WEBVTT NOTE Consolidation and Tyranny 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.840 I'm here today, this afternoon, to talk a little bit about my new job in Montgomery, 2 00:00:03.840 --> 00:00:09.440 my new boss, Governor Fobb James, some of the lessons that I've learned about state 3 00:00:09.440 --> 00:00:15.840 government so far, and a little bit of my own research on political economy. 4 00:00:15.840 --> 00:00:18.480 First a word about my old boss, Lew Rockwell. 5 00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:24.760 I want to thank Lew for the 15 years of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. 6 00:00:24.760 --> 00:00:30.520 It's been an honor, a true honor and a privilege to be affiliated with the Institute and I 7 00:00:30.520 --> 00:00:35.280 feel like one of the luckiest academics alive to have been affiliated with the Institute 8 00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:39.800 for so long and I want to thank everybody here, the members of the Institute, for making 9 00:00:39.800 --> 00:00:41.680 all that possible. 10 00:00:41.680 --> 00:00:47.360 But having such a great job at the Mises Institute, it made the idea of going to work for state 11 00:00:47.360 --> 00:00:50.400 government a difficult decision. 12 00:00:50.400 --> 00:00:55.680 Mr. Perry Elford always used to tell me, however, that Austrian economics, to be effective, 13 00:00:55.680 --> 00:01:00.480 has to be a practical matter as well. You have to take those principles and put them 14 00:01:00.480 --> 00:01:06.260 into effect in the real world. You can't just be a classroom academic. You can't just work 15 00:01:06.260 --> 00:01:11.260 on the blackboard. You have to take these principles, these theories, out into the real 16 00:01:11.260 --> 00:01:23.260 in the real world and try to make a difference and his urges made my decision a lot more easier and it's been a very pleasant surprise. 17 00:01:23.260 --> 00:01:29.260 My topic today is consolidation of government power and tyranny. 18 00:01:29.260 --> 00:01:35.260 Everybody in here knows, of course, that we have a big government, we have a big central government. 19 00:01:35.260 --> 00:01:38.260 I don't need to make that point. 20 00:01:38.260 --> 00:01:46.260 In terms of tyranny, I don't think we have to really argue the existence of tyranny here in the United States. 21 00:01:46.260 --> 00:01:53.260 If you've been following the IRS hearings this week or campaign finance reform hearings, 22 00:01:53.260 --> 00:01:56.260 you know what's going on in Washington, D.C. 23 00:01:56.260 --> 00:02:02.260 You know what we have is basically a Leviathan government. 24 00:02:02.260 --> 00:02:10.260 The central government basically takes as much as it possibly can from us, no more and no less. 25 00:02:10.260 --> 00:02:16.260 So I'm not really here to argue the fact that we have a big government in tyranny, 26 00:02:16.260 --> 00:02:19.260 that we already have consolidation of power. 27 00:02:19.260 --> 00:02:27.260 But I want to look briefly today at the causes of the consolidation of power and some of the cures. 28 00:02:27.260 --> 00:02:36.260 Obviously, the cause of big government and tyranny is the consolidation of power in Washington, D.C., the centralization of power. 29 00:02:36.260 --> 00:02:43.260 And I think the cures are primarily education and political. 30 00:02:43.260 --> 00:02:54.260 Things like the U.S. Constitution, states' rights, secessionism, anything to reverse the forces of consolidation. 31 00:02:54.260 --> 00:03:19.260 I'm going to try to make my case here today that in order to try to control this tyranny that we do need some political solutions and that within the democratic framework one of those solutions involves the reapportionment of Congress and that we actually, ironically, need a larger government in the sense that we need a larger legislature. 32 00:03:19.260 --> 00:03:23.260 What have I learned so far working in state government? 33 00:03:23.260 --> 00:03:28.900 Well, from day one, I can tell you that Austrian economics matters a whole lot. 34 00:03:28.900 --> 00:03:34.380 It's everything I learned in economics turned out to be true right there in day one. 35 00:03:34.380 --> 00:03:39.620 Actually, before I actually officially started working, I could see that Austrian economics 36 00:03:39.620 --> 00:03:43.940 was very helpful in understanding what was going on in state government. 37 00:03:43.940 --> 00:03:46.940 I can also tell you that ideas can matter. 38 00:03:46.940 --> 00:03:53.700 Politics rules, money does rule in terms of government, but ideas can make a difference. 39 00:03:53.700 --> 00:03:59.860 Second, I've seen the failure of a number of certain types of reforms, 40 00:03:59.860 --> 00:04:05.400 reforms that have already been tried in the past in state government and in government in general. 41 00:04:05.400 --> 00:04:14.060 For example, the decentralization of government, breaking government up from a large program into smaller programs, 42 00:04:14.060 --> 00:04:23.340 passing it down to the local level, handing it out to non-profit groups, ideas that are attractive, 43 00:04:23.340 --> 00:04:29.900 the idea of breaking up government and government programs up into smaller units, 44 00:04:29.900 --> 00:04:35.820 but very often these decentralization efforts actually make things much worse. 45 00:04:35.820 --> 00:04:41.100 I've seen this in terms of welfare, mental health, all various programs of state government, 46 00:04:41.100 --> 00:04:47.800 which in the past have been reformed by trying to break them up and hand them down to the local level simply hasn't worked. 47 00:04:47.800 --> 00:04:52.600 It's actually made real reform and cutting the size of government more difficult. 48 00:04:52.600 --> 00:05:02.100 Other things like term limits, ethics reform, campaign finance laws and regulations don't seem to do much good. 49 00:05:02.100 --> 00:05:09.800 However, the main lesson that I've learned, and I guess one of the nicest surprises, 50 00:05:09.800 --> 00:05:14.800 is in the sense that when I was asked to work for the state government, 51 00:05:14.800 --> 00:05:18.800 I was really more interested in national policies. 52 00:05:18.800 --> 00:05:21.800 Well, it turns out I was all wrong, that state government really is 53 00:05:21.800 --> 00:05:24.800 where all the national policies take place. 54 00:05:24.800 --> 00:05:30.800 And as a matter of fact, states, state governments are basically nothing more 55 00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:35.800 than franchises of the federal government or the national government. 56 00:05:35.800 --> 00:05:40.800 There's no longer much of a break between the state and the federal government. 57 00:05:40.800 --> 00:05:47.800 State governments are like a Kentucky fried chicken restaurant, a franchise of the national chain. 58 00:05:47.800 --> 00:05:55.800 Of course, except it doesn't sell chicken, it hands out pork. 59 00:05:55.800 --> 00:05:58.800 We're basically a giant welfare machine. 60 00:05:58.800 --> 00:06:03.800 How does the federal government control state governments? 61 00:06:03.800 --> 00:06:12.800 Well, there are a variety of ways in which the state government in Alabama and your states are controlled by the federal government. 62 00:06:12.800 --> 00:06:21.800 Federal funding, of course, plays a big role. The federal government actually gives us more than 50% of our budget. 63 00:06:21.800 --> 00:06:27.800 And obviously anybody who gives you more than 50% of your money, you tend to pay attention to. 64 00:06:27.800 --> 00:06:31.800 And this federal funds go into virtually all of our programs. 65 00:06:31.800 --> 00:06:49.800 Federal Matching Funds. This is a particularly interesting way in which the federal government grabs a hold of state governments, providing them with the economic incentive that states cannot refuse, that politicians generally cannot refuse. 66 00:06:49.800 --> 00:07:10.800 The federal matching program, for example, may say, if the state government contributes one dollar, the federal government will give you five dollars or ten dollars to build roads or to do whatever, as long as you build them or carry out the program according to federal regulations. 67 00:07:10.800 --> 00:07:17.800 So this is a very powerful incentive and it's one that most politicians can't overcome. 68 00:07:17.800 --> 00:07:29.800 Why? Because if you ignore these programs, your political opponents in the next election will simply campaign that they will bring the pork home from Washington, D.C. 69 00:07:29.800 --> 00:07:39.800 And then of course there are federal mandates. Federal mandates basically affect and direct every single program in state government. 70 00:07:39.800 --> 00:07:48.800 They direct through the monetary and through regulation every agency within state government. 71 00:07:48.800 --> 00:07:58.800 And through these mechanisms they push state government to expand, to become larger, to have larger budgets and higher taxes. 72 00:07:58.800 --> 00:08:06.800 The most recent one is a program to provide health insurance for children from low income families. 73 00:08:06.800 --> 00:08:18.800 And the program says, no strings attached, it's always the case in the beginning, no strings attached, all you have to do is put up one dollar and the federal government will put up five dollars. 74 00:08:18.800 --> 00:08:28.800 As soon as they announce that program, the legislature goes wild about promising their constituents more benefits from Washington. 75 00:08:28.800 --> 00:08:31.800 Actually, the states have very little autonomy left. 76 00:08:31.800 --> 00:08:40.800 The only thing they have the autonomy to do, or the freedom to do, is to make things much worse than the Federal Government wants, very difficult to make it better. 77 00:08:40.800 --> 00:08:52.800 So we have a consolidation of federal and state government that has resulted in big government, because states aren't allowed to cut back in any area without suffering the consequences. 78 00:08:52.800 --> 00:09:00.300 and therefore we have this Leviathan government that maximizes the amount of taxes it takes in from us 79 00:09:00.300 --> 00:09:05.300 and maximizes the influence and regulation of our lives. 80 00:09:05.300 --> 00:09:11.300 We no longer have this limited government and we also have essentially government of one rule 81 00:09:11.300 --> 00:09:18.300 where people in every state basically work under the same set of federal government guidelines 82 00:09:18.300 --> 00:09:22.300 and so we have this national government, not a federal government 83 00:09:22.300 --> 00:09:34.300 And the national government dominates the states, controls the mercantile economy and smashes anyone who doesn't agree with them, that doesn't agree that the tyranny should continue. 84 00:09:34.300 --> 00:09:40.300 As Americans, we are free to do, we are completely free to do exactly what we're told. 85 00:09:40.300 --> 00:09:43.300 Now this is where Governor Bob James comes in. 86 00:09:43.300 --> 00:09:47.300 He's not the typical politician. 87 00:09:47.300 --> 00:09:55.140 He believes very strongly in the United States Constitution and particularly states' rights. 88 00:09:55.140 --> 00:09:58.460 These are the important issues for him. 89 00:09:58.460 --> 00:09:59.980 They're not just on the periphery. 90 00:09:59.980 --> 00:10:02.060 They're not just something he agrees to. 91 00:10:02.060 --> 00:10:05.180 These are the core values. 92 00:10:05.180 --> 00:10:11.100 At his inauguration in 1995, for example, on the Capitol steps behind the podium, 93 00:10:11.100 --> 00:10:14.420 there was a large banner of the Tenth Amendment. 94 00:10:14.420 --> 00:10:25.080 The 10th Amendment, which is virtually ignored, it is ignored in Washington, D.C., but it's the amendment that celebrates states' rights and limited government. 95 00:10:25.080 --> 00:10:32.820 And Governor James has persistently gone to Washington to defend states' rights and the Constitution. 96 00:10:32.820 --> 00:10:37.320 He turned down money for the Gold 2000 program. 97 00:10:37.320 --> 00:10:44.120 Eventually, the Feds were able to work that back in by saying he didn't have the authority to turn it down. 98 00:10:44.120 --> 00:10:48.760 They're very convincing. 99 00:10:48.760 --> 00:10:55.280 He defended an Alabama judge who hangs a copy of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom declaring 100 00:10:55.280 --> 00:11:00.280 that he would call out the National Guard to defend the judge's rights. 101 00:11:00.280 --> 00:11:05.780 He convened a meeting of the Alabama congressional delegation in Montgomery, Alabama, the first 102 00:11:05.780 --> 00:11:11.320 time it's ever been done, and asked them to relinquish federal control over the welfare 103 00:11:11.320 --> 00:11:16.240 programs, and to give us our tax money back. 104 00:11:16.240 --> 00:11:22.660 And finally, this summer, Governor James wrote a federal judge asking him to dismiss a case 105 00:11:22.660 --> 00:11:30.800 against an Alabama school prayer law, a law that Governor James also disagreed with, but 106 00:11:30.800 --> 00:11:40.220 who thought was constitutionally a matter of state government, not federal jurisdiction. 107 00:11:40.220 --> 00:11:47.320 And in his letter to the judge, which is a 35-page letter, Governor James clearly shows 108 00:11:47.320 --> 00:11:54.040 that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights does not apply to the states, as the Supreme 109 00:11:54.040 --> 00:12:01.120 Court would like. But rather, the Bill of Rights was meant to protect us from the Federal 110 00:12:01.120 --> 00:12:06.400 Government itself. He also shows that the Fourteenth Amendment does not apply the Bill 111 00:12:06.400 --> 00:12:14.200 Bill of Rights to the states. He shows that the due process clause does not apply the 112 00:12:14.200 --> 00:12:20.520 Bill of Rights to the states. He points out, of course, that all the state governments 113 00:12:20.520 --> 00:12:26.520 have a Bill of Rights, that they had a Bill of Rights before the Federal Bill of Rights, 114 00:12:26.520 --> 00:12:33.040 and as a matter of fact, that the states, their Bills of Rights were the model for the 115 00:12:33.040 --> 00:12:39.680 and the National Bill of Rights, and finally he shows that only recent judicial interpretation 116 00:12:39.680 --> 00:12:46.200 applies the Bill of Rights to the states. Now some would consider his efforts, the efforts 117 00:12:46.200 --> 00:12:54.960 of Governor James, as sort of as Don Chiodi tilting at windmills, but like other revolutionaries 118 00:12:54.960 --> 00:13:00.560 such as Thomas Jefferson, you must exhaust every legal and peaceful means of restoring 119 00:13:00.560 --> 00:13:05.360 and liberty and redressing grievances. You must bring these issues out. 120 00:13:05.360 --> 00:13:12.360 As a matter of fact, Alabama has a history of opposing consolidation of power and of tyranny. 121 00:13:13.120 --> 00:13:19.560 Our state motto is we dare to defend our rights. And of course, I think this is where we get 122 00:13:19.560 --> 00:13:26.560 our national reputation in the media. The media hates Alabama for some reason. I think 123 00:13:26.560 --> 00:13:32.920 I think it's this opposition and if in the 15 years that I've been in Alabama 124 00:13:32.920 --> 00:13:37.480 I've never seen an article in the New York Times accurately describe things in 125 00:13:37.480 --> 00:13:45.120 Alabama. It's usually filled with fabrications and lies. So the Constitution 126 00:13:45.120 --> 00:13:49.600 and the Bill of Rights. Personally I don't think the Constitution is a 127 00:13:49.600 --> 00:13:55.000 perfect document. I much prefer for example the Articles of Confederation or 128 00:13:55.000 --> 00:14:01.000 or which was mentioned earlier by Professor DiLorenzo, the Confederate Constitution. 129 00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:06.000 Got some people agreeing with me here. 130 00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:12.000 As much as it's to be admired, we have to remember that the Constitution was actually a compromise 131 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:17.000 with big government nationalists like Alexander Hamilton and Madison. 132 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:23.000 Madison, at the time of the Constitution, wanted to destroy state governments altogether. 133 00:14:23.000 --> 00:14:32.000 and Hamilton, of course, wanted a much more powerful presidency and a much more powerful and centralized central government. 134 00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:39.000 But as I said, it remains one of our main protectors of freedom. 135 00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:45.000 The original Constitution and Bill of Rights is no doubt still one of the great documents of all time. 136 00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:52.000 It's primarily the subsequent amendments and interpretation where we've lost liberty, 137 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:59.000 where we've consolidated power and where government has become more powerful. 138 00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:06.000 It's actually quite amazing how good the first ten amendments are and how bad the rest of the amendments are. 139 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:16.000 However, there is one proposed amendment that I want to talk about in some detail here and that has to do with reapportionment. 140 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:21.000 The reapportionment in Congress was never dealt with in the Constitution. 141 00:15:21.000 --> 00:15:30.000 All it says is every state gets at least one representative and you can have no more than one representative for every 30,000 people. 142 00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:38.000 It doesn't say how large the House of Representatives should be, how the representatives should be divided amongst the states, 143 00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:43.000 or even how the representatives should be chosen within the states. 144 00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:46.000 So this is something that's left open in the Constitution. 145 00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:59.000 The Constitution, the founding fathers recognized this and it was one of the first issues, the first amendment, the first proposed amendment to the Constitution was a reapportionment bill. 146 00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:12.000 Unfortunately, that amendment failed to pass by one state. Massachusetts mysteriously did not act and the amendment died one state short. 147 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:17.560 Now, reapportionment is basically how we reset the Congress in terms of the number of congressmen 148 00:16:17.560 --> 00:16:22.000 and how many congressmen go in each state and so on. 149 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:29.960 And there are two main methods that were proposed in the early days of this union. 150 00:16:29.960 --> 00:16:33.240 The first method was proposed by Thomas Jefferson. 151 00:16:33.240 --> 00:16:39.120 I'll refer to this as the good method. 152 00:16:39.120 --> 00:16:50.120 The citizens method basically said there'd be a fixed ratio, like in the Constitution it said 30,000 citizens or 30,000 population per representative. 153 00:16:50.120 --> 00:16:55.120 So that was something that allowed for a flexible size of the House of Representatives. 154 00:16:55.120 --> 00:16:59.120 More people in the country, a larger House of Representative. 155 00:16:59.120 --> 00:17:06.120 So you'd have a fixed ratio and the size of the House would be determined by the size of the population. 156 00:17:06.120 --> 00:17:17.280 and in Jefferson's method was flexible and definite and it favored the larger states such as Virginia. 157 00:17:17.280 --> 00:17:25.000 Now the other method was proposed by Alexander Hamilton and of course I'll refer to this as the bad method. 158 00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:33.220 Hamilton would set the size of the house at a certain number and then try to divide up the 159 00:17:33.220 --> 00:18:03.220 representatives amongst the states. Hamilton's method was inflexible, indeterminate, created a lot of political fighting possibilities, which we see today, and favored the small states. Jefferson's method was used from 1790 till right after his death in 1830. The size of the Congress increased from the original Congress 160 00:18:03.220 --> 00:18:22.620 In the 1940 census, we adopted the Hamiltonian method, which essentially reduced representation. 161 00:18:22.620 --> 00:18:28.220 What I mean by reduced representation is that each representative in the House represented 162 00:18:28.220 --> 00:18:30.500 more and more people. 163 00:18:30.500 --> 00:18:37.300 They actually reduced the size of the house by 17 and they forced states to elect members 164 00:18:37.300 --> 00:18:39.420 within monopoly districts. 165 00:18:39.420 --> 00:18:45.340 At this time, several states still elected representatives at large. 166 00:18:45.340 --> 00:18:51.520 So a lot of the good flexible ideas of the past were thrown out as the Hamiltonian vision 167 00:18:51.520 --> 00:18:55.340 took over with the 1840 census. 168 00:18:55.340 --> 00:19:03.700 And Hamilton's plan essentially stayed intact from 1840 until 1910. 169 00:19:03.700 --> 00:19:09.380 The House of Representatives still continued to grow a little bit each year, but it didn't 170 00:19:09.380 --> 00:19:11.940 keep up with population. 171 00:19:11.940 --> 00:19:15.640 It grew much slower than during the Jeffersonian period. 172 00:19:15.640 --> 00:19:18.980 In 1920, all of this changed. 173 00:19:18.980 --> 00:19:21.900 In 1920, there was no reapportionment. 174 00:19:21.900 --> 00:19:25.040 There was a big political battle after World War I. 175 00:19:25.040 --> 00:19:32.760 The Republicans who were in power essentially didn't want to give the power to the Democrats 176 00:19:32.760 --> 00:19:36.040 who were rising in voting strength. 177 00:19:36.040 --> 00:19:42.840 A big impasse ensued and nothing was essentially done with reapportionment for the first time. 178 00:19:42.840 --> 00:19:48.520 It was called the most notorious and inexcusable anomaly in our democracy. 179 00:19:48.520 --> 00:19:52.800 It's something that's never happened before and never happened since. 180 00:19:52.800 --> 00:20:01.920 And out of this stalemate came a push to limit the House of Representatives to 435 members, 181 00:20:01.920 --> 00:20:05.600 to permanently seal the House at that level. 182 00:20:05.600 --> 00:20:11.400 Now what was it that was necessary to change the basic form of government in the United 183 00:20:11.400 --> 00:20:15.200 States in such a drastic fashion? 184 00:20:15.200 --> 00:20:20.000 Well it turns out that they were just running out of room. 185 00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:21.000 That was the excuse. 186 00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:29.000 I didn't feel like they had enough room and that they couldn't build any more buildings to house more than 435 congressmen. 187 00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:37.000 They also said that it would threaten the efficiency of Congress if we had more than 435 members. 188 00:20:37.000 --> 00:20:41.000 The New York Times actually wanted it smaller. 189 00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:46.000 So you're probably getting the drift now of, you know, smaller, bigger, good and bad. 190 00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:58.000 Well, in any case, that's basically what happened. The limit was frozen at 435 and representation in this country has fallen dramatically. 191 00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:08.000 I have a little graph here that describes representation, the number of people represented by each house member. 192 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:17.000 Down here is the Jeffersonian period where each representative represented about 30 to 35,000 Americans. 193 00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:19.000 You can see it's kind of flat. 194 00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:25.000 And then we have a period here where the Hamiltonian method dominates. 195 00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:31.000 The number of people per representative rises to over 200,000. 196 00:21:31.000 --> 00:21:37.000 And at that point, the size of the House of Representatives is permanently frozen at 435. 197 00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:53.000 And, of course, now we're up to the point where each representative represents, or tries to represent, or maybe doesn't try to represent, 600,000 Americans. 198 00:21:53.000 --> 00:21:59.000 And as a result, we've lost control of our Congress. We've lost control of our congressmen. 199 00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:04.000 There's been three congressmen in my district in Alabama since I've lived in Alabama, 200 00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:08.000 in Alabama, and I've never even been in one of the towns that they've lived in. 201 00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:11.000 It's that spread out. 202 00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:15.000 Now, if we went back to the old method, the Jeffersonian method, 203 00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.000 and we looked at the limit of what the Constitution would allow us, 204 00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:21.000 because this is still very possible. 205 00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:24.000 It would just take a law of Congress or an amendment. 206 00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:29.000 We could have as many as 9,000 congressmen. 207 00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:38.440 I know that's distasteful, but I'm going to try to put it in a positive light. 208 00:22:38.440 --> 00:22:44.360 For example, one of the things, having 9,000 congressmen in Washington is that I think 209 00:22:44.360 --> 00:22:45.720 the New York Times is right. 210 00:22:45.720 --> 00:22:50.360 It would harm the efficiency of Congress, but that's a good thing. 211 00:22:50.360 --> 00:22:53.360 That's what we want. 212 00:22:53.360 --> 00:22:59.860 The second thing is that it would make it very difficult for special interest groups 213 00:22:59.860 --> 00:23:06.440 to set up their special interest legislation. They'd have to pay off more than 5,000 congressmen 214 00:23:06.440 --> 00:23:14.720 instead of just 200. So it just wouldn't be as much fun anymore. And think of it, the 215 00:23:14.720 --> 00:23:22.360 small districts, 30, 40,000 people per district, it would make it a lot cheaper to run for 216 00:23:22.360 --> 00:23:28.720 for Congress, the average person could run for Congress because personal reputation would 217 00:23:28.720 --> 00:23:34.720 matter more, door-to-door campaigning would matter more, TV ads would be useless, there 218 00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:39.280 would be a hundred districts in the city of Atlanta, so no one congressman is going to 219 00:23:39.280 --> 00:23:44.660 put TV commercials on the air because you'd be just wasting your money. 220 00:23:44.660 --> 00:23:48.880 So there's a lot of benefits, I think the role of career politicians would be greatly 221 00:23:48.880 --> 00:23:55.880 is diminished. There would certainly be no problem with diversity and minority representation. 222 00:23:56.080 --> 00:24:01.680 And most importantly of all, you would know your representative and you would know where 223 00:24:01.680 --> 00:24:08.680 they lived. And this is the type of control that we need over government. So I'm suggesting 224 00:24:11.360 --> 00:24:17.480 to you today that we need to restore the Jeffersonian method, that he was right all along, that 225 00:24:17.480 --> 00:24:25.400 We should greatly enlarge the size of the House of Representatives and adopt Jefferson's method. 226 00:24:25.400 --> 00:24:32.760 Of course, as with all political solutions, this is not going to cure everything that's 227 00:24:32.760 --> 00:24:39.440 gone wrong in Washington D.C. It's not, I certainly would suggest it's the only thing 228 00:24:39.440 --> 00:24:44.480 we need to do, but I think it's something that we should do and that would make a big 229 00:24:44.480 --> 00:24:49.800 Difference, and we need to bring this issue back out of the Orwellian memory hole and 230 00:24:49.800 --> 00:24:55.240 make it a part of American political debate today.