I’ve recently had the occasion to walk the halls of Congress on Capitol Hill, and the experience is comforting and, at the same time, unsettling.
Comforting, because office visits still seem to be the most viable way for ordinary citizens like you or me to directly contact our elected Representatives and Senators. It’s a tradition that stretches far back in our national history. Even Presidents used to greet people at the White House; Abraham Lincoln set aside major parts of his work day to meet with job seekers, psychics, schemers and pastors. Not many people get appointments with the President these days, but the labyrinthian buildings on each side of the Capitol where the Members have their offices are typically very crowded. Wherever I went, I was preceded or followed by groups representing causes as varied as the protection of Israel, tax breaks for medical equipment manufacturers, pro- and anti-abortion advocates . . . and God knows what else.
Yet I had the distinct feeling that much of this activity, although earnest, was very much a pro forma ritual. By that I mean that there appears to be a widening psychological and physical gulf between those who hold elective office and the voters who put them there. It’s grown to such an extent that, in my view, the world of politics and government resides in a parallel universe with it own language, codes of behavior and established procedures. We citizens are offered a glimpse into this world, but we seldom penetrate it.
Meeting Your Member of Congress
The sense of estrangement is accentuated by security concerns that have, since 2001, placed a series of access barriers between the general public and the offices of official government. You can still visit with your representative, but it takes some doing. Scheduling is something of a challenge, and there’s never any guarantee that the Member will be able to keep the appointment.
Because there’s such demand for visits, and with so much else to do, it is impossible to accommodate everyone who wants a meeting and still leave time for the representative to carry out official duties, such as voting or attending committee hearings. The most common result is the five to 10 minute fast-track meeting, in which the Member quickly shakes hands and extends best wishes to the visiting delegation, and then exits through a side door, leaving a staff person to politely take notes. No wonder Congressional staffers appear glassy-eyed by mid-morning.
There’s nothing at all odious or objectionable about this situation; much of it is unavoidable. And to be fair, many such meetings are pre-scripted by the visitors with “talking points” about whatever issue or cause has brought them to Washington. Members and their staffs have their own repertoire of practiced or canned responses designed to placate the visitors without committing to any particular action. So there is little spontaneity. The result is that many meetings are not much different from those you might have when you exchange pleasant “hellos” with someone you pass by on the street whose name you can’t quite recall.
You could say that Hill visits are mostly all show, but there’s more to be said on this subject. And that is that while we value Congressional visits as our right as citizens, even if they end up being pleasantly perfunctory, there are many others who rely upon these brief interactions as opportunities to influence government policy for themselves and those they represent. Highly paid and politically astute professionals (many are attorneys) representing untold numbers of special interest causes, foreign and domestic, ceaselessly make the rounds of Congressional offices. It’s their job. The good ones, whose names you never see or read about, make comfortable livings securing legislation that benefits or protects small, narrow slices of the American population: ethanol producers, for instance, or insurance carriers, or assault weapon manufacturers. With so much at stake and with so many causes competing for access, money and power frequently determine the winners and the also-rans.
None of this represents an earth-shattering revelation. Lobbying and special interest pleading are as much a part of the fabric of our democracy as Memorial Day parades. But it does help illuminate a cold, blunt reality of the political process in these times: money and power still speak louder than the voice of the common citizen.
We should all expect more, probably, for our five minute appointment.
