Puppet Masters

I was listening to a discussion of the immigration bill this morning on NPR's "On Point". It was noted that now some senators are concerned about background checks.

Background checks during the gun legislation was pooh-hooed as expensive, not effective, etc. This was in the face of overwhelming public opinion in favor of universal background checks.

The only why I can make sense of this silliness is that "all politics is local" is no longer applicable to insure re-election. Thanks to recent Supreme Court rulings all politics is anything but local. Influential, extremely wealthy individuals and now corporations from various parts of the nation are in control of local politics. Philosophical inclinations are primarily libertarian/conservative, but liberals in Hollywood and the East Coast (i.e. Mayor Bloomberg) have used their personal fortunes in attempts to sway politicians in distant areas of the country. Just today we learn that Max Baucus is retiring because he is facing an expensive election challenge. This happens even though he voted against the recent gun control legislation in hopes the out-of-state puppet masters would not challenge him.

Probably, although not in my lifetime,  the citizens will wake up to the fact that money trumps constituent opinion and that the only remedy is both term limits and election financial reform. I am for shortening campaigns, make them clearly issue oriented, with very tight constants on financial contributions limited exclusively to individuals who have verifiable legal residence within the boundaries of the particular jurisdiction.

Presidential elections would also be shortened and clearly issue-oriented, but federally financed.