Red Flag Warning: Ban the Back Room Deals

Something the Watchman keeps running across are news stories about how one group in power hold secret meetings with other power groups to hack out some kind of deal. Or other stories about how groups in power use all kinds of backroom meetings and secret plans to foist off some controversial law or regulation on their fellow citizens.

One such example is where New York Governor Cuomo held a midnight session with fellow Democrats and crafted one of the most stringent anti-2^nd Amendment laws in the USA.  The bill was then rammed through the New York legislature on a fast track, that now may cause the law to be held invalid.

“Cuomo and legislative leaders agreed on the bill in closed-door negotiations and put the politically dicey measure to a vote at night in mid-January. That was after Cuomo issued the message of necessity, which the plaintiffs say includes misrepresentations.”  : http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/02/court-to-review-speedy-approval-ny-gun-controls/#ixzz2MONRpXRQ

The practice isn’t just done by the Democrats, although they have a good track record of such tactics.  The Republicans pulled similar tricks in Wisconsin over creating right to work laws. It is a practice that seems to be becoming the rule of operation rather than the exception. Simply put, this method of creating law circumvents the carefully laid procedures set forth by the founders.

The fiscal crisis also has been used as an excuse for the two parties to hold off-line, back room, secret meetings that are not exposed to the sunlight of a transparent government. The good citizens of our nation are robbed of the right to observe the deliberations of their elected leaders so as to make a fair assessment of their continued service come the next election.

A simple reading of the U.S. Constitution remands our leaders to conduct business of the people in the full light of public review and scrutiny.  We should be demanding all similar meetings be held in a public venue with full record of who said what, and why they said it.  The Constitution sets forth the rules for creation of laws in our nation and by these secret dealings the American people are being held hostage to actions that are not of our desire.

In essence these secret meetings of the powerful is nothing more in the end than rule by oligarchy, a select group of powerful individuals, who set law. The Watchman did not vote for Speaker Boehner nor Majority Leader Reid.  Thus I and many others are not being properly represented.  To make matters worse, the backroom deals hit the congressional floor, with no committee review, no amendments allowed, and virtually no serious debate or discussion on the merits of the law.  This is how the Sequester really came about.  It was a bad idea made behind closed doors and rushed through congress with little thought of the consequences.

The Watchman calls upon all good citizens to contact their congressional representative and local state legislators to create protective laws requiring all meetings to be done publicly and any “deals” agreed upon to be properly vetted through committee hearings.

If this trend continues, mark the Watchman’s words, we will rue the day we let this become the practice of government, as it will inevitably lead to tyranny.