Essay On Congressional Representation

It’s been argued ever since the constitution was made how in touch the congress members where with the people who elect them and this argument still goes on today. With the 425 members of the House each has a district which averages nearly 650,000 people, this is a vast number with many arguing that there is little chance that congress can be in touch with the people when they have to represent such vast numbers. However, the other side of the argument displays evidence that in fact the members of congress are able to stay in touch and represent the people who elect them.

When looking how effectively a country represents its citizens, it is important to take into account the manner in which they are represented. The two main types of representation are descriptive and agency representation. Descriptive representation is the concept that those who represent the American people should not only have the same political interest, but should also mirror the demographic makeup of the people. Agency representation, which is what the United States congress looks like, is when the representation does not reflect the demographic, but they speak for their constituents’ interests in congress. The constituents are able to hold the representatives accountable and can choose not to elect them in the next term, so the representatives

By decision making by representatives of the people, rather than direct decision making by the people themselves. These elite representatives would be expected to use their prudence and wisdom to make decisions based on what was in the best interests of the masses. (pg. 7)

Throughout history, there have been many factors that seem to have influenced the operations of Congress. Some of these factors have been the committee system, seniority, and political parties. These are only a few of the factors that actually have an influence on Congress’s decisions of certain operations.

“ Congress: The Electoral Connection”, the article is written by David R. Mayhew. Mayhew represents his view about Congressmen activities. These politicians discuss certain issues going on within the country and to emphasize people to focus on their listed issues and get attention of public in order to take position in House.

The previous passage proves that the constitution’s ideal representative that holds some sort of power and status in government need to be educated and wealthy. To sum it up, those who are already in congress are those who decide who’ll be apart of government, and make decisions that will affect our country. This will further create a division amongst classes and tension between the upper and middle class will diverge from one another.

An important point made in Weissert and Weissert concerning Congress and its committee structure is that the majority of the work in Congress is done through committees. They perform the majority of research on issues and possible solutions, get legislation written, re-written and amended, and support it as it moves through Congress and finally gets passed. They are the “workhorses of the legislature” (Weissert and Weissert, 29).

Another way members of Congress represent their constituents is by taking the role of the

Throughout the book Congress: The Electoral Connection there is a common theme that the author, David Mayhew, brings to our attention. He argues that the members of Congress have one exclusive goal, to get reelected; because of this goal, it effects their behavior and actions during their time in office. There are four reasons that Mayhew puts an emphasis on the goal of reelection, those being political reality, the lack of focus on parties but rather on individuals, the constant struggle for power and, in his opinion, most importantly it establishes an accountability relationship with an electorate. As the book progresses Mayhew provides an abundance of evidence as to why he believes this is the primary goal of the members of Congress.

Exam 2 Congress is always busy whether it is passing new bills into law or simply coming up with ideas of new laws. This is where Congressional Delegation of Authority comes into place taking some of the workload off Congress. The first subcategory is called Congressional Delegation of Authority, which are lawmaking bodies that have limited power given by Congress. The Congressional Delegation of Authority consists of four parts.

Still according to the book the basis of sociological representation portrays representative as a delegate who shares the same gender, racial, religious, ethnic or educational culture with the constituents. Hence, one can conclude that Congress is not sociologically representative of the common people. Nevertheless, Both Houses do have a good productive organization support. As the book explains agency representation is a form of representation that is present when the citizens have the ability to appoint and oust congressmen and congresswomen. Our lawmakers were voted in by the citizens and have to make decisions on their behalf and protect their interest as they represent the American People. The framers had in mind for Congress to be very active to the needs of their constituents, frequently congress members got mixed up over acting in the name of the citizens of their district and satisfying the needs of the entire nation. Although, sociologically the agency representation is disproportional, the lawmakers always act with the next election in

In her book, Pitkin views representation in four partial views in order to get a better understanding of the overall term. “Acting for” differs from the other views in that it is focused on the substance of representing. Pitkin also brings up the “Mandate-Independence Controversy” which describes the conflict of how representatives should act. The mandate view of representation is where the representative’s choices reflect the views of the represented; he is bound by the instructions from them. Independence view gives the representative more freedom as long as it’s still what is best for the constituents. Both these views offer ways of viewing how a representative should behave. This principle is demonstrated in a sorority executive council. There are different council positions that demonstrate different strategies used to represent the sorority. There is no clear answer to how much freedom a representative should have when acting for the represented. However, the mandate-independence view and Pitkin’s analogies offers a way of viewing this question. Pitkin’s five analogies for explaining substantive representation will be discussed to further explain this concept: actor, trustee, substitute, ambassador, and specialist. Each analogy has its strengths in defining representation and its shortcomings.

This model suggests that constituents give their authority to representatives and entrust them to work on policy to the best of their ability. This model tends to facilitate the dialogue that is necessary to avoid problems with radicalized and hyper-polarized politics. Representatives aren’t just supposed to go to Washington to talk past one another. Instead, this model generally allows for compromise to be met. Personally, some of my favorite Congressmen adopt the trustee model of representation, which allows them to have a back and forth with not only their constituencies but the nation as a whole. It shows that one of the roots of the big sort is the political mindset that voters have on how representatives should

The article Rethinking Representation, written by Jane Mansbridge, explains how there are three different forms of representation apart from the traditional idea of “promissory” representation. Promissory representation is the traditional model of representation. It focuses on the idea that during a representative’s campaign they make promises to their constituents. During the representative’s time in office, these promises are either kept or not fulfilled. As Mansbridge notes, within the last 20 years there has been three new forms of representation, they are anticipatory, gyroscopic, and surrogate representation.

In this module we have study modifications to the way Congress and the President do business. The Constitution lists specific duties for Congress to attend to; it is a little vaguer when assigning duties to the President. It is up to both of these institutions to best determine how to accomplish these duties. The major theme of this module is change, the addition of offices under the President and the modifications to the power distribution within the Congress to help better and sometimes hinder these institutions in accomplishing their duties.