Our country runs on elevator pitches.

[elfs]

I had breakfast with a Congressman this morning. He was an affable sort, willing to talk about the technicalities of his job. I asked him how he makes decisions about highly technical issues about which he knows nothing. He was a Democrat, and he had been in office for decades.

"The first year, you don't know anyone. So you try your best. Sometimes, though, since the Republicans are in charge, we might get fifteen minutes warning that a vote is about to take place, and they'll hold the floor open for only two minutes. They give their own people plenty of warning, but the rest of us have to just be present in case a vote happens.

"So you learn who on your side knows anything about anything. When a bill comes up that's their speciality, but not yours, they usually signal in advance how they'll vote. If their vote doesn't make sense to you, you have about five minutes to go over there and ask them why they voted the way they did, and make up your mind about if their decision makes sense."

The idea that someone has to make the case for whether or not a vote is sensible, about highly technical issues like infrastructure funding, nuclear power, or the risks and benefits of genetically modified organisms loose within our envirnoment, has to be made within the space of an elevator pitch is more than a little frightening. But that's the way the house is run nowadays.

Comments

[amindofiron.livejournal.com]

Our congress has been nomic-ed to the point of near complete non-functionality and frankly it's both terrifying and infuriating to me. It's getting to the point where the amount of repair one would have to do in order to make it function anything like it's intended to makes said repair look less like a repair and more like a replacement.

[tagryn]

This post at AM (and Klein's by extension) argues that one of the main influences/powers of lobbyists today is in offering the kind of expert guidance to legislators on complicated issues that their staffs cannot offer on their own.

[hydrolagus.livejournal.com]

If that's they way they're going to do it, they better include an option for "tickybox."

[edichka2.livejournal.com]

Democracy in action. Power to the ignorant.

[statreed.livejournal.com]

Stuff like this makes me wish for your "well-run anarchy"... and then I realize that that particular system relies on people not being self-interested, lazy, power-hungry, and generally not out for the good of society as a whole. IE, not being 21st century American people.

I think, upon reflection, that the "Pendorian social ethos" could probably be implemented entirely through upbringing. Raise an entire generation of American children to not act like these Congresspeople, to think that this sort of degenerate government is *not normal*, and perhaps we'd see some change. It's the kind of thing that makes one pine for the days of ethically unsound social psych experiments...

[elevatorpads.livejournal.com]

Very interesting. Given the title, I was expecting something about business, and one of those typical pieces about "how to woo your client / boss" with an elevator pitch. Happy I was wrong. This is a very insightful entry & comment thread.