Jack Abramoff

Well folks, very soon the legal troubles of Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff will likely end the careers of another soiled group of Washington lawmakers, government officials and business associates. And Abramoff's name will be as commonplace as Enron's Ken Lay.

The pundits will ask and much will be said about moneyed interests corrupting politics. And the politicians will look very serious, wring their hands, tell us they will hold congressional hearings, and surely all will be better.

But I won't believe it this time either.

Thomas Jefferson never meant for our representative democracy to work this way. As we send the generally "well-heeled" off to legislate, they invariably wed themselves to this interest group or that, vote accordingly, and then get elected time after time using special interest money and organizational moxie. And all the while they will look us straight in the eye denying there is any connection at all between "money" and "vote."

Baloney! It is a nasty little cycle we have going here, folks.

Thomas Jefferson debated Alexander Hamilton about it 200 years ago. Jefferson's view was that ordinary citizens should stand for election (primarily farmers in those days), represent their community in the legislature for a time, and then return to their real jobs.

But today we have formed this sort of "ruling elite" - Hamilton's vision. And it's at almost every level of government. No longer do we have citizen legislators who understand the challenges of everyday life and legislate accordingly, but rather career politicians, many of whom find more comfort in power than mission. (Abramoff understood that.)

So it is with all due respect, that I say celebrating 20, 30, or even in a recent case, 50 years of elected office is not a good thing for the republic.

A representative democracy does not work as intended when ordinary citizens lose their voice to moneyed interests. Our liberties are marginalized when folks are turned-off by the process and do not vote. For then it is the media and courts that are left to protect our liberty and deal with important matters of governance, as is happening with Abramoff in Washington today and happened last year with school finance here at home in Kansas.

Hamilton's vision was wrong. Jefferson knew that. 200 years later it has resulted in lobbyist-Jack soiling the democracy with dirty money.

Hopefully, we all think about Thomas Jefferson and Jack Abramoff when we have an opportunity to vote next November.

First published in The Manhattan Mercury, January 26, 2006.