Volume 45, Number 19 · December 3, 1998
Democracy for Sale
By Lars-Erik Nelson
The Buying of the Congress: How Special Interests Have Stolen Your Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
by Charles Lewis. the Center for Public Integrity
Avon, 416 pp., $25.00
As the 105th Congress drew to a close in October, those who tried to follow its deliberations might well have been mystified. Major legislation aimed at serving the public good—campaign finance reform, a 'Patients' Bill of Rights' to protect enrollees of health-maintenance organizations, restrictions aimed against cigarette manufacturers—had vanished, without even a vote on the merits, into the congressional labyrinths. Curiously, each of these measures had bipartisan majority support in both houses, even though there might have been differences on details. All of them had been debated on the floor or in committee. They had been subjected to hearings, commented upon in editorials, tested in polls, and found acceptable to a majority of our citizens. All of them died.
Review, 3338 words
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