[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 126 (Tuesday, August 1, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H8165-H8169]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         VOTERS BILL OF RIGHTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 

[[Page H8166]]
  12, 1995, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. 
Hoekstra] for 30 minutes.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, tonight I come to reflect on the first 
months of this what in many ways may be an historic Congress. We have 
done what many people have said we could not do. Early in this year we 
met our commitments by passing many of the elements, but completing the 
Contract With America. We met our commitment of considering and voting 
on all of this legislation within 100 days. We actually did it within 
93 days.
  After we completed the Contract With America, we completed another 
historic activity which many people in America said we could not do, 
and that is we passed a House budget resolution which puts us on a 7-
year glide path to a balanced budget. We then went on and did an 
additional thing that people said will never happen. We worked through 
our differences with the Senate and we passed a conference budget 
resolution that both the House and the Senate passed which again put us 
on a glide path, a 7-year glide path, to a balanced budget.
  We are now completing this week or have already completed something 
else that people said we probably would not get done. We have passed 10 
appropriations bills through the House of Representatives, 10 
appropriations bills that match or are under the spending caps that 
were contained in our budget resolution. As we finish this week, we 
will probably complete two additional bills, so by the time we go on 
our recess, we will have completed 12 out of the 13 appropriations 
bills within the budget guidelines and the budget caps that were 
outlined in the conference budget resolution.
  The interesting thing with this, as we have gone through this 
process, today in the Washington Times this report comes out. Three of 
four Americans distrust Government, the most in polling history. 
According to this, this came out of a joint survey by Democrat and 
Republican pollsters.
  This I think reflects an unfinished agenda that I hope that this 
Congress will take up during the fall and the winter of 1995 and the 
winter of 1996. We have a responsibility to make this Government, to 
make this House, to make this town, more responsive to the American 
people, to bring back the interconnectiveness between the wishes, the 
desires of what the American people want and what we do here in 
Washington.
  One of the primary reasons for this significant distrust of the 
American people is that so often what people and politicians say in 
their campaign ring hollow once they come to Washington.
  Last week I introduced a series of bills that I call my Voters Bill 
of Rights, a series of legislative initiatives that will, I think, lay 
the framework, create the foundation, for I think renewing American 
citizenship. I have written some thoughts about why I think this is 
needed, why I think it is important, and why I think that these 
initiatives will help deal with this problem of 75 percent of the 
American people not trusting what we do here in Washington.
  The reason is that Washington has to start recognizing that the world 
is changing. There are forces at work in our society, in technology, in 
education, in business, and in health. They are moving us into an area 
of public policy which the current centralized bureaucracy, this 
current centralized Government in Washington, is incapable of 
addressing effectively.
  The challenges we face in the coming years, whether it is Social 
Security, Medicare, taxation, health care, the Federal debt, if they 
are left unresolved, will undermine the legitimacy of our 
constitutional government. Our outdated systems in Washington I think 
need to be completely rethought. I believe that the Voters Bill of 
Rights will do that.
  It is interesting to note that today more Americans between the ages 
of 18 and 40 believe in UFO's than believe in Social Security, or that 
Social Security will be there for them when they retire. They believe 
that we are wasting their money, and they feel helpless to act.
  This national survey again said reasons that people listed for 
distrusting government include 93 percent believe that Washington is 
wasting their money. They feel helpless to act. Poor voter 
participation rates in recent elections reveal a deep lack of 
connectiveness between the American people and those who govern them. 
Elections have become more a battle of sound bites than a substantive 
debate about the issues facing our country.
  Again, the survey indicates that 88 percent of the American people 
believe that politicians will say whatever it will take to get them 
elected, and do whatever they want once they are elected. We have to 
change that relationship and that process. Because when it comes right 
down to it, the bond between our citizens and their Government in 
Washington has been damaged because elected officials are unresponsive 
to critical issues. Issues and parties have less effect on voters' 
decisions. Personalities, money and narrow interests have far too great 
an impact. Through deliberate tactics and fudged by special interests, 
politicians personalize their appeal to voters. What they do is they 
avoid controversial or decisive issues. While this may win elections--I 
do not think it may win elections, I think it does win elections--the 
result is that politicians elected on such personality-centered 
campaigns believe the way to govern is to avoid responding to these 
issue agendas, but merely presenting a pleasing personality and 
satisfying the parochial needs of individuals and narrow interests is 
the best way to govern.
  I think we should be very concerned about this direction and about 
this crisis of confidence. If unchecked, declining confidence will 
destroy the credibility of our national institutions so much that 
governing sensibly will become nearly impossible. I think some people 
would say that we have already reached that point.
  The most important question for those concerned with these problems 
is how to restore confidence in our republican form of government. That 
is republican with a small r.
  Policy making at the national level is really a two-step process. 
First we develop an issue agenda, and then these issues which make it 
on the agenda are debated and they are hopefully settled. Elections 
should allow voters to set the agenda as candidates courting their 
votes debate the relative importance of the issues and their positions 
on them. In casting their vote for a particular candidate, voters 
choose both what issues they want debated and whom they most trust to 
resolve them.
  That is how it should work. But I do not think elections work that 
way anymore. Individual Members of Congress have devoted their staff 
and financial resources to doing individualistic favors and avoiding 
positions on broader national issues. The personalization of 
campaigning means that the agenda settling functions of elections has 
been
 short-circuited, left almost exclusively in the domain of Washington 
centered interests, rather than the broad national interests.

  What I am saying here is that what we should have is we should have 
the national electorate setting the issue agenda for Washington, but 
because elections have become centered on personalities, these 
personalities get elected to Washington and they then set the agenda 
here.
  I think a major corrective step would be to restore the connection 
between national elections and national issues. Unfortunately, one 
cannot rely only on individual candidates to do so, since the current 
campaign strategies are so effective. That is focusing on personalities 
rather than issues.
  So we have to do some other approaches. I think allowing the voters 
to use the Voters Bill of Rights to help set national priorities would 
be an effective way to restore that connection. The ideas contained in 
the Voters Bill of Rights would reconnect issues to Congressional 
elections without violating the basic form of the Constitution or the 
founders' views of the proper role of Government.
  The Constitution is a mix of elements forming our representative 
democracy, a form of government in which people freely choose their 
decision makers, but do not make the decisions themselves. We are and 
should remain a republic. We do not want to go to a pure democracy.
  The founders rightly feared the momentary passions of even the 
limited property owning male and fairly well-educated electorate of 
their time. For them democracy meant rule by the 

[[Page H8167]]
demos, or mob. They evolved a situation to be avoided for its tendency 
to trample minority rights. Madison believed a republican form of 
government would refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them 
through the medium of a chosen body of citizens whose wisdom may best 
discern the true interests of their country, whose patriotism and love 
of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary and 
partial considerations.
  In large measure the main constitutional elements of separation of 
government, separation of powers, federalism and bicameralism, are all 
designed to allow time for the passions of the masses to cool, 
hopefully turning dangerous impulses into more reasoned effective 
change. Madison is usually considered one of the more levelheaded 
founders of this country. His critic of the direct democracy is sound 
and broadly admired. His optimism, however, about--and when is the last 
time we heard people described Congress this way--full of wisdom, 
patriotism and love of justice, love of justice of elected 
representatives, seems, in light of current events, naive and 
anachronistic.
  The brace against the mob rule written by the founders in the 
Constitution should not be lightly dismissed. There are, on the other 
hand, constitutional elements to promote the Democratic impulse. These 
include wide suffrage, short election terms for the House of 
Representatives, and the required origin of all money bills in the 
House.
  Constitutional amendments have been added, they include the expansion 
of the right to vote and to make the Senate directly elected. Remember, 
the Senate used to be appointed. Guaranteed participation rights to 
excluded groups preserved and promoted individual freedoms. Extra 
constitutional development, such as the rise of mass political parties 
and the expansion of offices filled by elections, have further enhanced 
the voice of all the people. Sadly, these changes to broaden 
participation have not improve our Government or are not effective in 
dealing with some of the problems that we face today.
                              {time}  2045

  The changes clearly have made elected officials more responsive to 
the immediate opinion of individual voters, yet major issues remain 
unresolved. Individual citizens have more opportunities to participate 
in political debate but see little substance in what is being debated. 
Institutional developments and campaign change made Members of Congress 
almost invulnerable to mass public judgment, while at the same time 
empowered them to manipulate the opinions of isolated constituencies 
and individuals.
  Representatives cultivated individuals through case work, narrow 
constituencies by targeted mail and political action committees 
resolutions. The power to appease constituents on an almost individual 
basis has empowered Representatives to ignore larger issues and placed 
the blame for inaction on the institution. Thus today we have a far 
more responsive government than ever, but its officials are far better 
able to evade responsibility for inaction and gridlock. We have not 
been dealing with the tough issues. This Congress has seen its vote on 
term limits, has seen its vote on a balanced budget amendment and a 
line-item veto.
  The voters bill of rights, however, I think fundamentally empowers 
citizens to have a more direct impact on this town.
  Now, let us talk a little bit about what we have as part of this 
voters bill of rights. What are we proposing in a series of legislative 
initiatives that will deal with this problem of 75 percent of the 
American people still being cynical about Washington? I think what we 
need to do is open up the process, invite them in, invite the 
grassroots population in, not to make decisions but to help set the 
agenda for what we work on here in Washington.
  The voters bill of rights is our first step and perhaps the only step 
that realistically has a chance of passing in this Congress. I will 
have to be honest with the speaker. Most of these ideas are not very 
widely accepted in Washington, not very widely accepted in this House.
  We have not been here long. But as I go through the list of ideas, I 
think you will be able to understand why these ideas resonate at the 
grassroots level and want to be buried and hidden once we get here in 
Washington.
  The first one, I think, is a fairly harmless suggestion, an 
experiment that I think we could pass in this Congress and actually 
have in place in 1996, November of 1996. It is called the national 
advisory referendum. It is H.R. 2115 and H.R. 2116.
  What is a national advisory referendum? Many of our States have 
binding referenda, but this is an advisory referendum. It allows for a 
national vote during the November 1996 general elections on issues such 
as term limits, tax reform and tax limitation.
  Specifically, what this means is that if this legislation passed next 
summer, early next fall, we would have a debate on these three national 
issues. On election day in November of 1996, citizens would go in, they 
would go into their place, their voting booth, vote for President. They 
would vote for perhaps a Senator. They would vote for their Congress 
person.
  Then they would see this funny little box in the corner, advice to 
Congress or to Washington, three questions. The three questions should 
be or will be: Should Congress approve a constitutional amendment to 
limit the terms of Representatives and Senators? Yes and no.
  Remember, this would have been, these questions would be well defined 
before, so voters would recognize what the questions were. I bet they 
would want to know where the people they were voting for stood on these 
issues. Should Congress approve a constitutional amendment to limit the 
terms of Representatives and Senators? Second question, remember these 
are advisory: Should Congress approve a law to replace the current 
income tax system with a flat tax? Yes or no.
  The third question: Should Congress approve a constitutional 
amendment to require a popular vote by the American people for any 
future income tax increases?
  Three simple questions, helping to frame the debate for the next 
Congress, term limits, tax reform and a reform or vote empowerment on 
tax increases.
  These are nonbinding issues. So the process then becomes one of 
debate these issues, advise Congress, the next election, probably elect 
people that are consistent with your views on these issues. We would 
come back in the 105th Congress, and we would have feedback from the 
American people on these three issues so that we could seriously 
debate, discuss and hopefully deal with these three issues early in the 
next session of Congress.
  So the agenda that we would be working on here in Washington would be 
consistent with the agenda and the direction that the American people 
had set, but the direction we would be going in or the final details of 
how these would be worked out would be left up to this House, to our 
companion House and to the President.
  The second piece of legislation that we have introduced would be very 
fitting as a follow through on this. It is House Joint Resolution 105. 
Here is where we move from the doable to the desirable, but unlikely in 
this Congress. It is called recall. What this does, it allows voters to 
circulate petitions calling for the recall of Senators and/or 
Representatives.
  If a sufficient number of petitions are selected and certified, a 
recall election shall be held. If a majority choose to recall the 
elected official, a new election is called to fill the vacancy. Would 
that not be a wonderful process, if we could get both of these done, 
where you would have a debate, an advisory referendum, Congress would 
act, and then perhaps some constituents along the process might feel 
the need for a recall.
  One of the things that we have heard so much about in the last few 
months is people that said we are in favor of term limits. We are in 
favor of a balanced budget. We are in favor of a balanced budget 
amendment. That is what they campaigned on. That is what they promised 
their voters. They came here, they had the opportunity to vote. And 
what did they do? They did what 88 percent of the American people 
believed that politicians do. They did and they said what will get them 
elected, and then they will do whatever they do or whatever they want 
once they are elected.
  So the two elements that we discussed so far in this voters bill of 

[[Page H8168]]
  rights, empowering the American citizenship, or national advisory 
referendum, connected with that is the opportunity for recall.
  The third item that we have as part of this process goes to election 
day.
  How many times have not people gone into the voting booth and said, I 
am really not pleased with any of the choices here, but the only choice 
that I have is to either vote for the people on this list or not vote 
in that category at all. Well, we are
 proposing that they have another choice.

  The choice that they have would be the candidates who have gone 
through the normal process to get their names on the ballot, then a 
little box that is on their automatically. Again, not an idea that is 
well liked here in Washington, it is called none of the above. A little 
box there, you can vote for Mr. X, Mrs. Y, Ms. So-and-so, or none of 
the above.
  What happens if you go through this process and at the end of the 
election day the votes are tabulated and counted and none of the above 
wins? It is a clear signal that the people have been dissatisfied with 
the choices that they were given by the major parties or independent 
people who worked to get on the ballot. And it says, none of these 
people meet our criteria, so we voted for none of the above. We would 
like a new election. None of the people that ran in this initial 
election are eligible for the second election.
  So none of the above, the third element in our voters bill of rights.
  The last two pieces of legislation that we have introduced, again, 
significantly empower voters to help set the agenda here in Washington. 
Actually allowing for voters to add in binding referenda so that they 
can actually help us and pass legislation through the referenda 
process, and the last piece of legislation is a national citizens 
initiative amendment process to actually enable, there are two ways to 
start a constitutional amendment now, through action in the Congress, 
action by the States, the third way we are saying now is to actually 
enable the voters to start the amendment process to the Constitution, 
not the complete process, but a third way of beginning the amendment 
process.
  Just think if we had had that process in place today, I have a high 
degree of certainty that we would have passed term limits. We would 
have passed the balanced budget. We would have passed a line-item veto. 
Those things would have been part of our Constitution. They would have 
stopped a Congress that many people think has acted irresponsibly over 
the last number of years by spending more than what it takes in. The 
American people knew that, but Congress, as many believe, was unwilling 
to act.
  What this whole voters bill of rights does is it makes the American 
people fuller and more complete partners with us in governing this 
country. It does not move us to a democracy. It just makes us, in an 
information age, it makes them more complete partners with us in the 
process so that we will not be reading anymore headlines like this that 
say, ``75 percent cynicism rate suggests a third party.''
  The answer is not a third party. The third party will suffer from 
many of the same problems that the current process has. We need to 
change the process to enable people to more completely feel engaged in 
the process of funning this country. The current model says Washington 
knows best, that knowledge flows from Washington to the people.
  This new model says, not says, actually demonstrates that the people 
know best and that the people should be allowed to speak in a more 
direct fashion to help set the agenda in Washington. They do not make 
the final decisions. That is the job of this House, of this Congress, 
working together with the President, to make the final decisions on how 
we implement what we do, how we will do it. But it is a way to more 
fully engage the American people. The voters bill of rights proposals 
will help citizens set the agenda in Washington without changing the 
essential nature of the way decisions are made.
  The advisory referenda proposals are a modest means to induce 
congressional action. It is a half step, but I think it is the only 
step that this Congress is willing to take. If such a process bears 
fruit, the constitutional amendments I have proposed might prove 
unnecessary, but I think the experiment is worth going through. More 
likely, however, the more forceful mechanism, the joint resolution 
proposals, that is, the advisory referenda, none of the above, recall, 
are necessary to redirect Congress' attention back to the interests of 
the people. These items are outlined to give people an ability to enact 
laws through an initiative process, without disrupting the structure of 
our representative form of government.
  The petition requirements, the supermajority, limitations built in 
this ensure that the genuine and unique characteristics of our form of 
government do not change. This is a way to create partnership, not to 
change the core values of how we run this government.
  The voters bill of rights preserves many of the advantages of our 
current system, preserving our representative form of government, 
protecting minorities, preventing hasty decisions, fostering compromise 
and conciliation.
  New benefits they bring include the potential to stimulate the 
dangerously flagging public participation in civic affairs. Why do not 
people come to elections? They feel disconnected. They do not believe 
what politicians say. And they do not trust us when we get here. This 
process, where they are more actively engaged, this will hopefully get 
them to come back out and participate in our electoral process.
  Elections would once again be about both issues and candidates, not 
just candidates, about both issues and candidates. That is what we need 
to do. Voters would go to the polls confident that they are sending a 
signal to Congress on which issues they want addressed. Candidates 
would be more likely to take positions on ballot issues. I do not think 
they would be more likely to. I think voters would require them to take 
positions. And they would be less able to go into office based merely 
on name recognition and slick campaign styles or slogans.
  The underlying contemporary malaise, alienation, and cynicism toward 
politics is all too apparent today. Unchanneled into productive 
expressions of citizens control, it is likely to erupt in ways far more 
dangerous to our constitutional principles and longstanding political 
traditions such as political parties.

                              {time}  2100

  We need to address these issues. We can no longer sit on the 
sidelines with 75 percent of the American people cynical about what we 
do here in Washington. This Congress boldly acted when we said, we are 
listening to the American people, we know and we hear that you want us 
to deal with the deficit. We are doing that, and I congratulate this 
Congress on doing it. But now we have to deal with this cynicism and 
this contempt that people hold for this Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, a Voter's Bill of Rights provides a framework to begin 
that discussion. It provides a framework, and actually it provides, I 
think, some legislative initiatives that we can pass and we can begin 
on the road to this citizen involvement.
  A further benefit of the Voters' Bill of Rights is to provide 
national leadership for the legislature. Such leadership has been far 
too absent from the congressional power structure. A national 
initiative, either of the advisory referendum type, or the more 
powerful legislative proposal, would provide a national publicly-
developed agenda of issues of which Congress would be forced to grapple 
with in its next session of Congress. Congress would be transformed
 from an assemblage of parochial agents to a body forcing the debate 
and defending the public good. What a wonderful change that would be.

  Other attempts at more lightened debate like more Oxford-style debate 
are puny and hollow. They do not require resolution of any issues. They 
may make the House more entertaining, more fun to watch. We are not in 
the entertainment business, we are into education and resolving public 
policy date. Forced debate on say term limits would guarantee an open 
an educational debate on an issue otherwise inadequately considered.
  The Voters' Bill of Rights provides us, I think, with the framework, 
with the foundation, to build on what I 

[[Page H8169]]
think is a record of success of this Congress. We have dealt with the 
budget, we have dealt with the contract, we have dealt with 
appropriations bills. Now is the time that we start doing the people's 
agenda, engaging in a full partnership with them, providing them with a 
light at the end of the tunnel that says, Washington is open. We want 
you to provide us with more direct feedback, more direct contact, and 
as a result of that new cooperation, that new dialogue, we are going to 
be a more responsive and a more effective body, so that you, once 
again, can be proud of the process here in Washington, and I think the 
result will be, you will also be prouder of the product that we produce 
here in Washington.
  Mr. Speaker, the Voters' Bill of Rights is a step forward, a step to 
frame the debate and the discussion on how we can empower the American 
people, and how we can renew American citizenship.

                          ____________________