It is a farce and an injustice that U.S. Senators will throw their name in the hat for the Presidency, completely ignore their jobs, and spend their time campaigning. Then, if they don't go far in their run, they quietly switch their Presidential election campaign into a Senatorial re-election campaign, for the express purpose of getting another 4 years to build support for their next run at the Presidency.
No one is innocent at this. Gregg Easterbrook noted as of April 25th of this year, when McCain, Obama and Clinton were all three still in the mix, that March 13th and April 8th were the only two times so far in 2008 that all three senators had actually been in Washington D.C. for senatorial business at the same time. Meanwhile, all three were receiving 169,300 dollars a year plus health care benefits and a generous pension as U.S. Senators...taxpayer money given to them so they could do their job as Senators. Taxpayers also fund their office expenses and staffs. Now, if I told my boss "Hey Phil, please keep paying me while I go around the office and argue for my self-promotion while ignoring my duties at my desk" then I would get a one-way ticket out to the parking lot. But somehow Senators seem to think (and the media is happy with this decision and never speaks up about it EVER) that if they say "I'm running for President," then they can happily ignore their present duties as they quest for future ones.
In the world of business, if you hold one position and receive compensation for it while trying to obtain another position, this is called a conflict of interest and it is in some cases illegal. Presidential candidates who are taking tax-funded pay from an office whose duties they are not performing essentially hold no-show jobs, and the no-show job is among the worst forms of government corruption.
States including Arizona, Florida and Georgia have in recent years passed "resign to run" laws that require an office-holder seeking higher office to resign from his or her present position. The time has come for a resign-to-run law at the federal level. Membership in the U.S. Congress should not be treated as a lifetime entitlement that pays whether you perform your sworn responsibilities or not. In 2007, Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, then in the Democratic field, actually moved to Iowa and lived in the state -- yet was still taking his taxpayer-funded salary for serving the people of Connecticut, a job he was making no pretense of performing. It may be nonsense that the current political reality requires a year of round-the-clock campaigning to win a party's nomination, but taxpayers should not subsidize this nonsense.
A federal resign-to-run law would make government more accountable, and how can anyone but the holder of a no-show job object to that? Such a law also would eliminate many marginal candidates, especially senators who have scant hope of winning a nomination but declare for the presidency for reasons of vanity -- then demand taxpayers support them as they self-stroke their own egos. Members of the Washington establishment constantly praise the risk-taking spirit of entrepreneurs, but when it comes to themselves, they want zero risk, running for President while clinging to their current positions. If declaring for the presidency meant a senator could lose his or her seat, few senators would run. And what a relief that would be!
Here's a backup possibility: return Congress to per diem. Until 1855, members of the Senate were paid on a per diem basis -- they drew money for those days on which they engaged in their duties. Suppose senators were given a high per diem rate (say $1,000 per day) but only received this pay when actually performing the public's business, rather than when campaigning, fundraising or slipping away for other self-serving activities. Panic would strike the Senate if such a law were passed. Senators would be expected to earn their pay!
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