Congressional Representation

1. Congressional Representation

2. What is Congress supposed to do in the Constitutional system? Make law (good law???) Check the executive branch

3. What are members of Congress supposed to do in the Constitutional system? Represent wishes/interests of constituents Make good laws Oversee the executive branch

4. How can we make members represent constituents? Let’s talk about their incentives.

5. Why would anyone run for Congress?

6. Why would someone run for Congress? Patriotism Power and ego Policy goals Political career ambition

7. Given those motivations, how can we the people ensure that members of Congress pay attention to their constituents? Or write good laws? Or check the executive branch?

8. How can you ensure that MC’s pay attention to their constituents? Choose people of good character Strict anti-corruption rules

9. How can you ensure that MC’s pay attention to their constituents? • Choose people of good character • Strict anti-corruption rules • Align their personal interests with the interests of their constituents by forcing them to go before the voters on a regular basis to keep their job

10. The re-election motive Must get re-elected to further any other goals Must act in ways that will get them re-elected

11. Mayhew’s argument • Assume that members of Congress only want to get re-elected. • Is that a valid assumption? • Does this assumption hold for both marginal and safe districts?

12. Median Voter Theorem (Downs) Assume that Ideology and issue positions are normally distributed in the population In a winner-take-all system, candidates will try to get one more vote than the other candidate by moving toward the center. Goal is to win over the “median voter”

13. What could a member of Congress do to improve his or her re-election chances? Advertising—create a favorable image Credit claiming—especially particularized benefits Position-taking Allocation of staff/time resources while in office Make sure campaign resource balance favors him/her

14. The incumbent advantage is at least partially due to the incumbent’s own efforts to get re-elected. Pleasing the constituents is a big part of those efforts.

15. Mayhew on Congress • Offices, committees and parties serve members’ electoral needs • How? • Committees allow specialized credit claiming • Equal access to particularized benefits for credit claiming • Not much true discipline in roll call voting (why?)

16. What did R. Douglas Arnold do in his study? What question was he trying to answer?

17. Arnold Asked, “when members of Congress cast a vote on a bill, who do they listen to?” Answered it by asking members themselves

18. How do members of Congress make decisions?

19. Who does an MC worry most about? • Potential opponents (“Instigators”) • BOTH Attentive and Inattentive publics

20. Attentive and Inattentive Publics • Attentive Publics: citizens who know about an issue and have firm preferences about how Congress should act • Inattentive Publics: have neither firm policy preferences nor knowledge of what Congress is doing

21. So WHEN will a member of Congress pay attention to the “median voter” (inattentive public) in the district? (And when will she pay attention to the “attentive publics”?)

22. When will an MC pay attention to the inattentive public? • When the inattentive public might notice what they do. • Which is? • When voting on bills that get a lot of media attention • When voting on symbolic issues • When their vote might be difficult to explain • (Avoid a “string of votes”)

23. What about the attentive publics? When do they win? On votes that are complex On votes that are not covered by the media On tax and regulatory bills more than spending bills On committee votes On procedural votes They can also affect how hard a member works

24. Summary of MC Behaviors and Incentives

33. Can Congress balance the presidency? • Some selective incentives to do so • Prestige in institution for legislating • Particularized rewards for working on committees • Fewer rewards for: • Checking to see if laws are faithfully executed • Researching to see if policies have desired results • Narrowly tailoring laws to avoid giving discretion to the executive branch

34. Given re-election motive, Congress as an institution will… • Be an ombudsman • Expresses constituency preferences, not necessarily national preferences (common good) • Pass legislation that contains particularized benefits • Pass legislation that will not impose large, direct costs on constituents

35. Given re-election motive, Congress as an institution will… • Pass legislation that embodies a good “end” even if means are poorly tailored to achieve it • Serve inattentive publics/median voter on high profile issues • Serve attentive publics/interest groups on low profile issues • Express symbolic policy preferences, not necessarily follow through • Not check and/or balance the executive branch

36. Small Group discussion:If a law was passed that you felt was unjust or otherwise poorly conceived, and that you really wanted to see changed, what could YOU do about it? Hint: You should think about what you now know about the roles that Congress (and various actors within Congress), interest groups, the media, and others, play in policymaking.