A week from today, voters across the country will revolt

On Nov. 2, the political status quo is going to take a serious beating. Any politician who has at all been associated with the last two years’ legislative ineffectiveness is in for the electoral challenge of their lives.

A widespread political revolt is occurring, and the tea party is simply the most visible and vocal expression of the voters’ near unanimous contempt for elected officials who have either forgotten or ignored the job they were sent to do.

The President’s $816 billion economic package was his first legislative item and the first on the agenda of the 111th  Congress. The manner in which it was presented set the congressional tone for the next two years.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi would not even let congressmen read the 1,588 pages of H.R. 1 until it was introduced Jan, 26, 2009 and then, to make a thoughtful, deliberative vote just about impossible, on Jan. 26 Ms. Pelosi  pushed through H. Res. 88, which changed the procedural rules for H.R. 1 so that it would skip the normal committee review process; it would have all points of order waived for it; debate on it would be limited to only 3½ hours; and after that short debate, the House would have to vote on it just two days later (Jan. 28) without any motions, amendments or changes to the bill being allowed.

That manhandling of the normal Congressional checks and balances was repeated many times during 2009 and 2010. The American people might have forgotten and forgiven those excesses if the resulting legislation had actually been any help to homeowners, employees and entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, it was not.

The elected officials have focused on the big banks and forgotten that homeowners are the voters. The result is that bad news keeps on coming: Lenders took over 102,134 properties in September 2010, the highest number since analyst RealtyTrac Inc. began tracking the data. Just in the single month of September, one of every 381 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing. For the third quarter of 2010 just ended, one in every 139 U.S. homes — 930,437 homes! — received a foreclosure filing.

The elected officials have focused on big government and forgotten that the private sector is what supports the voters and drives all the rest of the economy. The Consumer Expenditure Survey released in October 2010 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics noted that in the past year, each of us consumers spent an average of  2.8 percent less in 2009 than we did in 2009.

That is the first time there has been a drop in spending from the previous year since the survey began in 1984. If consumers don’t spend, businesses don’t hire.

The elected officials have focused on big corporations and forgotten that employees and entrepreneurs are the voters. USA Today reported that employment figures are remaining dismal: the unemployment rate of 9.6% remains unchanged; the underemployment rate of the discouraged unemployed who have stopped looking for work rose to 17.1% from 16.7% in August; September saw an additional 95,000  more people lose their jobs (and that is the net loss, after factoring in the few job gains that occurred); and those who are working part time even though they want full-time work increased 612,000 in the last month and 943,000 in just the past two months.

If the November 2010 crop of elected officials takes heed of the reasons behind the 2010 Voters’ Revolt, our lives and economy will improve and they won’t have to worry about re-election. If not, the 2012 election will make 2010 look mild by comparison.

Sharman practices law in Culpeper. His column appears each Tuesday.