We at the Convention of States Project often say that Congress will never fix itself. They'll never limit their own power or spending, and they'll never choose to limit the numbers of terms they can serve. Our "leaders" in Congress are more interested in expanding their own wealth and power than in doing what's best for the American people.
So, when members of Congress put together a bipartisan list of ways they can "fix" the national legislature, it's about as tone-deaf and useless as you might think.
The list was developed by a committee headed by Republican Rep. Tom Graves and Democratic Rep. Derek Kilmer, and it recommends 97 ways legislators can improve how the U.S. House operates.
It includes things like...
- Making permanent the Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
- Revaluate the funding formula and increase the funds allocated to each Member office.
- Raising the cap on the number of staff in Member offices.
- Regularly surveying staff on improving pay and benefits.
- Allowing newly-elected Members to hire and pay one transition staff member.
- Creating a Congressional Leadership Academy to offer training for Members.
- Create a bipartisan Members-only space in the Capitol to encourage more collaboration across party lines.
- Institute biennial bipartisan retreats for Members and their families at the start of each Congress.
- Establish bipartisan committee staff briefings and agenda-setting retreats to encourage better policy making and collaboration among Members.
- Identify areas in the U.S. Capitol Complex that could benefit from architectural modernization.
Member "retreats" are mentioned three separate times, and the section titled "Boost Congressional Capacity" includes nine separate items designed to expand congressional offices and pay staff more.
While the list does include a number of commendable goals (saving taxpayer dollars, reforming the budget process), none of the items have the teeth necessary to compel our members of Congress to actually reform.
The section titled "Reclaim Article One Responsibilities," for example, ends with this vanilla statement that means almost nothing:
Reduce dysfunction in the annual budgeting process through the establishment of a congressionally-directed program that calls for transparency and accountability, and that supports meaningful and transformative investments in local communities across the United States. The program will harness the authority of Congress under Article One of the Constitution to appropriate federal dollars.
The list, in short, is filled with specific items that will benefit House members, increase their budgets, and give them even more perks along with general, abstract items that do nothing to help the American people.
This isn't good enough. We the People want to reform Congress, but we want to do things that will actually help. If we made our own list, it would look something like this:
- Limit the terms of office for members of Congress to keep career politicians from getting rich on the backs of taxpayers.
- Limit the power of Congress to stop them from legislating on issues that should be left to the states and the people.
- Limit Congress' budget to stop them from spending our country into the ground and burdening future generations with mountains of debt.
None of those items are on the list Congress put together, and they never will be. That's why we're calling the first-ever Article V Convention of States.
A Convention of States is called and controlled by the states and has the power to propose constitutional amendments. These amendments can do the things Congress never will -- limit their power, money, and tenure in office.
It takes 34 states to call a Convention, and 15 have done so already. We're working in all 50 states to make a Convention of States a reality, and you can join the team by signing the Convention of States petition below.
