accomplishments. At times they have been almost apologetic that they have had such a remarkable system when the rest of the world did not. The world needs to know this formula.” – From the introduction to the Making of America

In this book you will learn the Founding Fathers’ story. Much of it is told in the words of the Founders themselves. You will feel the power of their minds sweeping away centuries of bad government and bad laws to formulate a whole new society based on human freedom.

Purchase: The Making of America: The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution by W. Cleon Skousen

The next two U.S. elections may turn out to be the most critical American elections in the twentieth century.

America, like Great Britain of just a few years ago, is approaching her point of no return. Great Britain failed to heed a timely warning and it wasn’t long before her people became so dependent on government planning and government handouts that the English felt individually threatened almost to the point of panic if anyone suggested that Britain turn back from socialism and reach out toward the success formula of the past — based on individual freedom.

The failure of England to turn back in time resulted in a shattered standard of living and national bankruptcy. Americans tried to help by taking over the major burden of Britain’s national defense and by loaning or granting her billions in aid just as we have done for all. the rest of Europe’s socialist nations. But it has been an impossible task. Socialism, as a system of economics, has a built-in self destruct.

Time Is Running Out on America

And now Americans can hear the ticking of the same time-bomb on their own shores. Big spending politicians and federal bureau chiefs who dominate the gold coast of Washington D.C. are hauling out every conceivable device from their Fabian bag of tricks to deceive the American people into one more round of Harry Hopkin’s famous socialist nostrum of “tax, tax — spend, spend — elect, elect!”

America’s only hope of reversing this tidal wave of naked power is to implement and strengthen the ranks of those Constitution-oriented Congressmen and Senators who have been trying to hold the line in Washington. Some of them are Democrats and some of them are Republicans. We call them the Constitutional Coalition. Americans can no longer depend upon party labels to decide political issues because the choice is no longer between Democrats and Republicans. It is between Constitutionalism and socialism. Constitutionalists should be supported in whichever party they happen to be affiliated.

The Key is Congress

The Constitution made the United States Congress the seat of power as far as the people are concerned. No matter who is President, the picture cannot change substantially until Americans elect into the House and the Senate, a majority of men and women with ramrods down their spines who are unconditionally committed to the restoration of Constitutional principles in the tradition of the Founding Fathers.

An Encouraging Trend

Based on the latest voting record from Washington, we discover that the Constitutional Coalition is getting closer to a majority. If we call Congressmen and Senators “Constitutionalists” who support the Constitution 70% of the time or more, then we only need 45 more Congressmen in the House to have a majority. In the Senate it will take 29 more to have a majority.

The important thing for Americans to realize is that we can win. We can turn it around. And we must also realize that failing to win would force upon the United States an intolerable option. It would simply give Americans a Xerox copy of Britain’s dying economy and threatened collapse.

The challenge is to turn the tide in the next two elections or the odds are at least ten-to-one that America will go through the wringer.

What Will It Take to Win?

The two greatest handicaps facing American Constitutionalists today are voter apathy and voter ignorance. Saving America and the Constitution depends to some extent on whether or not we succeed in penetrating these two chronically ailing areas of the body politic.

Voter apathy is tragically demonstrated in municipal elections where three-fourths of the people don’t vote. Even in all the excitement of a Presidential election, barely half of the people vote. This means that every President, Congressman and Senator as well as local and state officials are actually elected by a tiny minority of the eligible voters. President Carter was elected by the support of merely 25% of the eligible voters.

Therefore, the first task is to get citizens motivated in wanting to vote.

The next task is to get them to want information about the candidates and the issues. This means getting them sufficiently motivated to spend time in digging out or listening to the facts.

One of the most effective ways we have yet discovered to motivate apathetic voters is to have them attend the “Miracle of America” seminars. This is the Founders’ great story of the American Heritage and how they put together their remarkable success formula.

Few people can resist becoming involved once they catch the vision and spirit of the original Founding Fathers.

Some Interesting Political Statistics

One of the reasons many Americans get discouraged is because they can’t see how we can reach enough people in time. If we had to reach all of the people or even a majority of the people, the task would be monumental indeed.

But in view of the fact that only a fourth of the people vote in local elections and barely half of them vote in a Presidential election, here are some interesting political statistics:

To win in a local election you need only about 3% of the eligible voters who are trained and committed in order to influence enough friends and relatives to gain the support of a majority. In a Presidential election year, all you need is 3-5% of the eligible voters who are trained and committed workers in order to gain support of a majority of those who vote.

If you have ever worked in a successful political campaign you will have no difficulty understanding how few people it takes to really make the difference.

Learning How to Pick Constitutional Candidates

There are two basic steps in becoming adept in picking Constitutional candidates.

The first step is studying the Constitution yourself so you know a Constitutional principle when you see one and, conversely, recognize a threat to the Constitution when it arises. This is an exciting adventure in getting acquainted with the original thinking of the Founding Fathers. It is amazing how many of our modern problems were anticipated by the Founders. They even provided specific remedies for the solution of these problems because they had to solve many of them in their own day.

The second step is measuring each candidate against the Founding Fathers’ Constitutional frame of reference. No candidate can claim he is a Constitutionalist who has been voting for sky-rocketing taxation, deficit spending, financing of programs which violate States Rights, or using Federal bureaucracies to invade the privacy of individual citizens.

Of course, the question immediately arises, “How can I find out for sure how my Congressman or Senator has been voting?” That used to be difficult to ascertain, but not anymore. We now have a number of responsible groups in Washington carefully monitoring the voting record of both Congressmen and Senators on every significant Constitutional issue. The results are published at frequent intervals by these various organizations and several of them have granted permission to the Freemen Institute to re-publish their reports for general distribution at our seminars.

How About Candidates Who are Not Incumbents?

It is a little more difficult to check candidates who have never been in public office because we have no positive track record by ‘which they can be evaluated.

In these instances, we are compelled to resort to the ancient test of “witnesses.” We must find someone with Constitutional discernment who has checked out the candidate or who knows him personally. This was the Founders original idea behind the Electoral College. They felt that if responsible, experienced and politically astute persons were selected by each State to survey the candidates, we would be likely to get higher quality leaders. In other words, the selection would be based on the principle of “witnesses” rather than having the people vote blindly on the basis of campaign propaganda. Although the politicians have kept the Electoral College from functioning according to its original design, the philosophy of “witnesses” remains a sound one.

Discovering a Candidate’s Political Attitudes

The principal task in finding a Constitutionalist is identifying his or her basic political philosophy, as well as the candidate’s personal attitudes toward critical issues.

In the process one must avoid becoming puritanical and expect a candidate to vote perfectly every time. Even God has to work through imperfect human beings to accomplish his purposes, and the Bible assures us that God has had to be tremendously patient. The citizen can do no less. Occasionally, the best intentioned politician in existence will pull a blooper. The remedy is not to hate him. Just write him. It will help reduce the number of bloopers in the future. But all correspondence should be polite and respectful.

My experience is that sincere Constitutionalists genuinely appreciate a carefully prepared letter or telephone call pointing out respectfully how you think your distinguished Representative or Honorable Senator went wrong.

Taxes

The whole tax structure is ten times higher than it should be, and this is true on all levels, federal, state, and local. There are a few exceptions in small towns and sparsely populated counties, but generally speaking the lawmakers across the nation have gone tax crazy.

A Constitutionalist will fight for the elimination of hundreds of unconstitutional, unnecessary and counter-productive programs on all fronts and demand a reduction on taxes in substantial chunks. He will resist any form of increase in taxes the same way he would resist the bubonic plague.

Borrowing

A Constitutionalist knows that deficit spending and government borrowing have proved a curse to the nation. The Federal interest which is being paid out each year on the national debt amounts to more than the total cost of World War I. The United States now owes more money than all the rest of the nations of the world combined, and this debt saddles a burden of several thousand dollars on every man, woman and child in the United States.

A Constitutionalist will categorically oppose any further effort to borrow or indulge in deficit spending in time of peace.

Inflation

A Constitutionalist knows that inflation is the direct result of the government adding to the money supply faster than the goods and services being produced. As more and more, money chases after a proportionate amount of fewer goods and services, prices escalate, wages rise after costly strikes, savings shrink in buying power, insurance policies lose their value, and retired people are forced back on the work force in order to survive.

A government policy of inflation is a cruel, immoral device used by politicians to buy votes with Federal projects and services paid for with highly inflationary printing-press money. A Constitutionalist will hold down inflationary forces in every way possible.

The Sinking Dollar

A Constitutionalist knows that it is impossible to keep politicians from indulging in inflation unless the money system is tied to precious metals. Gold and silver are relatively stable in production and availability and, therefore, remain fairly constant in their intrinsic value. This is why they are so useful in backing up paper currency so that it will maintain relative stability in value.

It took the political master planners from 1934 to 1971 to get the United States completely off the gold and silver standard required by the Constitution. The results have been catastrophic. The sooner America backs her money with precious metal, the sooner America will restore stability to our economy and the hope of a promising future for the next generation.

OSHA and EPA

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration as well as the Environmental Protection Agency are both completely outside the original Constitution. Had it not been for the completely anti-Constitutional dictum of the Supreme Court in the 1936 Butler Case, both of these acts would never have seen the light of day.

A Constitutionalist will return all regulations of this nature back to the states unless a particular situation involves navigable streams or other areas of federal jurisdiction.

Interstate Commerce Commission

The federal government’s regulation of interstate commerce was never intended to fix prices, designate routes, grant monopolies, or do anything else except to insure the “free flow” of goods throughout the nation. Before President Carter initiated the deregulation of the trucking industry, one-third of America’s trucks traveled empty on their return trips because of the ICC regulations. Every railroad in the .nation faces bankruptcy because of overregulation by the ICC.

A Constitutionalist will work for the restoration of the Founders’ original concept.

Views of the Founding Fathers

Based on Madison’s Federalist Paper number 45, it is obvious how many counterproductive experiments of the government during the past forty years would have been rejected by the Founders. Madison said the individual states should have complete charge of everything “which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”

Based on this general policy of the Founders, there are several hundred current government programs which they undoubtedly would have strongly opposed because of their unconstitutionality.

Are Constitutionalists Against Everything?

When Constitutionalists list all the things they oppose, there are those who say, “You’re too negative. You’re against everything!”

But the truth of the matter is this. The Constitutionalist is for everything which contributes to freedom, independence, human dignity and prosperity. But he opposes socialism. He is against everything which contributes to smothering taxation, excessive regulations, devouring inflation, a backbreaking national debt, a weakening of our security, or the strangling of our free-enterprise economy with mountains of unreasonable regulations.

In a very real sense, a Constitutionalist is like a physician. A doctor is so strongly for good health that he is categorically opposed to pneumonia, diphtheria, polio, scarlet fever, venereal disease, typhoid and anything else which would destroy human health and happiness.

The Founding Fathers were the political physicians of their day and now it is high time that we raise up millions of Americans who will take the time to become informed and become the healing political physicians of our own day.

It all begins with a careful study of the Constitution and the writings of the Founding Fathers. When all else fails, read the instructions.

The Congress of the United States in the late twentieth century is not the Congress envisioned by the founding fathers. Nor is it functioning according to the provisions of the original Constitution.

The Congress has been restructured so that States as States, are no longer represented. It has been prodded into giving away much of its war-making and peace-making authority to the United Nations. It was originally given the exclusive law-making powers for the entire Federal Government but today the tens of thousands of regulations pouring out of Washington are coming from the Executive Branch, not the Congress. The Congressional authority to protect the nation from subversion through its investigatory committees has been debilitated to the point of virtual extinction.

In place of its original, exclusive authority over federal law-making, war-making, peace-making, and supervising many aspects of international relations, the Congress is now saddled with the task of trying to figure out how to redistribute the wealth and property of the people, how to transfer to Washington from the private sector the States, large segments of responsibility relating to schools, housing, health, energy, environment, crime, labor, management, food production, population control, transportation, communications, hospitals, medical services, drugs, unemployment, prices, production, and charity-welfare.

If the founding fathers could see it they would probably stand stunned, shaking their heads in utter dismay. They would be particularly shocked by a U.S. Senator like Joseph S. Clark of Pennsylvania boldly justifying the disintegration of limited government by saying:

“We have inherited from our forefathers a governmental structure which so divides power that effective dealing with economic problems is cumbersome…. Of course inaction is what the Founding Fathers intended inaction until such time as an overwhelming consensus was prepared for action…. They were right in their day. But they are wrong in ours…. I have no hesitation in stating my deep conviction that the legislatures of America, local, state and national, are presently the greatest menace to the successful operation of the democratic process…. The executive should be strengthened at the expense of the legislature…. Surely we have reached the point where we can say … that Jefferson was wrong: that government is not best which governs least.” 1

Actually, what is happening to Congress as a result of mentalities like Senator Clark, is a carbon copy of what has been happening to the British Parliament and many other legislatures around the world. They have lashed themselves to the mast of a ship of state headed for the shoreless seas of federalized mass-planning. From Plato to Marx this idea of collectivized economics combined with manipulated power politics has aroused some tantalizing expectations of universal peace and permanent prosperity, but from ancient Memphis to modern Moscow, it has produced nothing except a meager supply of life’s necessities and a threatening cloud of continuous war mongering.

A New Book About Congress

Among Americans there are many who have become alarmed with the changing role of the U.S. Congress. One of these is John J. Rhodes who was elected by the people of his State to represent them in Washington. He recently wrote a most revealing book called The Futile System which John Reston of the New York Times reviewed and said:

“John J. Rhodes of Arizona, the Republican leader of the House, and normally a most cautious and courteous man, has written the most critical book on the Congress that has appeared in a very long time.”

Rhodes, of course, was writing about Congress as it presently operates. The Washington Post called it a “most valuable book, … prerequisite reading for all who would understand the workings of the House.”

Rhodes Describes Recent Changes In Congress

After 22 years in Congress, John J. Rhodes has some interesting observations. He wrote:

“Congress has changed greatly during my career. It has changed physically. When I arrived in 1953, there were two House office buildings. Today, there are three with a fourth being planned. In 1953, the Senators were all crowded into one office building. They now have two and are building a third.

“Most everything in those days was done on a smaller scale. The staffs were smaller. The workload was smaller. The pressures were lighter. When I first started as a Congressman, I had a staff of five. Today, I employ a staff of 12 to handle my district-related business. During my first term, the House and Senate had a combined staff of 4,500 people and an operating budget of $42 million. Today, there are some 16,000 Capitol Hill employees and a budget of more than $414 million.” 2

Not only has Congress been going through a metamorphosis physically, but also temperamentally. Rhodes says:

“A certain club atmosphere has long pervaded both Houses of Congress. This feeling of camaraderie among most of the members comes from being engaged in a common task and having to face common pressures. It has this spirit always been an integral part of congressional life and has traditionally transcended party lines….

“Members of Congress still strive to help one another, but not nearly to the extent that they once did. And members still treat each other with civility, but not anywhere near the civility of earlier days. Congress has changed. Of this there can be no question.

“The atmosphere in and around Congress today is far more acrid than at any time during my career. The members are louder, more uptight, hostile and devious. The average Congressman has always been partisan, but never so partisan as he is today. Today’s members — particularly many of the new members — have failed to master the art of disagreeing without being disagreeable …

“The average Congressman of yesteryear was congenial, polite and willing to work with his colleagues whenever possible. Most important, his main concern was attending to his congressional duties. Today, a large number of Congressmen are cynical, abrasive, frequently uncommunicative and ambitious to an inordinate degree. In their eagerness to draw attention to themselves and advance politically — they frustrate the legislative process.” 3

Spending the Next Generation’s Inheritance

Rhodes points out that the major preoccupation of Congress these days is redistributing the wealth accumulated by the government through taxes. The size of this operation boggles the mind.

“It took the United States 174 years to reach a budget of $100 billion. But in just nine years, Congress doubled that figure. Four years later, the $300 billion mark was crossed. We will probably have a budget of $400 billion in fiscal year 1977….” 4

Well, it turned out to be $413 billion. Congressman Rhodes points out that this enormous spending spree has absolutely no relation to population growth:

“In 1929 we had 120 million Americans and a budget of $3 billion. Today there are around 215 million Americans and we have a period when the American population has grown 77%, federal spending has skyrocketed nearly 12,000%.” 5

Where is all of this money coming from?

“A good chunk of the money we have spent is money we do not have. Thirty-five years ago, the Government had a national debt of $42 billion. Today the debt is $577 billion. These huge deficits have sapped the nation’s strength.” 6

And what about the strength of the next generation which will have to cope with these obligations?

Boondoggling with Billions

The latest federal budget of $413 billion is about 50% for Government programs while the other 50% is simply Government “transfer payments.” In other words, over $200 billion collected in taxes from the people and their corporations will be transferred or paid out to employees and wards of the Government. For the first time in our history, the number working or receiving direct benefits from the Government exceeds the working force of the nation’s private sector.

As might be expected, this massive and impulsive distribution of billions has been impossible to administer in a responsible and careful manner. Therefore, it often turns out that “waste” is the name of the game. The lax manner in which the Food Stamp program has been administered is reflected in the fact that during the first six months of 1975 it was found that 929,000 people received food stamps to which they were not entitled.

Even grants under various government programs have been coming under fire. As was pointed out by a Washington reporter, Donald Lambro:

“We have given the Bedouins $17,000 for a dry cleaning plant to clean their djellabas. We studied the smell of perspiration from Australian aborigines for a mere $70,000. We’ve spent $15,000 to study Yugoslavian lizards, $71,000 to compile a history of comic books, $5,000 to analyze violin varnish, $19,300 to determine why children fall off tricycles, and $375,000 for the Pentagon to study frisbees.” 7

These are only minor examples of totally foolish funding, but it reflects an attitude of reckless irresponsibility in the handling of people’s resources.

What Happens When One Party Controls Congress Too Long?

Rhodes points out that when the Congress was controlled by the Republicans from 1895 to 1910, the party leaders structured the individual members of their own party into positions of so much personal power that even the party leaders could not control them. As a result, the machinery of Congress slowed down to practically a standstill.

Today the same thing has happened with Democrats. Some of the most important legislation supported by a majority of the Democrats in recent sessions has failed to receive favorable consideration because some powerful and ambitious group in that party had acquired strategic strength to block it. Congressman Rhodes says:

“The congressional process itself is not what it used to be. The institutional deterioration, particularly within the committee structure, is not to be believed. Rayburn and soon Johnson (Lyndon) presided over Democratic Congresses, but those Democratic Congresses were not as entrenched as they are now. In those days, the committees were more responsive to the leadership, because the committee jurisdictions were more clearly defined. Today’s majority leadership is forced to work with a committee structure that is hopelessly confused. It seemingly cannot be reformed from within the ranks of the present Democratic party.”

When this type of reform was attempted in 1973, Richard Bolling of Missouri was given the assignment by the party leaders to remodel the tired and confused power-structure which had evolved in the House during nearly 40 years of Democratic rule. When Bolling submitted the plan which his committee had worked out after numerous hearings, it was scrutinized by the party leaders in terms of what it would do to their own personal positions. As a result, Congressman Bolling found his efforts almost entirely in vain. He said:

“I wasn’t the least bit pleased when a majority of my own party turned on (my) bill and managed to scuttle the major parts of it.” 8

This led Congressman Rhodes to comment: “Genuine Congressional reform will not take place until the American people place control of the Congress in the hands of another political party.” (The Futile System, p. 80)

Rhodes explains why the present majority in the House is incapable of reforming its own power structure now that it is built:

“The Democrats will never agree to the kinds of reform that are needed because a system that has served them well over the years would have to be changed. It is the self-interest factor, powerful and persuasive, that stands in the way of real reform.” 9

Some idea of how badly reform is needed may be gained from the fact that in the House of Representatives there are 14 committees and 27 subcommittees that claim jurisdiction over some phase of the energy crisis. Then there is education. There are 22 standing committees and 70 subcommittees that have some jurisdiction over education. Between all of them they have set up 439 federal programs administered by more than 50 federal agencies that relate to post-secondary education alone. 10

Rhodes is considered a very conscientious Representative of his state but he is often frustrated and critical of the party in power when he sees its leaders apparently unable to perform their legislative responsibilities. He writes:

“The majority of congressional actions are aimed not at producing results for the American people as much as at perpetuating the longevity and comfort of the men who run Congress. It is a rip-off of the American taxpayer, injurious to the national interest and an insult to the dignity of the legislative branch envisioned by the founding fathers. The massive deterioration that has taken place within the U.S. Congress during the past two decades is more than just a pity; it poses serious questions for the future of the country. For unless “the people’s branch” can be reformed, it is unlikely that America will find herself able to meet the pressing challenges that lie ahead.

“Had the party roles been reversed and the Republicans been in power for 39 out of the last 43 years, the same legislative deterioration would have occurred. People who are in power for too long, without any check on their power, inevitably become either arrogant or listless or both. My party would have surely fallen prey to the same natural forces.” 11

It is obvious that both parties are faced with an in-house problem which would be to their mutual advantage to solve. Neither of them are able to keep their party machinery under control after they have been in power too long. Individual leaders in the power structure of the party become so strong that not even a majority of that party can surmount the roadblocks which individual selfishness and political ambition have so arrogantly built.

As this chapter demonstrates, there are good men in both parties who want a change. They want to see the Congress get back on its Constitutional track. It is up to the American people to see that these men get help. They should commit themselves to support only those candidates who will work for this change which is now so desperately needed. Unless this is done the prophecy of Congressman Rhodes might well come to pass — Americans could find their Congress so counter-productive that it would be completely incapable of meeting the challenging problems which lie ahead.

History has demonstrated that Americans are often indifferent to political problems until they become acute. But eventually they rise to the occasion. The situation in Congress has become acute. It is time for the American people to act.

The American founding fathers would be shocked and angry if they knew how the law-making process had been altered in the past 200 years. In fact, most Americans would be amazed to discover that some of their most cherished elements in the Constitution have been rendered virtually meaningless by a gradual erosion of principles which have decayed at a sharply accelerated rate in recent years.

Nothing more dramatically demonstrates what has been happening than the power to make laws which the Constitution gave exclusively to Congress. Under Article I, Section 1, we read:

All legislative (law-making) powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Note that there is no provision whatever for the Supreme Court to hand down rulings which constitute new regulations or rules of personal conduct. There is no provision for the President to issue executive orders which constitute new laws. Nothing is said about administrative bodies proclaiming regulations which fix prices, control business operations and deeply affect the relations of individuals in conducting their private affairs. And most certainly there is no provision for a vast conglomerate of governmental regulatory agencies issuing whole encyclopedia sets of highly complex regulations which threaten heavy fines and imprisonment for violators.

Yet all of these things are now a part of America’s Bi-Centennial life-style and one cannot help wondering how it all came about. The answer is that we are deliberately abandoning the principles of a republic.

Why Do They Call the U.S. a “Dwindling” Republic?

There was one thing the founding fathers had over their modern descendants — they knew their history. As a result, they structured a Constitution which had a built-in capacity to endure on the long-haul providing future generations of Americans had the good sense to keep its principles in their historical perspective. This is what Benjamin Franklin meant when he was asked by a woman what the Constitutional Convention had provided for the people, and he replied: “A Republic, if you can keep it!”

Webster’s Dictionary defines a republic as “a state or nation in which the supreme power rests in all the citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives Elected directly or indirectly by them and Responsible to them.” Therefore, anytime the people begin to find themselves governed by those whom they did not elect and find their affairs regulated by officials who are not responsible to them, their form of government has ceased to be a genuine republic. This is particularly true where the non-elected administrators of government are writing their own rules and provisions designed to give them the legal basis for the regulations by which they impose their will upon the people.

Already Americans are beginning to feel the oppressive weight of this heavy-handed bureaucracy. Every week the mails to Congress are burdened with vehement complaints which in many cases are similar to those charged against King George III. Like this one: “He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”

Early Americans had one word to describe their complaints: “Tyranny!”

The Founders’ Formula for the Prevention of Tyranny

Every school child knows that the framers of the American Constitution relied upon two basic principles to avoid future governmental tyranny. One was called the “separation of powers,” and the other was called, “checks and balances.” But what these same school children are not taught and most of their parents have never suspected is that both principles have been largely abandoned.

As Professor Kenneth Culp Davis states in his text on Administrative Law, “In our theoretical discussions we should frankly recognize that we have abandoned the basic idea that executive, legislative, and judicial power should be separated from each other in order to protect us against tyranny.” 1

In other words, we have deliberately combined these three functions in administrative agencies and we are getting exactly what James Madison and the other founders warned us against:

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elected, may just pronounce the very definition of tyranny.” 2

Of course, the abandonment of separation of powers also meant the abandonment of checks and balances in those same areas. That is why the Constitutional safeguards against abuse by governmental agencies is not functioning as it should. That is also the major reason why Americans are spending tens of millions fighting the governments in the courts and writing millions of letters to Congress each year pleading for relief.

Congress Never Should Have Delegated Its Law-Making Powers

When the founding fathers granted power to Congress to make all the laws which they knew would become the supreme law of the land, they never authorized nor intended that Congress would delegate that power. Certainly they would have been alarmed if they had known that this power would be delegated to non-elected administrators in the executive branch of government. That is precisely what Parliament and King George did to provoke the Revolutionary War.

Since the sovereign authority of government is in the people and the people have placed the power in Congress to make laws, that power must not be handed over to strangers whom the people did not elect and who are not directly responsible to the people nor removable by the people.

John Locke put it this way, “The legislative (branch) neither must nor can (it) transfer the power of making laws to anybody else, or place it anywhere but where the people have.” 3

Since sovereign authority to govern is originated in the people themselves, the Congress serves as an agent of the people. Under the law of agency, an agent cannot delegate the performance of a duty which is uniquely attached to the agent’s own special qualities or capabilities and therefore involves a relationship of special trust bestowed upon the agent by his principal. An artist who had contracted to paint a portrait would be an example. The agency relationship between the Congress and the people is similar. The Supreme Court has stated this principle time and again: “That Congress cannot delegate legislative power to the president is a principle universally recognized as vital to the integrity and maintenance of the system of government ordained by the Constitution.” 4

Nevertheless, in spite of this fixed position in principle, the Court has gradually made exceptions until the whole concept has ceased to have meaning.

How the Law-Making Powers Began Drifting

In 1813 the Supreme Court sustained Congress in passing an act which allowed the President to fix the time when the law would go into effect if certain conditions were found to exist. 5

In 1912 the Supreme Court sustained an act which authorized the President to negotiate a commercial agreement with foreign governments and fix tariff rates at whatever level the President felt was best for the country. 6 Note that this allowed the President to establish tariff rates without any further approval or guidance from Congress, and his executive order had the force of law upon the American people seeking to import goods from abroad.

An even wider latitude was granted the President when the Supreme Court approved a case in 1928 which turned on whether or not the Congress could delegate to the President the task of determining the cost of production in certain foreign countries as compared to the United States and then raising or lowering the tariff rates at his discretion. 7 The court went a long way in opening up the dikes by asserting that Congress was simply securing the “assistance” of the Executive Branch “according to common sense and the inherent necessities” of the case.

In 1935 the court ruled in the Panama and Schecter cases that the Congress had gone too far in its delegation of law-making power, but the very next year it held in the Curtiss-Wright Export Case that in foreign affairs, at least, the President had the inherent authority to prohibit the sale of arms to belligerents and impose criminal penalties on violators whether the Constitution had provided for it or not. 8 This gave foundation for the wide-open decision which sustained the 1970 Lend-Lease Act giving the President “a carte blanche authority to furnish military supplies to the Allies at his own discretion.” 9

By 1970 the pattern of having Congress simply “point the way” and then allow the Executive branch to write the actual regulations had become so routine that a Democratic Congress turned over to a Republican President the power to set up price controls and virtually manacle American commerce under the so-called Economic Stabilization Act. S.H. Friedelbaum comments on this reckless and unprecedented delegation of law-making power: “… the 1970 legislation contains no declaration of purpose other than the cryptic title designation, cost of living stabilization. The standards supplied, if anything, are more vague than those found in the wartime statute. Congress in 1970 authorized the president to issue orders and regulations as he may deem appropriate in order to provide for the making of such adjustment as may be necessary to prevent gross inequities. No administrative agency is designed or created. Instead the president is permitted to delegate the performance of any function under the act to any federal department or agency ‘as he may deem appropriate’.” 10

This act constituted the high water mark of unconstitutional delegation of law-making power in the United States. In addition, it seemed to create a climate of total resignation by both the public and the Congress that this unfortunate trend is the wave of the future. Actually the wave has been rising rapidly during the past three decades and this is vividly demonstrated in a brief review of not only the surrender of law-making power by the Congress to the President but by the equally serious usurpation of authority by the Presidential office in issuing “Executive Orders.”

The History of Presidential Executive Orders

The issuing of executive orders by the President has gone through three stages. The first stage was entirely Constitutional. It consisted of orders to the various departments of government outlining the means by which acts of Congress would be carried out. During this stage the executive orders were designed to implement and enforce the law, not make new law.

The second stage involved executive orders which began to assert elements of power over the nation at large and not merely the departments of government. Presidents Cleveland, McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt all participated in flexing their administrative muscles by issuing executive orders. Cleveland issued 71, McKinley 51, and Theodore Roosevelt 1006! Teddy Roosevelt had a “strong President” interpretation of his Constitutional prerogatives. Instead of limiting his activities to the “enumerated powers” he decided he had the power to do anything not specifically forbidden by the Constitution. He said later: “Under this interpretation of Executive power I did and caused to be done many things not previously done by the President and the heads of the Departments. I did not usurp powers, but I did greatly broaden the use of Executive power.” 11

This, then, set the stage for the explosion of executive orders which President Wilson employed during World War I. Based on “implied authority” under the war powers provisions of the Constitution, he used executive orders to set up the Food Administration, the Grain Corporation, the War Trade Board, and the Committee on Public Information without their being specifically or individually authorized by Congress.

The third stage came with another upsurge of executive orders during the great depression and World War II. In a sense this was an extension of the second stage but it was characterized by such a volume of executive orders that it is officially referred to as the “New Deal Stage.” Executive Orders became so numerous that Congress passed the Federal Register Act in 1935 which required the publication of all Executive Orders in the Federal Register and their subsequent filing with the U.S. Archives. The State Department previously had custody of these orders and began numbering all they could find from 1907 on. However, it is estimated that the unnumbered orders lying in government files may be as many as 15,000. To gain some idea of the quantity of orders being poured out on the public as well as governmental agencies, the official count of registered Executive Orders by 1974 had reached 11,766. 12

From the standpoint of the founding fathers, both stage two and stage three of this historical development were unconstitutional and in direct violation of the provision that “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States….” It will be recalled that in 1928 the Supreme Court justified the delegation of law-making power from the Congress to the President on the ground that it was “according to common sense and the inherent necessities” of the case. 13 It has been in this same spirit that Presidential Executive Orders have been tolerated with very little resistance.

As the nation moved away from the fundamental precepts of a republic and turned more and more to centralized government just as socialist countries have done all over the world, the inflation of power in the Executive branch has expanded tremendously at the expense of the Congress and the individual states. No doubt this trend will continue until the majority of the people realize that Blackstone was right when he said: “In all tyrannical governments … the right both of making and enforcing the laws is vested in one and the same man, or one and the same body of men; and wherever these two bodies are united together, there is no public liberty.” 14

The Constitutional Remedy

Fortunately, there is a Constitutional solution to the problem when the majority of the people have finally decided that enough is enough. It simply consists of electing a body of men and women to the United States Congress who are dedicated and committed to restoring the fundamental principles of government enunciated by the founders in the original Constitution. Such a Congress would begin phasing out the ominous cloud of regulatory agencies with their stacks of self-serving rules and debilitating, freedom-destroying mandates. Such a Congress would seek to restore fiscal responsibility and refuse to spend any more of the next generation’s inheritance. That future Congress will no doubt return to the States and local governments the conglomerate of social and economic responsibilities which it found impossible to carry out from Washington successfully. Such action will greatly simplify the pattern of government on the federal level, reduce the burden of federal taxes, and invigorate the whole structure of American industry and enterprise.

Some may doubt that such a reversal is possible, but time is the great political physician. History says the change will come. The American temperament was not designed to endure political aggrandizement or authoritarian bureaucracy for long.

Recently, Richard L. Strout, dean of the Washington Press Corps, handed the United States Congress a left-handed jaw breaker by flatly stating that our distinguished law-making assembly of Congress, which is the most powerful legislative body in the world, should be abandoned in its present form and set up under a parliamentary system similar to England and her dominions.

A suggestion such as this would have shocked the Founding Fathers because they considered the parliamentary system two steps backward from the American three-department power structure which they had provided in the Constitution. Of course, political machinery is like industrial machinery. It is designed to be assembled and work in a certain way. It is also designed to perform an assigned task. When political machinery is assembled improperly and forced to function in areas for which it was never designed, it will perform just about like an industrial machine. It will lose its compression, begin making awful clanking noises, and more likely than not, stop performing.

That is what Richard L. Strout says he has seen happening in the United States Congress.

The Original Formula

In the beginning the United States Congress was rather simple. The people elected representatives to the House, and the state legislatures appointed two senators to represent the territory and rights of each particular state. Both the House and the Senate made up their own rules, elected a few necessary officers and set about the business of passing the few laws which came within the purview of the Federal government.

In 1801 the newly elected President, Thomas Jefferson, found the system working so well that he saw little need for adding any new laws to the federal register. Said he:

“The path we have to pursue is so quiet that we have nothing scarcely to propose to our Legislature (the Congress). A noiseless course not meddling with the affairs of others, unattractive of notice, is a mark that society is going on in happiness.” 2

However, even at this early date, the first seeds had already been sown which would grow and ripen into living political vegetation producing some strange fruits. None of these new implants in the political system were more disruptive than the rise of two separate political parties.

Political Parties

Of course, the Founders knew there would be “factions” and special interest groups to plague the Congress, but the Founders had hoped that these factions would remain fluid and temporary rather than crystallize into firm organizational structures of established political parties. By 1800, however, the factions of Federalists and anti-Federalists had structured themselves into solid bulwarks of political party power.

In his Farewell Address, President Washington expressed the most profound anxiety about the development of these “factions.” He wrote:

“… all combinations and associations under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberations and actions of the constituted authorities, are destructive…. They serve to organize faction, to give an artificial and extraordinary force, to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of the party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils, and modified by mutual interests.”

A Note on the Two-Party System

Perhaps the development of political parties was inevitable. And there are many authorities who point out that the United States is fortunate to have developed a two-party system rather than the multi-party systems which emerged in Europe. In a multi-party system a small minority representing the “swing vote” can intimidate the major parties and extort concessions which are neither proper nor beneficial. There are also other complications with multi-party systems involving party coalitions and the imposing of severe compromises on the dominant party which was elected by the majority to run the government.

But even with a two-party system, the power of political bosses who regulate the internal structure of the Congress, can be extremely harmful to the legislative process as the Founders envisioned it. Nevertheless, during most of our history, the two parties have generally cooperated together on national concerns. It is only in recent years that old-time Congressmen see a very unhealthy situation developing which could totally discredit the Founders’ legislative formula.

Congressman John J. Rhodes wrote a book entitled The Futile System. In it he emphasized how rapidly the people’s control of Congress has deteriorated in the last two decades. He indicates that Washington’s prophetic words are being completely and literally fulfilled. Here are Congressman Rhodes’ comments:

“The majority of congressional actions are aimed not at producing results for the American people as much as perpetuating the longevity and comfort of the men who run Congress. It is a rip-off for the American taxpayer, injurious to the national interest and an insult to the dignity of the legislative branch envisioned by the Founding Fathers. The massive deterioration that has taken place within the U.S. Congress during the past two decades is more than just a pity; it poses serious questions for the future of the country. For unless “the people’s branch” can be reformed — and soon — it is unlikely that America will find herself able to meet the pressing challenges that lie ahead.” 3

One need only check off a few of the actions of Congress in recent years to illustrate the disdain which some of the leaders have developed toward the expressed desires of the majority of the American people. For example, polls show that the will of the majority has not been respected in the busing legislation which Congress has approved year after year; nor in the giving away of the Panama Canal and paying a pro-Castro Communist dictator vast quantities of money to take it off our hands; nor in the massive loans and grants-in-aid to foreign countries, many of which are either Communist or pro-communist, and have been continually filling the airwaves with vituperations against the United States. Nor were the people in favor of raising the debt ceiling year after year; nor in running up tens of billions of dollars in deficit spending; nor in setting up gigantic regulatory agencies with a record of serious abuses which the ordinary citizen or small business cannot afford to fight in expensive litigation; nor in setting up a gigantic Federal Department of Education; nor in spending $10 billion a year for a counter-productive Energy Commission. But the spending went on.

The Monolithic Power Structure Inside Congress Many Congressmen

Many Congressmen have pointed out in speeches and books that the most corruptive and corrosive factor which prevents the “will of the people” from getting through the legislative channels in the people’s House of Representatives is the fact that five positions which are always held by the majority party are like massive legislative valves that shut off any bills the leaders of the majority do not approve. On the other hand, procedures have been developed so that they can virtually coerce the Congress into accepting a considerable amount of legislation which might otherwise be rejected.

Congressman John Rhodes says the six critical positions which operate like feudal fiefdoms in the House of Representatives are at present as follows:

1. The Speaker of the House

2. The Majority Leader

3. The Majority Whip

4. The Caucus Chairman

5. The Chairman of the House Administration Committee

6. The Chairman of the House Rules Committee

Here is how these positions have been structured to serve political bosses and political leaders rather than the American people.

Speaker of the House

The Speaker is elected by the members of the majority party to be the quarterback for their team. He has all the authority of a chairman in charge of the debates, reports, and procedures in daily sessions. He is also able to make some of the most important appointments to positions of power. As the chief strategist and tactician of the party he tends to be extremely party-conscious. He works closely with the President when the chief executive is a member of his own party but often works just as hard to make points directly against the President when the latter is not of the Speaker’s party.

Whether important bills move smoothly through the legislative channels is largely the responsibility of the Speaker. Not so long ago Congressman Robert Carr of Michigan commented on the impotency of the House leadership saying, “The leadership is out of touch with Congress, and Congress is out of touch with the country. The leadership is still trying to find 1935 answers to 1975 questions.” 4

One of the most serious problems connected with the present arrangement in the election of the Speaker is the fact that he has no limitation on the length of his office. This allows him to build up a tremendous power base. This might be good for the party he serves but it certainly violates the best interests of the people’s House of Representatives.

Suggested Reform: The office of speaker should be for two years and the incumbent should not be allowed to succeed himself.

The Majority Leader

There would be no such office as Majority Leader in the House or Senate if it were not for the political party system. As it exists, the Majority Leader is an important cog in the monolithic flywheel of power in Congress. First of all, he schedules bills on the calendar to suit his own purposes. He can put a controversial bill on the calendar with very little notice and thereby take the opposition by surprise. On the other hand, if the Majority Whip finds that the opposition to a bill is too well-organized to get it passed, the Majority Leader can pull the bill off the calendar at the last moment in order to give his party troops time to marshal the necessary votes to overcome the opposition.

The Majority Leader has the duty to announce toward the end of each week the legislative calendar for the following week. Members of both parties base their travel schedules, committee hearings, and other commitments on this information. A tactical device available to the Majority Leader is to make last-minute changes in the schedule after the members have already made appointments back home on the basis of the original announcement. This is only one of many tricks which an unethical Majority Leader can impose on the minority party to hinder it from pushing through some legislation of its own.

Before Tip O’Neill was Speaker of the House he served as Majority Leader. After the opposition party objected to his tactics in short-circuiting their bills, Tip O’Neill retorted: “Republicans are just going to have to get it through their heads that they are not going to write legislation!” 5

Suggested Remedy: The House should make it a rule that once the legislative calendar is announced, it cannot be changed without the consent of the Minority Leader.

The Majority Whip

It is the responsibility of the party Whip to communicate the will of the party leaders to the rank-and-file. It is also his responsibility to pass on to the members of the party what the upcoming legislative calendar will be after the Majority Leader has made the selection.

On important bills, it is the responsibility of the Whip to canvass the party supporters to see if they will hold the line and vote with their leaders. He must also canvass the party members and advise the party leaders in advance what the vote tally will be on a particular bill. If the number of votes is inadequate, it is his job to work with the party leadership to solidify existing support and try to convince the uncommitted party members to close ranks.

The Majority Whip is chosen by the Speaker and the Majority Leader. For all practical purposes he is primarily a party functionary rather than an objective and independent legislator in the United States Congress.

There is no remedy for this situation since it is a natural outgrowth of political party structure. The successful function of each party in the legislative process requires party Whips in order to be effective. Nevertheless, if the recommended reforms went into operation, the role of the party Whips would be less formidable.

The Caucus Chairman

A caucus is a meeting of the party leadership and sometimes the party members. The purpose of the caucus is to discuss particular bills and the strategy to be used in passing or defeating them. The caucus is also important as an educational forum to gain a consensus of understanding concerning the nature and implications of a particular bill.

The political perversion of the caucus arises when it is used for secret, closed-door sessions to intimidate the members of the party into voting according to the dictates of the party leadership rather than according to conscience.

The party leadership has at its disposal important appointments, party funds, the giving or withholding of support for a Congressman’s legislative needs in his own particular district, etc. All of these can become weapons in the hands of party managers to force party members into line during a caucus meeting.

Beginning at the turn of the century, the perversion of the party caucus for political intimidation became particularly prevalent. However, in 1975 the Republican leadership announced a new policy for their caucus meetings. Party conferences were opened to the public and press. They also announced that when the Republican Party gained a majority in the House, it would no longer appoint the chairmen of various committees exclusively on the basis of seniority, but simply count it as one of several factors to consider. They recommended that the practice of coercing party members to commit themselves to vote a certain way (called “unit rule”) should be outlawed. It was pointed out that:

By means of the “unit rule,” as few as one-third of the members of the Democratic Caucus can dictate procedural and substantive matters in the various committees and may well determine the legislative outcome on the House Floor. This is a most serious if not unconstitutional affront to our democratic system. Allegiance to the Caucus, under the “unit rule” procedure takes precedence over one’s conscience and the needs of one’s constituencies. 6

Suggested Reform: All caucus conferences should be open to the public and the press and the “unit rule” of caucus control over the voting rights of party members should be outlawed.

Chairman of the Committee on House Administration

Until recent years this committee was a very minor assignment with little more than routine bookkeeping chores, but when Congressman Wayne L. Hays became its chairman he transformed this committee into a substantial power base. In 1971 he pushed through a bill which authorized this committee to issue office allowances and personal benefits to Congressmen without a ratifying vote by the full House.

In short order Hays began authorizing the expenditure of funds by Congressmen without any specific legislative authority other than the general enabling act granted to his committee. Congressmen found themselves with a 116% increase in the number of trips a Member could make to his home District and back, an 85% increase in a Member’s stationery allowance, a 300% increase for optional travel and a 75% increase in the funds available for District office rentals.

Inflation had made some of these increases necessary, but the defect in the procedure was allowing the Committee on House Administration to pass out these expenditures involving tens of millions of dollars without the Congress specifically approving them. By this means the principle of accountability was violated and in all probability it also violated the Constitutional requirement in Article I, section 8 that “No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law….” An appropriation made by the ruling of a Congressional committee would hardly seem to satisfy this specific Constitutional requirement.

Suggested Reform: No committee should be authorized to commit the U.S. Treasury to any expenditure of funds which has not been specifically authorized by the Congress itself.

Chairman of the Rules Committee

There has to be a Rules Committee in the House to regulate the flow of legislation from the various committees to the House floor. However, party managers have manipulated the authority of this committee into a powerful choke-hold on the legislative process which can be devastating to the legitimate requirements of the law-making responsibilities of the House.

Every bill requires a “rule” from this committee before it can reach the Floor, therefore, the Rules Committee can effectively kill a piece of legislation simply by denying it a “rule.” Furthermore, the rule issued by the Committee on a particular bill can restrict the main body of the House from a full discussion or even prevent the bill from being changed. The Rules Committee can thereby cut off from Floor discussion a wide range of legislative options which might be available. To the average citizen it may seem totally nonsensical, but the fact remains that under existing procedures the Rules Committee can send a bill to the floor under a “closed rule” and no amendment to this bill can be offered from the Floor.

It is interesting that for many years the Speaker of the House was always the chairman of the Rules Committee. However, conservative Republican “Joe” Cannon so abused this double portion of power under the aegis of these two positions that they were separated in 1910. But it was virtually an idle gesture. The Speaker won the right to personally appoint the Chairman of the Rules Committee so the two continued to work for all practical purposes as one entity.

Suggested Remedy: All legislation should be the product of all the people’s representatives; therefore it should be sent to the Floor under an “open” rule. The “unit rule” should be outlawed.

A Political Party Exhibits Moral Decay When Left In Power Too Long

The history of the past 200 years clearly demonstrates that the weaknesses of any human structure such as the Congress will be ferreted out and exploited to the hilt by any political party which is allowed to remain in power too long. For example, the Republican Party thoroughly corrupted the legislative process during their long domination of Congress beginning in 1860 and extending off and on up until 1911. A similar reign of prolonged power by the Democrats began in 1933 and projected its control of Congress up through most of the next 48 years. In both cases the party leaders took advantage of structural weakness (or created some of their own) in order to impose their will on the people’s representatives, often to the serious detriment of the nation’s welfare.

One of the reasons why an objective, bi-partisan reform of the Congress is so desperately needed is the existence of several procedures and practices which short-circuit the legitimate law-making authority of the Congress as originally designed by the Founders. This has created a monstrous credibility gap between Washington and the people. This is what led the veteran press corps observer, Richard L. Strout, to suggest that we dump the whole system and adopt the parliamentary approach to law-making. Unfortunately, history has shown that this is not a viable option. We would be much better off keeping our Congress but cleaning off the barnacles from the ship of state.

Here are some of the biggest barnacles where power piles up in quantities that frustrate the healthy flow of legislative issues.

The Untouchable Committee Chairmen

During the four decades of almost continuous power in the Congress by the Democrats, the leadership has followed the custom of appointing committee chairmen according to their seniority. Once appointed, they remain in their positions until they die, retire, or the opposition party takes over. Three unfortunate and sometimes tragic developments have resulted from this practice.

First of all, it has given these committee chairmen such a sense of security in their jobs that they often become arrogant toward the whole body of Congress, including their own party. When Representative Philip Campbell of Kansas was serving as the chairman of the House Rules Committee, he said to the rest of the committee who were trying to get some important bills released:

“You can go to hell. It makes no difference what a majority of you decide. If it meets with my disapproval, it shall not be done. I am the committee. In me reposes absolute obstructive power.” 7

A second difficulty has been the reluctance of the party leadership to remove a chairman who has lost public confidence because of a sex scandal or other malfeasance in his personal life. A number of these instances have occurred just within the past few years. Party leaders have often behaved as though they were virtually powerless to remove these offenders.

A third problem has been senility. Some chairmen have been in their positions of power so long their metabolical processes have deteriorated. Eighty-four-year old Ray J. Madden of Indiana was finally defeated after serving 17 terms in the House. Prior to that time his advanced seniority had given him the chairmanship of the powerful Rules Committee and on several occasions his disorientation and inability to concentrate on the business at hand almost produced a crisis for the nation.

For example, during an international crisis involving an arms embargo, the House and Senate worked far into the night hammering out a joint resolution. Finally, the Senate passed the resolution and rushed it over to the House. However, the House could not act on the matter without a “rule” from the House Rules Committee. Right at this moment when Ray Madden, the chairman of the Rules Committee, was so urgently needed, he absent-mindedly rose from his seat, left the chamber, climbed into his car and went home. By the time the rest of the House realized what had happened it was too late. The Speaker refused to appoint a temporary chairman and so the House was forced to adjourn for a holiday without the needed action being taken.

Although most Democratic Congressmen sympathized with the elderly Madden, they nevertheless wanted the party leadership to replace him, but the seniority rule prevailed to the bitter end. Madden had the annoying habit of whistling during committee meetings. Members of the Rules Committee have been known to walk out of hearings in disgust because the chairman could not maintain a relevant train of thought in conducting the hearings.

Suggested Remedy: After each congressional election, new chairmen should be elected through secret ballot by the members of the majority party. No chairman should be elected for more than two years and no chairman should be allowed to succeed himself.

One Congressman stated that the idea of rotating chairmen would solve 90% of the problems presently plaguing the Congress.

Unpublicized Pay Raises

In 1967 the members of Congress felt they deserved a raise in pay but were hesitant to risk a backlash from the public because it was a time of high inflation and serious unemployment.

The party leadership decided to get the raise indirectly and without publicity. This was achieved by establishing a new commission to recommend pay rates for members of Congress, top executives in the government, and federal judges.

A new law was passed providing that this Commission could make recommendations to the President and the President could then incorporate the suggested raises in his next budget. The law further provided that unless Congress passed a “motion of disapproval” which would cancel these recommendations, the raises went into effect automatically. The Democrats were in charge of Congress and they made any “motion of disapproval” a non-privileged motion. This meant that no individual Member could get such a motion onto the Floor for debate without the acquiescence of the majority leadership.

Later on, the 94th Congress further subverted the system by passing a bill tying the salaries of the Members of Congress and other top government officials to the “cost of living” index. This provided that as the cost of living goes up, so does a Member’s pay. He will never have to cast a vote on the matter.

It is believed these developments emphasize a need which has existed for a long time to get the people’s representatives in both the House and the Senate off the federal payroll. James Madison said this whole arrangement was “indecent.”

Suggested Solution: It is recommended that a uniform level of salary be established by an act of Congress; however, except for expenses directly related to the work of the national government, all salaries or other emoluments should be paid to Senators and Members of the House of Representatives by their respective states.

It is believed that this proposal would be politically popular among the people. However, because of the provision in Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution, this proposal would require a Constitutional amendment.

Democrats Attempt to Force Their Leaders to Reform Congress

When it became apparent to the Democrats in Congress that the best interests of both the country and the party were being defeated by machinations set up by a small handful of their party leaders who had entrenched themselves in positions of power, they decided to force through a reform bill which would make the Congress functional again.

On January 31, 1973, the House voted to set up a bi-partisan Select Committee with Congressman Richard Bolling, a Democrat from Missouri, as the chairman. This committee was to begin by restructuring the confused network of House Committee assignments. Some idea of the fantastic miasma of mishmash which exists in Committee assignments may be deducted from the fact that 33 committees and 65 subcommittees claim jurisdiction over some phase of Energy Research and Development.

Education is another example. There are 22 standing committees in the house and 18 of them claim some degree of jurisdiction over education. In addition there are more than 70 subcommittees involved. Collectively, they have given birth to 439 federal programs administered by 50 separate federal agencies relating to higher education alone.

As a result of this multilateral distribution of the committee workload, there are numerous hearings, mountains of paper in voluminous reports, a constant flow of press conferences, lots of noise, but no decisive legislative action.

The whole procedure is maddening to the bureaus and administrators in the Executive Branch of the government. For example, in merely eight months officials involved in energy were called to testify before 86 separate Congressional panels. They made 344 appearances, gave 732 hours of testimony based on an estimated 15,000 hours of briefings and preparing reports or memoranda. 8

It was a herculean task for the Bolling Committee to start unraveling such a snarled ball of yarn, but after 14 months of exhaustive hearings and an expenditure of $1.5 million of taxpayers money, the Select Committee on Congressional Reform was ready to report.

The Proposed Reform is Stonewalled

The Bolling Report for Congressional reform was strongly supported by both Democrats and Republicans, but when the Speaker and various committee chairmen saw what it was going to do to their individual kingdoms of power, there was a mad scramble to sidetrack the whole proposal.

This was accomplished by the Democratic leaders calling a caucus and voting by secret ballot to assign the Bolling plan to a subcommittee for complete revision. Therefore a watered-down bill was pushed through which changed nothing of significance and House business continued along its muddled meandering as in the past.

Many Democrats, including Congressman Bolling, were bitterly disappointed that this much-needed reform had been stonewalled by the emasculating forces in their own party. In the end they had received far more support from the Republicans than they had received from their own leaders.

The Republicans Set Up a Task Force to Map Out a Reform

Shortly after the Bolling plan failed, the Republican leadership in the House established a task force to examine the broad spectrum of the whole legislative process in order to come up with some viable answers of their own.

Because of the history of the Bolling Select Committee, the Republicans knew they would get substantial support from many Democrats if the Republicans ever gained control of the House so that a reform could be initiated.

Here are some of the major recommendations of the Republican task force.

1. Conduct open committee hearings except where public disclosure would be inimical to the national interest.

2. All committee records should be available to the public with a recorded vote on each committee decision regardless of the number present at a hearing or conference.

3. Jurisdiction on specific issues should be assigned exclusively to specific committees.

4. Members of Congress should only be allowed to serve on one standing committee at a time.

5. Each standing committee should outline at the beginning of each Congress its plans for “oversight” supervision of those governmental operations assigned to that committee.

6. Automatically terminate every government program which does not undergo a mandatory four-year review and justify the reasons for its continuance.

7. Since the majority party has a tendency to swell the ranks of government to its own advantage, the main oversight watchdog of the Congress — the Government Operations Committee — should be permanently under the direction of the minority party.

8. No committee member should be allowed to turn over his vote to another member and thereby record a “proxy” vote when he was not even present at the meeting.

9. No member should be bound by party leaders in caucus to vote a certain way. The “unit rule” should be outlawed.

10. There should be a firm schedule of legislation published in the Congressional Record at least one week in advance and all bills should be considered by the full House.

11. The Congressional Record should reflect accurately and authentically what actually happens in the chambers of the House and Senate just as the record does in the courts. No member should be allowed to change his remarks on the floor, but supplemental material should be authorized so long as it is clearly identified as an addendum to what was said on the Floor. Supplementary material appearing in the record should be restricted to matters of legislative interest.

12. Minority party members should be allowed up to one-third of the total committee staff in order to adequately prepare the data needed to reflect an opposing view where needed.

13. Party representation on committees or subcommittees should be apportioned according to their relative membership in the House itself.

Bring the Congress Back Under the Constitution

The Republican Task Committee also recommended that the Congress should have its own legislative goals and not depend on the power-building tendency of the Executive Branch to dictate the legislative priorities of the Congress.

The Congress needs to show its independence by vigorously pursuing a policy of bringing all programs of the government back under the Constitution. It is estimated that over half of the federal budget is used for programs that are not authorized by the Constitution nor its amendments. The fact that the Supreme Court has embraced the political climate of collectivism and sustained these non-constitutional expenditures, merely compounds the offense against the American people. It does not make them Constitutional. In a future study we will discuss the Judicial Reform Amendment which is needed to bring the Supreme Court back under the control of the people.

It should be kept in mind that under the principles of Socialism which have dominated government policy for over 40 years, the Executive Department is the source of central control and the Legislature is merely a cosmetic agency of formal approval or a rubber-stamp endorsement. The Founding Fathers had it turned around the other way. The Congress was to decide policy and programming. The Executive was simply to administer it. In fact, all the Constitution allows the President to do is “give to the Congress information of the state of the Union, and recommend for their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” (Article II, Section 3) It was up to the Congress to decide what to do about it.

What Socialism Has Done to the Congress

Only the older Congressmen remember what it was like before the powers of government invaded the regulation of nearly the entire economy and increased taxation 10,000%. In 1954 Congressman John J. Rhodes was the first Republican elected from the state of Arizona. He later became the minority leader in the House. Congressman Rhodes describes how different it was in those days when Congress was operating within the channels of the Constitution far more strictly than it is today. He writes:

“Most everything in those days was done on a smaller scale. The staffs were smaller, The workload was smaller. The pressures were lighter. When I first started as a Congressman I had a staff of five…. In the early days, I received an average of ten to twelve constituent letters a day. Now it is a rare day that I do not receive at least 150 letters from home. A typical session [of Congress] usually lasted until July or maybe early August. When the time arrived for Congress to adjourn, usually at the hottest point in summer, my administrative assistant would pack up office supplies and files and we would all move back to Arizona for the remainder of the year. It was unusual for a Congressman to be able to afford a permanent district office in those days.” 9

Much that has happened since those days has literally fulfilled the warning of Thomas Jefferson when he wrote that: “a single consolidated government would become the most corrupt government on earth.”

Twenty-one years later he saw certain influences which he felt would become rooted in our society and destroy the American charter of liberty. He wrote:

“Our government is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.” 10

In the Federalist Paper No. 45, Madison pointed out how important it was to prevent the Federal Government from meddling in the affairs of the States and the privacy of individuals. Today the continuous violation of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments has become typical of the American life style.

Unconstitutional Programs Should be Closed Out, Not Phased Out

We need people elected to Congress in 1982 who will take their oath of office seriously and start a massive roll-back away from Socialism and federal collectivism so that Americans can breathe free under the Constitution once again.

The roll-back should commence early in 1983. The first order of business should be the reform of Congress itself so that it can become operational once more. It must reflect the will of the people instead of party bosses if it is to regain its credibility.

Then we need a massive deregulation and removal of the federal government from the economy. This does not mean the doctrine of laissez faire as some would suggest, because government does indeed have the responsibility to serve as a referee, but it was not intended to become involved as a competitor and certainly not as a mad meddler.

The Congress should start cutting the budget a hundred billion dollars at a time for three or four years. Programs of no Constitutional authority or which have proved useless should be cut out, not phased out. For some reason or other “phased-out” programs never die.

There needs to be a massive monetary reform with somebody besides bankers setting up the system. We need to go back to Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln. We need to start issuing our own money based on precious metals and begin outlawing fractional banking.

We need a judicial reform where five Supreme Court justices can no longer impose their will on the people in violation of sound constitutional principles and the well-being of the country.

We need to revive the Monroe Doctrine, use peaceful pressures to clip the talons of terroristic foreign governments, and build the technology of our armed strength where an attack involves too great a risk for Communist adventurers.

Reduce the Sessions of Congress to Five Months

Only legislatures in Socialist countries need to be in session year-round. An American Congress should spend two months in conducting its committee hearings, and no more than three months in evaluating and finalizing legislation. Then they should go home, This was the original design and we need to get back to it.

The President can always call a special session if necessary but even these, except in time of war or serious emergency, should never extend beyond two months.

Congressmen should maintain their homes and live most of the time in the states they represent. They should be compensated by their respective states and not look upon themselves as part of the federal establishment as many of them do now. In our day Congressmen have to represent around half-a-million people when they go to Washington. They cannot adequately maintain contact with the people they represent unless they are living among them most of the time. When they live almost year-round in Washington, they feel they should be “passing laws” and solving all the problems of the universe. We already have too many laws, too many programs, and too many taxes to pay for them. What Americans need above everything else is more freedom from government. The government has plenty to do fulfilling its assigned task of providing a better quality of justice, a stronger national security, a sounder dollar, and a free flow of commerce.

Restore the Concept of a Citizen Congress

The Founders expected members of Congress to come from the professional ranks of the citizenry. The idea of major offices being occupied by life-long professional politicians was abhorrent to them.

With the passing of time, however, a variety of abuses developed which required remedial action. For example, lawyers or businessmen elected to Congress on the East Coast or the vicinity of Washington, D.C., began taking off Friday and Monday for private business and were only serving in Congress Tuesday to Thursday. In derision other members began calling them the Tuesday-Thursday Club.

The Standards and Ethics Committee also found some Congressmen receiving large payroll checks or dividends from their former businesses or employers. A conflict of interest could arise in these cases.

It was also observed that a number of better-known Congressmen and Senators were often absent making convention speeches for substantial fees.

Efforts to remedy these abuses have proven neither effective nor fair. In fact, the requirement that members of Congress divest themselves of all business connections and most other sources of income has created a Congress of men and women who are so dependent on their jobs as Congressmen that they are subject to potential intimidation by special interest groups and their lobbies.

Suggested Remedy: Only a small prescribed number of absences from Congressional sessions should be allowed. Fines should be automatically imposed for absences in excess of the minimum. Instead of requiring a divestiture of stocks and business connections, a Congressman should be required to declare the percentage of his income from each and every source and be subject to a major penalty set by Congress for failure to do so.

1982 Should Give the Nation a 1983 Reform

Many Americans think they get reform by electing a good President. This is not true. The law-making power is in the Congress. That’s where all of the Socialist programs were passed. That’s where the taxes were increased. That’s where the regulatory throttle was yoked onto the economy. If Americans want reform in 1983 they have got to work for it in 1982. Every voter can readily discover whether he is represented by a big spender and a puppet of party bosses. That kind of representative will never support reform.

Every voter should pick his representatives from among those candidates who have demonstrated their integrity and are committed to sound economics and fundamental Constitutional principles.

Every candidate should be asked if he has taken a course on the Constitution in the tradition of the Founding Fathers. If not, invite him to do so.

No candidate in either party should be elected who is not totally committed to reform. We are too far down the trail to risk another heavy dose of big-brother smotherism. There is nothing ahead but economic collapse, misery and enforced suffering by the people if we don’t start moving back now.

1983 has to be the year.