download - Contra Costa County Bar Association
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COFFEETALK!<br />
How do you fix<br />
the congressional<br />
process?<br />
You need a bunch of independents or a<br />
third political party of centrists.<br />
Jay Chafetz<br />
2013 Board President<br />
Fix the voters.<br />
Mark W. Frisbie<br />
Attorney at Law<br />
Make our elected representatives be subject<br />
to all of the laws they pass, including<br />
social security and health care.<br />
Joshua Genser<br />
Genser & Watkins LLP<br />
Elect Democrats!<br />
Joel Zebrack<br />
Attorney - Mediator<br />
I believe that our Congress members now<br />
focus almost all their efforts to re-election<br />
rather than taking care of the nation’s<br />
business. Free TV and newspaper ads<br />
and finding a way to interest the bulk of<br />
the citizens the political process would<br />
help. A fix must really wait to make the<br />
citizens angry enough to get out and vote<br />
in large numbers.<br />
Gerald T. Richards<br />
Attorney at Law<br />
I was a strong supporter of term limits<br />
until I worked in the State Assembly.<br />
Then I soon realized that with term<br />
limits, the only people in the Legislature<br />
with any “institutional memory” were<br />
the lobbyists and others who were only<br />
too willing to take the freshman lobbyists<br />
“under their wing” and show them the<br />
ropes. With (3) two year terms, they were constantly worrying<br />
about raising re-election campaign funds instead of<br />
learning their way around. The end result was that many<br />
were wholly ineffective – voting for the wrong reasons –<br />
either uninformed, or to get re-elected. I suspect Congress<br />
is like that on steroids. SO…my plan would be that everyone<br />
gets to serve in Congress for one six year term…period,<br />
and then they go home. That way, they would not be distracted<br />
by raising campaign reelection money 80 percent<br />
of the time, they would have more time to get educated<br />
and, most importantly, they would vote their conscience –<br />
do the right thing without regard to how that vote would<br />
affect them in the next election. Six years is enough time<br />
to learn and do some good but not so long that if you occasionally<br />
got a real loser in there we couldn’t weather the<br />
storm until they were out.<br />
Stephen Gizzi, Esq.<br />
Gizzi & Reep, LLP<br />
30<br />
MARCH 2013
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