The Nature of Representation

How should we choose a particular representative to vote for, and how should representatives do their jobs?

For the first time in my life there is a candidate that I closely identify with as a human being, and that makes me ask, what is the proper way to think of representation? If I voted for someone just because he would best represent me as an individual, it would be Ben Carson. But I know he probably isn't the best candidate for the nation.

So how should we vote? Should we choose the best representative for us as individuals, or the best representative for the nation?

On a related note, Eric Hines and I got into the question of how representatives should do their jobs in a discussion about Cruz. He pointed out that senators represent states, and the representatives of one state are not beholden to the voters in another. However, this brought up another question for me: Should a senator do what is best for his state or, if there is a conflict, what is best for the nation?

24 comments:

Dad29 said...

Without reflecting on it too much, I'll offer this: a House or Senate member should vote according to the will of his district/State and the President shall act in the National Interest.

(There have to be a few exceptions to the House/Senate mandate, such as in times of war.)

Grim said...

A President isn't exactly your representative in government. Your Representative is there to represent your interests. Your Senator is there to represent your state's interests. The President is supposed to think about his duty as the executive carrying out the will of Congress, which is to say, the will of the People and the States.

I had thought from the headline, though, that we were going to be discussing transcendental apperception. :)

E Hines said...

Here's my two cents' worth.

For whom should I vote? The most conservative candidate who's electable in the general election. And then support him in the general.

How should a Congressman (Senator or Representative) do his job? If his constituents have formed a consensus on a particular matter, he should argue for and vote for that matter. If there's no consensus (and achieving a consensus in a boss that's a committee of 30,000 citizens (as the Constitution requires) or the much larger committee that actually exists today is not straightforward), he should act on his own best judgment. That includes matters of national interest, since the Congressman's constituents are among the atoms that make up the whole.

There isn't a clear distinction here, though, especially on the question of what constitutes a consensus or whether the broader national interest should supersede even the consensus of those atoms. For government, though, unlike a business, I think we're hiring a man for his judgment as well as his strict adherence to our instructions. If we think he's let us down too often, there'll be an election coming up. That responsibility is, irretrievably, on us.

Consider, also, Adam Smith's invisible hand. Smith articulated that concept in an economic arena, but it applies to politics, also. The invisible hand is the aggregation of individual choices made for personal gain, and it leads in the main and over the long run a greater good. So it is in voter choice. The aggregated outcomes lead in the main and over the long run to a greater good (or at worst a slower devolution) than any elitist (or tyrannical) model for choosing the men who populate government.

Eric Hines

MikeD said...

Should a senator do what is best for his state or, if there is a conflict, what is best for the nation?

For his State. That is supposed to be the role of the Senate, after all. To represent the States in the Federal Government. And I think we've done a disservice to the Constitution by removing that idea that the States should have any say in governance of the nation.

After all, the federal government is the union of the States. What is good for New York often will not be good for Iowa. And even national level discussions (such as "shall we go to war" need to take into account those State level interests. If we get into a trade dispute with OPEC over the cost of oil, it's entirely within Alaska, Texas, and a few other States' interests to push that conflict to another level, as they are decidedly involved in the oil trade. But if the other States think that's a poor idea, or don't see the value to themselves in doing so, then that is a valid reason to not escalate on the national level. Yes, that may make individual States unhappy. But the idea is the union will eventually work towards the common good of all, not the interests of the few.

ColoComment said...

The states are sovereign entities that voluntarily relinquished certain perquisites of their sovereignty to the federal government, as enumerated in the U.S. Constitution.

For a U.S. representative or senator to subsume his constituents' or his state's (respectively) interests to the federal interest, except in those certain matters where they have specifically relinquished them, is to fatally undermine the doctrine of federalism under which the United States were formed.

Which they have indeed done over the course of the last half century plus, and which is why the states are now so in thrall to the federal government.

Tom said...

Grim, that's a neat hierarchy. I'm not sure the president isn't a form of representative, though. He or she is supposed to represent everyone, in a sense, but since we get a choice among a number of potential candidates, the president does seem to represent some interests better than others.

I had thought from the headline, though, that we were going to be discussing transcendental apperception. :)

A reasonable assumption that anyone could have made. :p

Tom said...

Eric: For whom should I vote? The most conservative candidate who's electable in the general election.

This brings up two other complicating factors for my question.

First, how much should ideology influence our votes? If we believe adherence to one ideology is better for some body (a person, community, state, nation, all of the above, etc.) than another, then I guess the answer to my question depends on which body you think the ideology is better for. Adherence itself is an issue because I have to ask, how conservative (liberal, etc.) I myself am, and how well the candidate reflects my level of adherence to the shared ideology.

Second, what about party? Should a Republican senator ever put the party above his state's interest? I don't think putting party first all the time is at all good, but sometimes?

Tom said...

Also, thanks for the reminder about Adam Smith. Something to think about.

Tom said...

MikeD: I think we've done a disservice to the Constitution by removing that idea that the States should have any say in governance of the nation.

This may well be. A lot of Tea Partiers talked about this when I went to their rallies years ago. However, I have a quibble with your phrasing. Senators still represent their states, they just represent the state's voters rather than the state's legislature.

Why is that important? I don't necessarily trust my state legislature any more than I trust the voters in my state.

Also, maybe it makes a big difference, but I can't really see it. What differences do you think it would have made in the last hundred years?

But the idea is the union will eventually work towards the common good of all, not the interests of the few.

Yes, it's not necessarily an exclusive decision. It may well be that by voting for my best interest I am helping the nation work toward that common good for all. I don't know.

Tom said...

ColoComment: Which they have indeed done over the course of the last half century plus, and which is why the states are now so in thrall to the federal government.

In what ways have they done that?

I have to admit that I see the biggest imbalance in this regard coming from the Supreme Court. Jefferson warned us after Marbury v. Madison that the Supreme Court would trash the Constitution, and he tried to get an amendment passed to overturn it. I think he was right, but I'm not sure what the fix would be, except maybe to somehow mandate originalist interpretations.

E Hinesq said...

I guess the answer to my question depends on which body you think the ideology is better for. Adherence itself is an issue because I have to ask, how conservative (liberal, etc.) I myself am

If you adhere strictly to my Smith analogy, the body you think the ideology is better for is you. But even with my Smith analogy held loosely, you can take the course of some sort of greater good from your perspective: does this guy even have an ideology, an organizing ethos? If so, is it better for my community, my district, my State (in the case of a Senator)?

Which leads me to my next point: how [conservative] am I? That's your responsibility as a citizen to determine. [g] Or not--that's also your decision. That self assessment will inform your answers to the above; although, it might not determine them.

Second, what about party? Should a Republican senator ever put the party above his state's interest?

Yes. What's the goal? Where party unity is needed to work the greater good, to achieve substantially more of his constituents' instructions in a particular case, then yes. As Spenser once said (the PI, not the poet), on the whole substantial justice [will be] done. If not, then he must go with his constituents, even if that means he's going alone. In addition to matters on which he has no constituent consensus, this is an area where we elect (or I vote for, anyway) the man for his judgment. If the party can't achieve consensus on the matter because the Congressmen have constituents with sufficiently opposing sets of instructions, that's a hint: the people don't have a consensus, and the party has more work to do.

I think we've done a disservice to the Constitution by removing that idea that the States should have any say in governance of the nation.

This may well be. A lot of Tea Partiers talked about this when I went to their rallies years ago.


I think we have not. A Senator now represents the State directly, not the State's legislature; the States remain fully represented. Indeed, the States are better represented today than when legislatures were responsible for selecting the Senators. When it was the a matter of State legislature selection, it was a whole lot easier to buy the seat, nakedly through bribery, than it is now, even with today's ubiquitous lobbyists. An Illinois(!) Senator even got tossed by the Senate for having bought his seat. More commonly--45 times--the State's legislature couldn't agree on a Senator, and it would go that Congressional session without a Senator. Delaware went without any Senator at all in 1901-1903.

Under the present system, the good citizens of a State are not deprived of their Senate representation by political gridlock.

I have to admit that I see the biggest imbalance in this regard coming from the Supreme Court. Jefferson warned us....

I disagree. Any government of men is going to drift from its own rules and structure. The Court has done this slowly. How fast would the Congress have gotten away from our Constitution? You have only to look at how many of Congress' statutes even a timid Court has struck as illegitimate--unconstitutional. How fast would an unfettered President have drifted? You have only to look at the number of times Wilson got overruled by the Court, how many times FDR got overruled (until he successfully intimidated the Court, and then thoroughly packed it), you have only to look at our present President.

Eric Hines

Grim said...

Grim, that's a neat hierarchy. I'm not sure the president isn't a form of representative, though.

The President is, in a way, a representative of all of America -- he is our primus inter pares, for example, the one of us who goes out to speak to the world as the leader of our diplomacy. But that is a symbolic way. In another more obvious way it is not his role to serve as a representative, but as an executive. What is he to execute? The law. Who says what the law is? The Congress, which contains our representatives.

That is how it is supposed to work, in any case. In fact, the executive these days writes most of the laws; our representatives have nothing to do with it. It's not clear how much they care to represent us in any case. And who says what the law is? The Supreme Court, who represents none of us, but rather the interests of an elite class, educated by an elite class, with its own idea of what the country is for.

ColoComment said...

"In what ways have they done that?" They have done this through the abdication of their responsibility to write laws, by their transference of law-writing from the legislative body to executive agency "experts." They have done this through the establishment of cabinet posts (Education, HHS, EPA, Agriculture, et al.) and the related bureaucracies to whom they have given the ability to write, adjudicate and enforce federal law upon the citizens (and states). By way of example only, Google "sue and settle," "EPA Wyoming border change" and just recently, the WSJ wrote about an SEC that has won 90% of its cases via its in-house administrative law judge.

They have done so by writing laws that indirectly coerce states to enforce federal laws and/or restrictions (e.g., 55 mph or lose your highway funds; expand your Medicaid to 400% of FPL or lose your grant.) (I also fault the states for not initially realizing that all, ALL, federal funds come with strings.) A state that refuses to comply merely damages its own citizens, as national taxes and borrowings that pay for such are collected and spent without offset.

Sure, the SCt has enabled the "big bang" expansion of the federal government by decisions going back at least to Wickard v. Filburn that opened the door to federally regulating intra-state transactions however tenuously related to inter-state commerce, up through Roe v Wade that got the feds intruding into personal healthcare decisions that should be the purview of the state, and to the current day's rewriting and resuscitation of the federal health mandate by CJ Roberts, where health care/insurance used to be a state-regulated industry.

States are required to balance budgets (yes, I know they fudge), and state assembly representatives are close to their constituencies, which helps keep state taxes & spending more-or-less honest. The feds have no such constraints, which is why the usurpation of state powers by the feds will be the financial destruction of the republic.

We're now looking at $20T in national [publicly held] debt & it's going up, & we have a government that has no spending self-discipline whatsoever. We seem to be on an inexorable trend toward a socialist implosion; I don't know that it's at all salvageable.

Grim said...

That's a big problem. They talk about funding things through "Robin Hood" taxes, but the truth is that they seem to have decided that things don't need to be funded. Governments can just invent money. "Fiat currency" means never having to pay your debts.

ColoComment said...

So long as people continue to believe that all those little pieces of colored paper have value, we're good. When the day comes that they no longer believe that.... Two examples of how the value of our money has been eroded:

One of my grandkids had a visit from the Tooth Fairy the other night. TF left him a $5 bill. His dad (my son) told him that back in HIS day the take from the TF was a quarter per tooth. G'kid complained, "A quarter? What could you buy with a quarter?" Remember those days when a quarter was... enough?

The last time I spent a quarter, a couple of months ago, it was for the gas station air machine to put air in my tires, and it took TWO of them to turn it on.

Grim said...

Truth. A quarter was worth something when we were kids. Now four of them are hardly worth something. You can't buy a Coke with them, most places.

MikeD said...

Why is that important? I don't necessarily trust my state legislature any more than I trust the voters in my state.

Also, maybe it makes a big difference, but I can't really see it. What differences do you think it would have made in the last hundred years?


It comes down to this for me. There is more representation for the various nations around the world in Washington DC right now (through the Embassies) than there is for the 50 State governments of our own nation. The government of the State of Georgia has zero representation in our federal government, as does the State of Maryland, California, Texas, Arizona, and all the others. The people do have a say, but they already had that through their Representatives. And you wonder why it is that the balance of power has slipped so far out of balance that the States have no rights before the Supreme Court, or the Legislature? It was not the Civil War that broke the concept of States Rights (though it did kill the idea that the States have a right to secede), it was the removal of State government representation from the federal government. After all, without a voice in the government to oppose stripping the States of their Constitutionally guaranteed rights, and no one to advocate for them, the loss was inevitable, even if only through neglect.

Tom said...

Eric, you make a lot of sense there. A slight correction from my side is in order on one point:

Me: I have to admit that I see the biggest imbalance in this regard coming from the Supreme Court. Jefferson warned us....

Eric: I disagree. Any government of men is going to drift from its own rules and structure. The Court has done this slowly.

I agree that the Supreme Court went astray very slowly, but then all at once. I believe FDR broke the Court, and since it stopped working properly, all manner of evil has been worked, as you say by the other two branches, in the name of progress.

Tom said...

Grim, I think you are quite right. So, how would you put it? What is the proper consideration when choosing whom to vote for for president?

ColoComment, thank you for answering my question. I hadn't thought through all of that nearly as clearly as you've put it; now I have a new set of things to consider.

MikeD, that's the first time I've gotten a really good answer to that question. How would you respond to Eric's comment at 7:58?

Specifically: "A Senator now represents the State directly, not the State's legislature; the States remain fully represented. Indeed, the States are better represented today than when legislatures were responsible for selecting the Senators. When it was the a matter of State legislature selection, it was a whole lot easier to buy the seat, nakedly through bribery, than it is now, even with today's ubiquitous lobbyists. An Illinois(!) Senator even got tossed by the Senate for having bought his seat. More commonly--45 times--the State's legislature couldn't agree on a Senator, and it would go that Congressional session without a Senator. Delaware went without any Senator at all in 1901-1903.

"Under the present system, the good citizens of a State are not deprived of their Senate representation by political gridlock."

E Hines said...

I believe FDR broke the Court....

Well, some would argue that John Marshall broke the court with Marbury. However, I think judicial oversight both is a good thing (see above), and it's the primary tool that makes it an actual equal of the other two branches.

The Court is reparable, too, by nominating and appointing Justices who are textualists, like Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, and who are more willing to recognize when a prior Court's ruling is wrong and needs correction, like Thomas and Alito.

The Congress and Executive are reparable, too, but that requires us to do our duty regarding selecting our representatives. Which is a Critical Item in correcting the Court.

Eric Hines

Tom said...

Jefferson, for one, but I have trouble seeing how the system would function if each branch independently interprets the Constitution. Maybe it would, but I just foresee a multitude of contradictions arising, resulting in a multitude of injustices and great confusion.

However, with that power, the USSC in the end is the supreme branch; Jefferson was right about that. The only check on them remains impeachment and removal by Congress, but that's a dangerous road as well. I favor Gov. Abbot's amendments that would put a couple of institutional restrictions on the USSC, along with his amendments that would undo the worst of their decisions. Other than that, I don't see any way to correct the problem.

E Hines said...

I favor Gov. Abbot's amendments that would put a couple of institutional restrictions on the USSC, along with his amendments that would undo the worst of their decisions.

It doesn't matter what we have for a Constitution, so long as we have a government that will disregard it. Abbott's offering, even those undoing their worst decisions, won't serve as long as that underlying problem exists. Fixing that problem is on us.

I like the Constitution as it is, with my term quasi-limit amendment added.

Other than that, I don't see any way to correct the problem.

We the People need to become more politically involved. Pericles and Plato were right.

Eric Hines

MikeD said...

"MikeD, that's the first time I've gotten a really good answer to that question. How would you respond to Eric's comment at 7:58?"

I would say those were the very reasons that the 17th Amendment passed, along with the fact that those who supported the direct election of Senators did not understand why the Founders had not seen fit to place those elections directly in the hands of the People. But they were not stupid, they were not naive, and we are not smarter than they were. The intentionally gave the election to the State governments because they wanted a brake on the passions of the People. Mr. Hines is free to disagree with their motives, but I do not actually think he even sees the problem.

"A Senator now represents the State directly, not the State's legislature; the States remain fully represented." This is incorrect. The people of the States are now represented in the Senate. The State Governments are not. They were represented when the State Governments appointed Senators. And I will submit that in the years where no new Senator could be agreed upon by the State Government that the system was working properly. After all, if the State Government could not agree to an individual to represent the body as a whole, then the body as a whole did not have a coherent will to represent. And ultimately, it was not the people of that State that suffered from the lack of a Senator (since their Representatives were in the House), but the State Government that lacked representation. I.e. the system worked.

As for "bribery and corruption" I'd point out that most House seats are no different. Nor State or Local Governments for that matter. After all, we see it at work today in cities like Chicago. It has literally been one century since the last Republican was elected mayor. The last Republican Mayor of Detroit was elected in 1957. Tammany Hall was in charge in New York from the 18th Century until Fiorello LaGuardia finally broke their power in the 1930s. To think that this was unique to the Senate is laughable. And after all, the cry of "corruption" only carries weight if you excuse the ones taking the bribe, the cri de coeur of those in favor of McCain Feingold, "someone needs to take away the ability for special interest groups to corrupt us in the Federal government with their dirty money!" How about this... stop taking the bribes you twits! No one forces a State Representative to take a bribe to choose a particular person as Senator (just as no "special interest group" forces a current US Senator to accept their money in return for influence). Corruption lies in the heart of the one who accepts the bribe. The one who makes the bribe is still wrong, but not the source of the corruption.

But as I touched on earlier, the fact is, the Senate was meant to be taken one step out of the hands of the People, because the People's passions can cause the government to swing wildly in a year's (or a couple of years') time. But if the Senate is immune to such wild swings (as they were when appointed by the State Government) then there was a check on passions forcing the Federal Government into poorly thought out action. See "the New Deal" for examples of this.

ColoComment said...

MikeD: exactly. There was purpose behind the Founders' decision to differentiate the methods of populating of the House and the Senate. It was not lightly arrived at.

I just stumbled across this very nice piece at City Journal. It addresses many of the concerns of this discussion.

http://www.city-journal.org/2014/24_3_constitution.html