By Harry T. Cook

6/28/13 

 

 

 

In my state (Michigan), the majority leader of the Senate recently refused to allow a vote on a bill that would commit the state to the Affordable Care Act's offer of funds to give health care insurance to almost a half million of Michigan's poor. In so doing, he disenfranchised 37 of his senatorial colleagues and ignored the critical needs of the disadvantaged.

 

It is crystal clear that what holds back the so-called leader is the threat from tea party operatives to target for electoral defeat any senator who votes to accept the federal deal, worrying the party capos. But it doesn't matter why he will not allow a vote. What matters is that he -- one among 38 senators and the state's population of 9,883,360 residents -- actually can block the democratic process of lawmaking.

 

The majority leader of the U.S. Senate and the Speaker of the U.S. House have and exercise the same power meaning that one man out of 100, and another out of 435 can stop the Congress of the United States of America in its tracks, render it impotent. That does not spell democracy. In fact, it smells like tyranny.

 

That power held by a few more than 300 people nationwide is derived from rules set up by the legislative bodies themselves, which are, in turn, derived from Article I. of the U.S. Constitution. Notwithstanding, do you think anything in this sentence found in Sec. 5 of that article was intended to invest in one person the of power to block a vote? Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings . . . If you do think that, you may as well leave this screen right now and entertain yourselves with the sound and fury of such national sages as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.

 

It is not a good place to which this nation's governance has come. It's one thing for a majority of the U.S. House to vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act 37 times. It has the constitutional prerogative to do so. But its Speaker does not have a constitutional prerogative or, better yet, a moral right to deny the body an up-or-down vote on a piece of legislation.

 

A few questions:

• Why do we abide that kind of abuse at the state and national levels?

• What are teachers of eighth-grade civics and 12th-grade government classes telling their students about how legislation is supposed to be adopted or rejected and about how and why it sometimes is not?

• Why can one sitting U.S. senator by not much more than a raised eyebrow put the kibosh on debate regarding a presidential appointee or, once by some rare miracle such a debate is allowed, putting a hold on the final vote?

• What can ordinary citizens, who will never have the chance to be Mr. Smiths going to Washington, do to end these outrages?

To that latter question, I would offer an answer the pursuit of which would work better on the state level. Everyday citizens of Michigan, sometimes unwilling to trust their Legislature to act, have had a hand in making fairly big changes -- not necessarily wise every case -- in how their state does business, for example:

1. By constitutional amendment, the purchase of food and prescription drugs was exempted from the sales tax;
2. By constitutional amendment, research and experimentation with embryonic stem cells was approved;
3. By popular vote defeating (twice) constitutional amendments that would have allowed public money to support religious schools;
4. By constitutional amendment, approving term limits on members of the House of Representatives and senate as well as on governors and lieutenant governors.

 

Why not a grassroots campaign to protect democracy by forbidding senate and house leadership from preventing up-or-down votes on legitimate legislation? Let the state's elected representatives vote. That's why they were sent there on the public's dime.

 

True enough, a legislature such as the one we have now in Michigan, struggles to get its collective IQ into three digits and, under the current majorities Republicans enjoy, can be depended on to vote for the damnedest measures, e.g. more and more restrictions on reproductive rights.

 

Yet the fault is not in those dim, dwarf stars but in ourselves. An insufficient number of citizens are registered to vote, and, of those registered, too high a percentage of them fail to cast ballots -- especially in primary elections when the scum tends to rise to the top. That goes for all 50 states.

 

But democracy is democracy. Some people vote for the scum because they don't know any better, or they know and do so anyway. The tea party is a ruthless master of that kind of politics. But if it turns out the votes and wins, that's the democracy you get.

 

Meanwhile, the politically sane among us should get off our duffs and prod elected officials to work with us for a constitutional amendment that would prohibit legislative leaders at the state level from such tyrannical actions as blocking up-or-down votes in their respective houses. That by itself would restore some semblance of representative democracy in the legislative process.

 

Such an initiative could become an example for other states and even put Congress on notice that what Abraham Lincoln meant by government of, by and for the People is still the standard and must be upheld.

 

 

 

 

FOOTNOTE: Five Justices Dispense Injustice

 

For those of us who worked so many years ago in the Sisyphean task of helping African Americans exercise their rightful suffrage as citizens, this past week's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that basically guts the 1965 Voting Rights Act was a terrible disappointment. Our worst fears were confirmed when, within two hours of the court's promulgation, the attorney general of Texas moved to reinstitute a voter identification requirement that will put a burden on Hispanic and African Americans. He said also that the ruling will allow the state to configure legislative and congressional districts. Such a move would make Texas once again safe for white supremacy. The worst is, no doubt, yet to come. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Florence Meredith, Ames, IA:

Those Sunday school songs seem silly now, but I know what you mean about their persistence in memory. They were a gift that keeps on giving, even though we grow away from them, we grew up with them. We are of an age, and well do I remember elementary school between the ends of two wars.

 

Nancy Heathcote, Loudon, TN:

My favorite [Sunday school song] had these words:

"Jesus loves the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the children of the world." The irony was that it was in the 1940s in North Carolina in a segregated church in a town where black people sat only in the balcony of the movie theater and lived in only the poor section of town. Schools were also segregated. But the words of the song have remained with me and affected my thinking all my life.

 

Cathy Petroelji, Zeeland, MI:

It is not what a friend they had in Jesus, it is what a friend I have in Jesus. Those old wonderful hymns we sing are filled with inspiration and show us how much we love the Lord. I am so surprised that you have become so far removed from the Christian faith, I so believe in Jesus Christ as my personal Savior and to someday join with my fellow Christian believers in heaven. 

 

Karri Absenger, Spring Lake, MI:

This [essay] is right on. I always have the little "jingles" going on in my head. Not only did I grow up in Zeeland [Michigan] and went to a R[eformed] C[church of A[merica], but my grandpa was in a gospel quartet, and my dad always sang hymns and little songs. All the time! So, now, at age 50, I find myself bursting into song in the shower, or when I get stressed. I'm sure my atheist husband is shocked when I sing "Cheer up my brother live in the sunshine, we'll understand it, all by and by. When we see Jesus, coming in glory...."! Or, "Just a closer walk with thee" or "Onward Christian soldiers" or "Zacchaeus was a wee little man." Especially since I am now an agnostic, Buddhist/yoga instructor. Anyway, thank you for this essay. At least I know I'm not alone in my bible school jingle insanity!

 

Veronica Tillman, Raleigh, NC:

I say all those Sunday school songs, and as I look back I wonder now how much their theology might have kept me from understanding that some of them were deeply manipulative, as you pointed out. Thanks so much for a very entertaining and instructive essay.

 

John Bennison, Walnut Creek, CA:

I look forward to reading your latest book. The repertoire of Christian hymns I am able to abide singing has shrunk considerably over the years, allowing the outdated theology of the words to get in the way of some magnificent tunes. Fortunately, like all music, good hymnody potentially has the power to transcend itself; despite some of the stilted and arcane language that often clings to it. A new anthology is sorely needed to loose the tongue and sing with the same gusto you still remember so clearly these many years later. And, by the way, for what it's worth, I'd say you did become a go-go-go missionary, helping bring the light of the gospel to some of the darkest corners of Christendom.

 

Bonnie Smith, Acme, MI:

I am so delighted that you have addressed the issue of "popular hymns"! It amazes me that in our churches we seem to sing from the throat down, with little connection to our brain for what comes out of our mouth: "Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus, going on before." To "join the happy throng"? What?! A Jesus who spoke frequently of bringing peace and helping the poor as our main focus if we are to be considered his followers. And we think we are instead to be happy soldiers marching off to war?" Sometimes the only sound I can choke out when I see the hymn selection on Sunday is a muffled "ack."

 

Cynthia Chase, Laurel, MD:

You are writing books faster than I can read them. On my way to Amazon.com once again. Our priest was the daughter of a Southern Baptist minister. Our organist/choirmaster is Catholic, but the other half of his family founded a little church in rural Virginia, so we sing many African-American hymns. He always tries to get the white folks in the choir not to sing the notes on the page, but to sing the hymn the way his grandmother would have. An uphill battle all the way. So, as you would guess, we sometimes sing many of the hymns you've probably written about.   

Thomas Sagendorf, Hamilton, IN:

I'm reminded of being herded to Banner St. Bible School in [Grand Rapids] and then driven to Calvary Undenominational Church by an equally driven aunt who wanted to make sure I knew all the drivel and could be counted among the "saved."  Even then, with nobody to tutor me, I knew that this stuff was crap. The Christian faith had to be more than this. Much more. Of course, I received my radicalization in seminary. I tried, in pastoral ministry, to divest my parishioners of such shallow and distorted thinking. Sometimes with success.

 

Tracey Martin, Southfield, MI:

The only thing I can remember from summer bible school is my inability to stay within the lines when coloring Jesus. Perhaps that explains my lack of an ardent embrace of religion. My curiosity wanders outside the lines. Thanks for the charming exegetical analysis of hymns, given the juvenile state of contemporary popular Christianity.

 

Fred Fenton, Concord, CA:

Congratulations on the new book, which should make a great read for those of us who were nurtured and led astray by the old gospel songs and hymns of our youth. In seminary, I waded through the first three volumes of Karl Barth's monumental theology only to learn, years later, that when asked what his lifelong study had produced, the great man replied, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." We don't hear much about Barth's neo-orthodoxy today, and for good reason. Although accepting biblical criticism he relied too much on revelation rather than reason.

 

Blayney Colmore, Jacksonville, VT:

Like you, I carry a bevy of tunes around in my unconscious, and they often emerge at the most unexpected moments. I find your thesis fascinating, that the infantile themes of Bible songs have resulted in infantile theology. I wonder if the songs reinforce rather than form theology? I sing a lot of rock and roll songs that imbedded themselves in me as a young person, full of ideas I don't subscribe to. In fact, though I have no idea how typical I may be. I hardly ever pay attention to lyrics of tunes I find engaging. Something that has stayed with me for 50 years was the startling discovery as I studied for the exam on Bible content we were required to pass to matriculate in The Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, MA in 1966 that I had Bible stories all mixed up in my head with Grimm's fairy tales. What that suggests to me is that there is some, permanently childlike, place in us that finds comfort in familiar tunes and stories we learned as children, even though they no longer inform our picture of the world.

 

Barbara Reider, West Bloomfield, MI:

Seventy years ago, a daily vacation bible school was next door to our house. There was no air conditioning in the place and all the windows were open. I swear I heard "Jesus loves me" in my sleep. Periodically I still will sing it to annoy whoever! Your essay brought back childhood memories. Thanks.

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