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Dump the
Congress

Perhaps the most eloquent explanation of virtual representation comes to us courtesy of Harvard scholar Bernard Bailyn in his Pulitzer Prize-winning text, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.  The English argument, according to Bailyn, was a logical extrapolation of the Parliament’s right to levy taxes in England itself, where the franchise was limited to perhaps one-tenth of the people of Britain.  In theory, the American colonists were as equally represented in Parliament as the majority of Englishmen and women who were not permitted to vote.  As one defender of the Parliamentary right to legislate on behalf of the colonies wrote, “None are actually, all are virtually represented.”

Not surprisingly, the colonists themselves disagreed, arguing famously for “no taxation without representation.”  Pamphleteer Daniel Dulany aptly noted that virtual representation was impossible without shared interest between representatives and constituents—an arrangement which did not exist between Americans and members of Parliament.  “Not a single actual elector in England,” wrote Dulany, “might be immediately affected by a taxation in America imposed by a statute which would have general operation and effect upon the properties of the inhabitants of the colonies” (Bailyn, 168).  In the mother country, the situation was quite the opposite where the security of the non-electors against oppression was that the oppression would likewise fall upon electors and representatives (Baily, 167).  Such an unhappy result, Dulany argued, provided English freemen—even those outside the franchise—with a measure of protection against tyranny not shared by their American cousins.

It is my contention that a modern, domestic version of this very grievance has led our country to its present disenchantment with the performance of Congress and many of our respective state legislatures.   As working-class American families have watched their retirement plans and children’s college accounts decimated by a preventable financial crisis, our elected representatives rest assured in the knowledge that our tax dollars guarantee the financial security of their golden years.  While Congress bemoans the inevitable collapse of the Medicare/Medicaid system barring dramatic intervention, the health care plan enjoyed by federal officials remains unscathed, subsidized by taxpayers who can ill afford a medical emergency or unforeseen health crisis.  When gas prices soared above $4 a gallon, Americans were treated to lectures praising the environmentally friendly, mass transportation options many of us do not even have available to us.  For her part, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi protested that her taxpayer-fueled private jet could not be waiting on the tarmac at all times in the event Ms. Pelosi decided to spend a long weekend on the Coast.  And, despite the recent influx of stimulus funds, school districts across the country are facing budget cuts and layoffs while our elected aristocracy avoids public education entirely.

In these distressing economic times, it has become only too obvious to struggling American families that the burden of rescuing the national economy has not been shared by our representatives.  The global economic meltdown resulting from the sub-prime mortgage crisis further underscores the need for a citizen legislature as opposed to a national Congress composed of career politicians.  It is difficult to imagine the fiscal recklessness of the past year being foisted on an unwilling body politic by elected officials who would return to their districts and employment in the private sector at the conclusion of their term.  Nevertheless, two successive Presidential administrations passed unpopular stimulus packages which will cost the American taxpayer nearly one trillion dollars and burden even our grandchildren with an estimated $36,000 in debt.

Perhaps the most insightful analysis our present situation was written in 1765 by Massachusetts lawyer James Otis who wrote of the colonists’ virtual representatives in the English Parliament, “Does he know us?  Or we him?  No.  Have we any restriction over his conduct?  No.  Is he bound in duty and interest to preserve our life and liberty?  No.  Is he acquainted with our circumstances, situation, wants, etc.?  No.  What then are we to expect from him?  Nothing but taxes without end” (Bailyn, 169 from Considerations on Behalf of the Colonists, James Otis).