Congress, Where the Long Arm of the Law Cannot Reach
26 May 2006
Finally bipartisanship has broken out in Washington. Both Democrats and Republicans have joined together to squelch impending disaster. Oh, it’s not a looming threat to our nation that’s led politicians to cross the aisle for a group hug, but a perceived threat to themselves. We all know that lots of threats to our nation originate in Washington and most others are routinely ignored there. But whenever Washington politicians sense the least little threat to themselves, well, then it’s Katy bar the door. They’ll join together like a swarm of killer bees to sting to death anyone or anything remotely resembling a threat to their political careers or agendas.
What is it that has House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi looking like a prospective couple for a lobbyist’s all expense paid cruise on the Love Boat? It is a search of a fellow Congress member’s office by warrant-bearing FBI agents. William J. Jefferson, a Democratic congressman from Louisiana, is the subject of a federal bribery probe. He is also undoubtedly a part of the Republican Party’s “culture of corruption,” despite the fact that he is a Democrat. This past Saturday, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation rifled through Jefferson’s files in search of evidence of the congressman’s wrongdoing. It is this frightening happening that has brought together polarized politicians to protest in unison any warranted search and seizures of their congressional offices.
The thought of their files being rifled through by FBI agents must make politicians as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Can you imagine what our representatives are really like and what they are really up to when they’re away from C-SPAN’s cameras and microphones? In a day when polls, not personal convictions, dictate politicians’ positions, when the words politicians speak are not their own, but those put in their mouths by speech writers, and when political handlers decide everything else, from backdrops for news clips to whether or not politicians should wear earthtones, is it even possible to know what politicians are really like and up to?
We all see the public persona and contrived image that politicians work so hard to project, but do any of us ever see the real person underneath all that glitz and glitter? I’ve often wanted to be a fly on the wall in the congressional office building. I’d love to know what our nation’s leaders are really like, what they really think, and what they are really up to. Wouldn’t you? Yet, if members of Congress have their way, no one, not even warrant-bearing FBI agents, will be allowed into the congressional inner sanctum to uncover evidence of wrongdoing or disingenuousness.
Although both Hastert and Pelosi insist that “no person is above the law,” Congress regularly exempts itself from the very laws that it passes. Now, thanks to the Constitution’s obscure “speech and debate” clause, which offers limited immunity for lawmakers in the carrying out of their official duties, Congress is unanimously arguing that their offices, unlike yours or mine, are constitutionally cordoned off from the long arm of the law.
If Congress (the legislative branch of our government) succeeds in banning from its premises the executive branch of our government, then the makers of our laws will have effectively positioned themselves outside of the jurisdiction of the enforcers of our laws. Congress will be a law unto itself and its congressional office building a great place to hide stolen goods, murder weapons, and victims’ bodies.
Don Walton
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