Letter 9 in the College of Politicians Series

This was my only international letter on the subject (at least so far), addressed to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I heard about her and Mr. Singh of the NDP playing a video game for a fundraising event and thought I’d give it a shot.

Anyway, enjoy!

Thank you :)

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

229 Cannon HOB

Washington, DC 20515

United States of America

Saturday, March 6, 2021.

Dear Alexandria.

RE: Protected Title: Registered Politician.

I may be able to assist with the lack of accountability in your country. Politicians are responsible for preventable errors that contribute to deaths and languishing health and illness of denizens worldwide. A barrier to prevention of these harms is lack of regulation. One method of regulation is via a college whose mandate is to protect the public via standards and evidence-based practice. I have been advocating for a protected title of registered politician (similar to registered nurses) for more than a year and a half. Most recently, I mailed a letter to Jagmeet Singh on November 25, 2020, along with an entire history of my correspondence on the issue (I read in the CBC News that you and Jagmeet played a game together called, “Among Us” to raise money for food and housing insecurity in the USA). I have not been acknowledged by a politician this entire time and when I heard about your advocacy for accountability of politicians, I thought you may be able to give credence to the regulation of politicians.

I myself am a part of a regulated profession. I am a member of the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO; their head office is in Toronto, Ontario, Canada). My name is searchable on their public website, www.cno.org. Their job is to protect the public by maintaining a minimum standard of safety. They accomplish this by enforcing a number of standards, such as “Professional Standards, Revised 2002” which discusses accountability, continuing competence, ethics, knowledge, knowledge application, leadership, and relationships (CNO, 2002). If a standard is consistently being unmet, it could lead to licence removal and immediately losing one’s job. I think this is the accountability mechanism you are looking for: a person whose actions endanger the public immediately loses employment. The organization that is responsible for protecting the public, and enforcing standards, would be a College of Politicians.

Standards of practice could end up shaping future policy and public health. Standards rooted in evidence-based practice instead of personal, belief-based practice will affect policy endorsement and development. For example, the CNO standard of ethics, “ensuring fairness in the use of resources” could affect policy endorsement and development by requiring politicians to perform remedial work and/or study if they fail to meet the standard (CNO, 2002, p. 6). Remedial work and/or study allows politicians to understand the error and the consequences experienced by the general public of that action; standards also give grounds for dismissal by demonstrating their practice is a threat to public safety. A contemporary example of unfair use of resources could be endorsing subsidies for martini lunches and withholding subsidies for the general public meant to maintain health and safety during poverty, mass unemployment, and a pandemic. Thus, coupling standards with continued employment affects policy endorsement and development.

Misinformation, intentional or in error, can be harmful to the public. Political messaging has been linked to misinformation of electoral fraud in the USA. Commercial regulation of political messaging saw a subsequent drop of election misinformation by 73% (Dwoskin & Timberg, 2021). When a politician’s public messaging is harmful to the public, there ought to be similar protections for the public by an organization whose mandate is to protect the public, such as a College of Politicians, and not the will of private organizations who do not necessarily have the same duty to care.

Some may argue politicians ought to be immune to accountability because they were elected. Saying a person is elected is a misnomer for endorsed. Yes, an election was held to democratically chose one person to lead, but that decision was based on a majority endorsement. Though a previous election cannot be undone, a person can lose an endorsement and continued employment. To be elected does not mean a person can rule with impudence; otherwise, by definition, there is no accountability.

A college protects the public by assessing credentials and potential for exploitation of vulnerable peoples. Politicians must have credentials assessed for fraud and other actions or behaviours deemed to be harmful to the public interest. For example, in fraud, a person is attempting to deceive the public and convince them of something that is not truthful; this is a threat to public safety as the outcomes of deceit may have unpredictable consequences as it relates to public confidence in bona fide job requirements (like the previously discussed standards of accountability, continuing competence, ethics …). Assessing for potential of exploitation is necessary to protect the public from harm.

Intentional and unintentional errors of politicians need to be monitored for their impact on public health and safety. We need a system in place that monitors trends; specifically, we need incident reports to be documented by an institution who then analyzes them for themes. This institution monitors these themes and how they impact public health and safety. Afterwards, they enforce solutions and monitor how those solutions affect/improve public health and safety. Individuals with wilful intention to continue to do harm will need an enforcement method, and that method must be either remedial work and/or study, or dismissal; otherwise, the unacceptable alternative is continued harm to the public.

Current enforcement methods have demonstrated a lack of capacity to hold politicians answerable for their actions. I am aware you have asked colleagues to “resign”, and quite frankly, asking someone to leave their employment demonstrates the power politicians have to continue employment without repercussions, and/or, the lack of power the general public has to protect themselves from politicians. It is time to regulate politicians and to hold them to similar standards of conduct as other professions – it is time to create a College of Politicians to codify and enforce standards of practice.

So far, I have addressed my concerns about the profession to six politicians, and all have neglected to respond. One may argue politicians cannot reasonably respond to every person that contacts them (for workload reasons or undue hardship). It is also unreasonable to have public concerns remain unanswered by public leadership; moreover, professional consensus is a method of evidence-based practice. The public needs an organization that represents all politicians who can provide an evidence-based answer to public concerns.

I recommend creating a College of Politicians to protect the public from politicians. I discuss a College of Politicians in more detail in my previous letters, feel free to review them for more details. My suggested course of action is to create this organization within three to six months (July 2021 – October 2021) to protect the public and to track how political practice affects the health and well-being of the public. Lastly, I believe this organization would likely need strong leadership: I believe AOC to be a strong candidate.

Until then.

Thank you.