Thomas Geoghegan

THE HISTORY OF DEMOCRACY HAS YET TO BE WRITTEN

Thomas Geoghegan

Thomas Geoghegan, a Chicago lawyer specializing in labor law, ran for a seat as an Illinois Representative in the US Congress in 2008. He was defeated. Afterwards, he began to think more seriously about what is wrong with our government and how it could improve to become just, fair, and Constitutional.
In THE HISTORY OF DEMOCRACY HAS YET TO BE WRITTEN, he describes how he campaigned and what he should have done differently.
He also provides several areas that can be changed to improve our democracy. Understandably, labor is a top priority. Since membership in labor unions has declined dramatically, they are a key factor. When labor unions were strong, e.g., during the FDR years, union strength brought about well-paying jobs, even for people without a college degree, opportunities for leadership, and more participating in our democracy. Had the level remained that high, he believes, universal health care and green energy would be realities today.
He supports making voting mandatory. That would eliminate voter suppression. As of now, fewer than half of the eligible voters in the US bother to vote. The result has been people elected to office who receive fewer than 25% of the total votes cast. This translates into candidates trying to attract the extremists who are more likely to actually vote. The middle voters, many of whom are independent, don’t participate and, therefore, their opinions remain unheard while they remain turned off, disgusted, fed up, or unheard. It would also lower the cost of elections.
The two most recent GOP Presidents have received fewer votes than their Democratic opponents. Thanks to the Electoral College, which gives more power to states with smaller populations, they won their seats.
The House is supposed to represent all the people. It controls the revenue. But gerrymandering has warped that goal (in Ohio, the voters are split about 50:50 but the representation is 75:25). The Senate, with its ability to filibuster, has managed to remove that power. Forty senators from states representing 6% of the population can block a bill. Senators from states representing 16% of the people can enact a bill assuming there is no filibuster. According to Geoghegan, the Senate overrepresents the worst parts of the country creating a sense that we are out of control.
The Senate has been elected by legislatures until 1787. After that, the members were elected by the people and were expected to be serving the public. It was able to pass bills to establish things like the New Deal, the Civil Rights Act , The Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Too often, they not only don’t represent their state constituents, they are more loyal to their financial backers and/or their party instead of the Constitution. There was no filibuster. But as labor unions collapsed and Vietnam alienated Americans, the Senate turned into a group representing a minority of Americans but was able to hold the Senate and the country hostage.
Geoghegan discusses federal courts. Many of our laws are the results of federal court decisions, even those, such as abortion rights, that were overturned this year. Yet most Americans cannot even name half the members and how they have become more powerful than they were intended to be because the legislature has abandoned its Constitutional role and the courts have been packed with political-focused judges. Meanwhile, The Supreme Court has taken over responsibilities of Congress, e.g., stopping the vote count in Florida in 2000.
While I don’t agree with everything Geoghegan has written, the book moves quickly and offers much food for thought.… (plus d'informations)

The History of Democracy Has Yet to Be Written by Thomas Geoghegan is a short and compelling argument for several of the key changes that might, I say might, keep us from sliding further away from the ideals this country, on paper at least, was founded on.

While this will likely appeal to those more left (which used to be center) Geoghegan does not simply present a partisan rant against the right. He presents ideas he believes can help correct course in this country. While a couple ideas may seem extreme (abolishing the Senate) they re grounded in very logical principles. You don't have to agree with each idea, but if you agree we are moving in the wrong direction and don't like an idea here, present or support a different one that helps. Don't simply say something is too far out or too difficult then sit back down and let things keep going to, well, you know.

This is a short, well-written, and engaging read. It is well worth your time to gain a new perspective and incorporate it into your current one. Will you want to immediately implement every idea he has? Probably not, though you may get caught up in the idea of a more just nation and begin thinking bigger and more outside the box.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss.… (plus d'informations)

Not that I've read a lot of books about labor law, but this is the most well-written book about the experience of practicing labor law I've ever read, a sort of ground-level counterpart to the labor-market sections of Krugman's book. I once read an Amazon review for another one of Geoghegan's books that claimed that all of his books were really about citizenship in one form or another, and I agree with that. This one focuses on the damage that conservative policies did to the traditional American understanding of citizenship during the 1980s, specifically that of the Chicagoland union members that were being fired in droves as structural shifts in the economy (both natural and planned) eliminated their jobs and their places in society under the guise of the "invisible hand" while the corporations who cheerfully outsourced their jobs made huge profits. Geoghegan is witty and self-deprecating as he recognizes the futility of reversing or even slowing the massive hemorrhaging of jobs, and he pulls no punches in recounting the resulting ugly fratricide as these desperate unions relentlessly and inscrutably destroyed themselves as they lost everything they had. Somehow I ended up reading a lot of anti-Reagan books this year, and this was the second-most vitriolic out of the lot.… (plus d'informations)