60 likes | 203 Views
3. Influence of Political Parties: Strong relating to Gov’t & Economy & Social Welfare. 4. Influence of President: President can twist lawmakers arms, gets benefit of doubt on FP 5. Influence of Interest Groups: Lobbyists focus on committees and PACs contribute campaign money.
E N D
3. Influence of Political Parties: Strong relating to Gov’t & Economy & Social Welfare. • 4. Influence of President: President can twist lawmakers arms, gets benefit of doubt on FP • 5. Influence of Interest Groups: Lobbyists focus on committees and PACs contribute campaign money.
Representing the People: • Roles of Congressmen include: • a. Delegates: Follow desires of const. • b. Trustees: Follow their own judgment. • c. Politico: Combination • Representative Linkage Models • a.Independent Delegate Model: Own Judgement • b. Democratic Model: Constituents for Controversial issues (civil rights) • c. Party Rep Model: follow party line, social welfare issues. • d. Presidential Model: Foreign Policy Issues.
Sec. 4: Helping Constituents • A. Besides lawmaking, members of Congress must spend much of their time on two other important tasks: • 1. Act as problem solvers for constituents who have difficulties with departments or agencies of the fed. gov’t. • a. All lawmakers involved w/ casework: helping constituents w/ problems. • b. All lawmakers have staff members called caseworkers to handle these concerns.
c. Purposes of casework include: • 1. helps lawmakers get reelected. • 2. One way in which Congress oversees the Exec. Branch • 3. Provides a way for the average citizen to cope with the huge national government.
2. They must make sure that their district or state gets its share of federal money and projects such as new post offices, military bases, contracts, etc. • a. Lawmakers try to bring gov’t projects/money to their districts/states in three ways: • 1. Pork-barrel legislation: laws that appropriate federal $ for local projects. • a. Lawmakers usually help one another in these efforts though a process known as logrolling=you vote for my project and I’ll vote for yours.
2. Winning grants and contracts: Every year federal agencies award contracts to complete some gov’t projects. These projects add millions of dollars and countless jobs to local economy. • 3. Keeping Federal Projects: Lawmakers try to prevent federal projects from leaving their states.