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Government should have more sides than one
By Chris Walker
Vote for whomever you think will best serve your interests.
This November may mark a turning point in congressional politics. The Democrats, after 10 years of losing power, may finally regain control of the House of Representatives. They may even be able to regain the Senate, taking back both houses of Congress.
This would be monumental.
It would mean the end of a conservative monopoly over our national political institutions.
For the better part of the past six years or so, there have been little to no checks on the president and his conservative Congress. Both these branches, as well as the judicial branch, have been under the control of conservative influences.
But now, the opportunity to change that has come. The Democrats have the chance to finally take control of one institution of government; to create a check on the president that would prevent him from abusing his powers.
But it will not be enough to just win. The Democrats in Congress must also act while they can to show us they can lead us, that they can stand up to the bullying Bush administration, and that they can create and pass legislation that is beneficial to the American people.
We cannot be content with a Congress that does nothing but stall the government until the 2008 presidential election. We must demand a Congress that will act, and act with our interests, not corporate America’s interests, at heart.
Ordinarily, I haven’t allowed my own personal political affiliations to show in this column. Granted, the average person who has read my words in the past could probably tell that I am a liberal democrat, and that 9 times out of 10 I probably vote blue. However, I have never blatantly voiced or used this column to say to anyone, “Vote Democrat, damn it!”
And I still feel, despite being given this pulpit on a weekly basis, that I should not be advocating one party over the other. If I should emphasize one point, one sentence even, in this entire piece, it is this: Vote for whomever you think will best serve your interests. If that means you will vote for a conservative, then so be it. It is your American right to do so.
But I will say this: the closer we get to Nov. 7, the more it looks like we will have a Democratic Congress. And it is my belief that shared governance serves the best interests of the people as a whole. It creates a voice that counters a single thought; it creates a body and an institution to which the president must be held accountable; and it creates a forum in which a separate voice, one that has lacked such a forum for over six years, can speak up.
I do not believe that a Democratic majority in Congress will make our days sunnier, will end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or end all similar problems that are out of our control. To think such things would be naive, and frankly, foolish.
But I do believe that, with a new, independent voice in Washington, we can expect that controversial issues will no longer be decided on the basis of one viewpoint.
Accountability is what we strive for. Not much has changed in Washington over the past several decades — we still must deal with scandals and suspicions of malfeasance that we have had to deal with in the past. But can we really expect these wrongdoings to resolve themselves under control of a single party? I would argue that we cannot.
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