Incumbents In Congressional Elections Essay

Therefore elections every two years in the House mean representatives have to stay in touch to remain electable. Also high rates of incumbency success, typically over 90% in the House and 80% in the Senate, suggests a high level of voter satisfaction with the members of congress themselves. Therefore if the people felt out of touch with the members of congress that represent them they would simple not vote for them in the following election. Therefore high incumbency rates displays the satisfaction with the members of congress suggesting that they are in touch with the people.

Forgette Richard, Garner Andrew, and Winkle John. “Do redistricting principles and practices affect US state legislative electoral competition? State Politics and policy quarterly, 20(9) (2009): 151 175.

     I will now examine some of last election year’s results. Voter turnout has decreased in the past years. There are two main factors that have been coming up in the past years. First, many citizens say that who is elected in office is not as important as it once was. Secondly, younger Americans are more cynical and disconnected from politics than ever. I think there is too much information out there and another thing that might be the reason this is happening is

Texas has a controversial way of electing its judges. When Texas became a state in 1845, judges were appointed by the governor with Senate consent, but since 1876, judges at all levels of courts have been elected by the people in partisan elections. The main problem with this system is partisan elections lead to more campaign contributions and increased partisanship among judge which hinders fair and independent judiciary system.

The congress is subject to congressional term limits. George Washington. These term limits have been around since the constitution. The presidential two term limit was informal until 1951 with the 22nd Amendment. The 22nd Amendment states “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.” This came after Roosevelt served four terms. Term limits are needed to control power, give regular citizens a chance to run, and make politicians think more and do more with their limited office time.

More convincing than the fact that the majority of incumbents retained their seats by overwhelming margins is the shocking statistic that a quarter of the incumbents were uncontested.13 These politicians were so successful at arranging favorable districts that it was futile to even attempt a challenge. The author continued to examine particularly egregious cases of gerrymandering in New York, including that of Senator Guy Vellela, who once selected voters for his district by individual city blocks.14 Senator Guy Vellela, as well as the other state senators of New York, are prime examples of politicians exploiting gerrymandering to manipulate the outcome of elections and improve their outcomes.

The primary vehicle for term limits in Congress is H.J.Res. 14, which would amend the Constitution to limit House members to three terms and U.S. senators to two terms. Yet only a handful of members have joined the joint resolution’s author, Representative Matt Salmon, R-Arizona, in co-sponsoring

When George Washington was elected President in 1789 by members of the fledgling United States of America, he was setting into motion a tradition that has stood the test of over 225 years - the presidential election. Even as the United States has seen dozens of wars, made hundreds of scientific advances, and selected thousands of politicians to seats everywhere from small town councils to Congress, the principles of the election have remained the same; the people band together to determine who will best protect their interests at home and assure that the US will always remain on top in foreign policy. Oftentimes, this is found to be a difficult decision, as public opinion is constantly wavering. One sees this in action particularly during the 1992 election - a battle of wills between Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Ross Perot; complete with lead changes, major vote swings, and Perot’s unprecedented initial success - ultimately a false alarm to the bipartisan establishment.

Mayhew examines the congressmen activity in Washington that is useful to engage in for the purpose of reelection. The first activity is advertising, defined by making a conscious effort to disseminate one’s name in a positive light among constituents to gain a favorable view. They emphasize personal qualities such as:

John Dingell, a member of the United States House of Representatives, served fifty-nine years and twenty-one days at this position. With no term limits set for the federal legislative positions in the United States, is this representation becoming redundant? Term limits can potentially be crucial in political reform of the United States that would bring new perspectives to federal legislative positions, warrant regular federal legislative turnover, and reduce incentives for wasteful election-related federal spending. Term limits can also pervert the entire understanding of what democracy is, by substituting the people’s will with term limits that may go against what the people want. United States federal legislative term limits have previously

As a remedy to the issues in Congress, term limits should be implemented in the US Congress because they can prevent corruption and provide turnover in Congress. Throughout the years, working as a Congressman has become

In 2015, Florida underwent a redistricting process after the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the district map drawn by the Republican legislature was unconstitutional(MCI Maps). This new district drawing resulted in a shift in party politics within many districts towards either party, or in some cases newly balanced districts with seats open for either party. Along with these shifts, there also became a lack of established constituencies that Fenno argues are crucial for Members of Congress. While a winner of newly drawn district will have automatically have geographic and personal constituencies, they will have to work to gain reelection and primary constituencies. The way to do so is through having a strong homestyle that fits the needs of your district, along with direct impacts on Congress in order to be able to credit claim during time of reelections. Looking at the voting history the 9th district where representative Soto was elected, its clear that the encompassing areas are only slightly left leaning. Data shows that for the past three presidential elections the district has continually voted in favor of the Democratic presidential candidate with a margin of only 11.8%(Daily Kos Elections). Also, the district has only slightly leaned to the left compared to the nation resulting in its average PVI for the past three elections to be 3.7 in favor of Democrats: meaning that there is a presence of conservatism in the district. This split in ideology, demands that Rep. Soto has to appease not only his liberal constituents, but those who are conservative as well: seeing that he does not have a large margin for reelection. To tap into this base, Rep. Soto has to focus on bipartisan issues that bring both sides together in agreement. The easiest way to do so in the 9th district is to focus on agriculture. The 9th

The media runs rampant, promoting both true and fraudulent information. Many Americans do not trust political advertising because it lies about personal backgrounds, exaggerates, and take things out of context to manipulate voters’ sentiments. (Gerdes, Louise) Each year, it seems like the candidates find new and clever ways to cast their opponents in negative lights. A more recent example of this was the 2014 North Carolina Senatorial race between Kay Hagan and Thom Tillis. An abundance of bruising commercials aired on the radio and television all around the state, bashing each candidate’s views, from taxation to abortions to women and gay rights. However, despite all this negative campaigning, the American public has learned to decipher between true and false. Mudslinging is not a new occurrence. With a long history dating back to the near founding of the country, negative campaigning had plagued nearly every political candidate in America. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams criticized each other mercilessly during the 1800 election, from foreign and domestic policies to their own person behavior (Gerdes, Louise). Alexander Hamilton, under his pseudonym “Phocion,” accused Thomas Jefferson of having an affair with on of his slaves (Editorial Accuses Jefferson). Jefferson was also accused of being an atheist, causing many older women to bury Bibles in their backyards in case he got elected. During the 1828 campaign, Andrew Jackson himself was accused of murdering Indians. His wife was charged with adultery (Kennedy, David M.). After many decades, Americans have learned to decrypt the negative campaign advertising and find the facts. The people are neither obligated to believe everything they listen to, nor are they required to gather their information from just one source. Newspapers, Internet articles, political speeches, and radio and televised news broadcasts, such as 60 Minutes and Face the

John H. Aldrich also explains the case for weak and weakening parties Elections make incumbents, the holder of an office or post, responsible to

Legislative theory suggests that anticipatory effects of term limits would first affect the types of individuals elected to office and only later influence the legislature itself. Our results, based on a 1995 survey of nearly 3000 state legislators nationwide, indicate otherwise. There are no systematic differences between term limit and non-term limit states in the composition of the legislature (e.g., professional backgrounds). Yet with respect to legislative behavior, term limits decrease the time legislators devote to securing pork, and heighten the priority they place on the needs of the state and on the demands of conscience relative to district interests. At the same time, with respect to the legislature as an institution, term limits