Unbought and Unbossed

by Shirley Chisholm

The only criterion that matters in picking mem- bers for committee vacancies is their length of service in Con- gress. Congress calls it the seniority system. I call it the senility system.

Our repre- sentative democracy is not working because the Congress that is supposed to represent the voters does not respond to their needs.

I believe the chief reason is that it is ruled by a small group of old men. The majority of members of the House

have surrendered their power to a tiny minority — the Speaker, the party organization leaders, and the chairmen of the committees. They could take it back at ...

Congress has to have leaders, and it would be paralyzed without its committee system. The trouble lies with the way leaders and chairmen are chosen, particularly the chairmen. They rise by seniority. Nothing else matters — competence, character, past performance, background, or orientation. All a man has to do is stay alive and keep getting reelected, and he will be a power in Washington in twenty or thirty years. He may be from a rural backwater. The odds are that he will be, because the "safe districts" are generally that kind. He may be a reactionary, a bigot, a mediocrity. The odds are that he will be, if nothing worse, a man of narrow out- look a...

So our troubled, embattled, urban society, looking to Washington for wisdom and help, finds that the processes of change are thwarted by the control of old men whose values are those of a small-town lawyer or a feed-store opera- tor. If they react at all to the challenge of our age, it is with incomprehension and irritation. Congress seems drugged and inert most of the time. Even when the problems it ignores build up to crises and erupt in strikes, riots, and demonstra...

Most congressional hearings are ridiculous. They are held to impress the public, to get someone's name in the papers and on television. Up at the front of the room, the commit- tee sits high on a dais behind a mahogany counter and the lowly masses sit out front. Witnesses come in and earnestly testify about something they know and care about, hoping that the committee will be moved. They think if they give Congress the truth, they will get justice in return. Then their testimony is printed in book after book of hearing records, which are piled on shelves to gather dust. When the clamor ...

Maybe, in addition to their other faults, the old men just can't work fast enough. If so, they ought to step back and give the young a chance. Probably the age of congressmen should be limited to sixty-five. Six or eight terms in the House and three or four in the Senate should be the limit re- gardless of age. The committee system should be shaken up, with members being moved around more. When they stay on one committee forever, they tend to be corrupted by their contact with special interest representatives, who court them for their influence.

Conflicts of interest should be grounds for impeachment. Banking and Currency Committee members now are allowed to be directors of banks — a shocking state of affairs. The

best way to ensure that this cannot happen is to require com- plete financial disclosure by members of Congress. Every- thing they earn and every business or professiona...

As things are now, no one can tell to whom members of Congress are responsible, except that it does not often appear to be to the people. Every- one else is represented in Washington by a rich and powerful...

When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.

the main reason the war on poverty was lost was a failing that was built into it. The antipoverty programs were designed by white middle-class intellectuals who had no experience of being poor, despised, and discriminated against. They looked at the condition of the poor and made their diagnosis: lack

of opportunity. All the other problems of the have-nots in our society — hunger, ignorance, crime, disease — were seen to be caused by the fact that when poor people tried to reach out for socially acceptable goals, they found their aspirations blocked.

The only fact left out of the analysis was the fundamental problem: racism.

The federal programs were intended to give the poor some- thing tangible, quickly, and without alarming the middle class. Congress, in particular, did not want to cause any dis- ruption of the political structure. The goal was to eliminate poverty without making any other major changes.

No top policy-makers wanted community action programs to become ways of achieving political power for the poor.

It could be a perfect metaphor for the way our country was founded and grew, with lofty and pure words on its lips and the basest bigotry hidden in its heart.

Without someone to blame, like the Communists abroad and the young and black at home, middle America would be forced to consider whether all the problems of our time were in any way its own fault. That is the one thing it could never stand to do. Hence, it finds scapegoats.