By now you’ve probably heard the story of Tomas Lopez, the Florida lifeguard who was fired for saving a life.  You see, he dared to save someone from a portion of the beach that wasn’t under contract by his employer, Jeff Ellis Management.

Of course, this story vividly illustrates the problems of outsourcing traditionally government jobs to private companies, but that’s another story.

It also shows that Tomas understands morality and ethics – something in very short supply in Congress.  Tomas didn’t stop to consider how his actions might affect him personally.  He just did the right thing.  Our Congressional representives on the other hand…

You see, the first thing many of our Congressional representatives do after winning an election is to start fundraising and campaigning for their next term in office.  That means, if there is legislation that would benefit the public versus a political contributor, they often choose to vote for the contributor’s benefit.  Or if the right thing to do is controversial, they’ll vote against it for fear their opponents will use it against them.

No one party is more guilty than the other.  This is one aspect of Congress that is truly bipartisan.

We can’t change the situation with term limits.  They’ll just be motivated to ram through as much partisan legislation as possible during their limited time in office.  We can’t change it with legislation.  They’ll just find ways around it or, worse yet, take money under the table.  But we can change the situation by making it unnecessary to raise insane amounts of money to run for office.  We can also demand better candidates. 

What we need is a Congress full of representatives like Tomas Lopez.