Caring About Process
When the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives says, "the
American people don’t care about process" in <a href="http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/transcript-of-pelosi-presser/">a
news
conference</a> (the context was the process surrounding the health
care bill), this topic, which is central not only to government ethics,
but to our legal and political system, is worth focusing on.<br>
<br>
Anyone who has been to law school knows that if process isn't
everything, it is at least the heart and soul of all three branches of
government. Nancy Pelosi has not been to law school, nor have "the
American people." But they care about and understand process more than
she seems to think.<br>
<br>
John Harwood, in his New York <i>Times</i> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/us/politics/01caucus.html">"The
Caucus"
column yesterday</a>, noted that an NBC News/Wall Street Journal
poll just last week found that 84 percent of Americans believe that
“special interests have too much influence over legislation.” The same
poll found that "93 percent believe there’s too much partisan
infighting," <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35083918/ns/politics-white_house/">according
to
MSNBC</a>.<br>
<br>
Harwood also notes that, in his State of the Union speech last week,
President Obama said, “We face a deficit of trust,” calling on the
federal government “to end the outsized influence of
lobbyists, to do our work openly, to give our people the government
they deserve.”<br>
<br>
The central issue, with respect to the health care bill, is
transparency vs. efficiency. But the central problem is that our
political leaders have not explained to the American people that
transparency is necessary to a healthy, participatory democracy, that
democracy is not a particularly efficient form of government, and that
the American system is less efficient than most. If it were more
efficient, we would have solved most of our health care issues decades
ago, like our rich-country peers.<br>
<br>
Why is our system so much less efficient? One reason is the level of
partisan squabbling and the unbelievable lack of intellectual honesty
that accompanies it (the health care "debate" is a perfect example).<br>
<br>
And the other principal reason is the unbelievable power special
interests have over our elected officials.<br>
<br>
When the American people are asked to focus on these two process-oriented issues, as can
be seen by the poll, they recognize how problematic they are. And they care.<br>
<br>
Until our elected officials, and those they appoint, have the <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/150">intellectual honesty</a> to
acknowledge how important process is, instead of pandering to content-oriented concerns
about the economy, terrorism, and the like, they will continue to be
the part of the process that most needs fixing (also recognized by "the American people" in the
poll), the part of our democracy that undermines citizens' trust in the
process.<br>
<br>
President Obama knows this, and he seems to prefer not to want to
sacrifice transparency and process in order to get a health care bill
passed. The issue is whether the end justifies the means.<br>
<br>
We should keep reminding ourselves that the worst ends are not the ends we usually think
of, such as poor health care plans, but rather processes such as
authoritarian leaders making the political process theirs, turning
citizens into means. That isn't what we have here, not at all, but it's another way of seeing that the process is at least as important as the content of the policies that come out of the process.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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