Don’t believe the hype America; we the people can agree (almost unanimously) on one major political truth. We cannot stand Congress. Every news service, from the supposedly left-leaning mainstream to the obviously right-hammering Fox News, and all points in between, agree that Congress has never been less popular. Gallup has tracked an approve to disapprove spread in excess of 75 points (approval 11%, disapproval 86%), and their results aren’t an outlier. As such, fixing Congress becomes a prime subject for debate in an election year, with both parties struggling (along with other entities with an ax to grind) to find a vehicle for reform that supports their particular cause.
For the last year, chain emails and notes on social networks like Facebook have been pushing a very particular type of fix, variously referred to as the “Congressional Reform Act of 2011″ and the “28th Amendment”. This type of grass roots activism has, in our recent past, been successful at changing laws, if not at changing reality. The move towards term limits eventually placed term restrictions on nearly 40% of state legislators and almost 75% of state governors. Whether these limits do any good is an open question that isn’t, in the view of The Rational Middle, asked enough. But the term limit question, at a minimum, was directed at a relevant and real subject. As we will see, the various incarnations of the “28th Amendment” represent nothing more than the nexus of frustration and ignorance in our democracy.




