POS1041 Test II Notes Congress Examining the Electoral Connection Richard Fenno high up in Congress he noted that there is a paradox when it comes to Congress Fenno s Paradox People hate Congress but love their member s of Congress Why Most members of congress both parties on average have successful incumbent rates we send them back Part of this reason lies in the Prisoner s Dilemma we rationalize our own self interest we do not cooperate with each other leading to excessive cost s on both ends Congress in the Constitution Article 1 Congress first branch of government they hold the most power our government is centered on Congress 1 Bicameralism house and senate 2 different forms of representation House represents local interests elected county wide Senate represents state interests elected state wide 2 Size of bodies Different in size 1911 allocations of seats to the states is set Census allows us to determine the number of people House of Representatives 435 Population increase equals more representatives and vise versa Senate 100 2 US Senators for each state 3 Terms The House the cup and Senate the saucer House 2 year term Sensitive to change in public opinion temperamental You do not have to live in your congressional district Senate 6 year term 1 POS1041 Test II Notes Not sensitive to public opinion free to consider what is best for the nation as a whole more rational wiser When we elect Senators we elect them by class Class A B C 1 3 of the Senate is up for re election every two years 4 Qualifications House 25 years old citizen for 7 years Senate 30 years old citizen for 9 years 5 Term Limits in Articles of Confederation You can vote members out depending on the term year Being in the member of Congress for a long time creates expertise Our Founders had term limits Incumbents Those who have been there a long time create the scare off effect of potential runners at a certain point they are the ones that are most easily beaten they have not had to run a campaign for years Congressional Districts House Senate does not have districts Apportionment the process of allocating seats to a legislative body Census every year ending in a 0 must give a count to Congress of the current population so that they can allocate how many House seats each state has Congress then votes and sends that message to each of the state legislatures they are then told how many seats they have State legislatures draw district lines National Democratic and Republicans assoc put a lot of money into state legislatures depending on the year 8 0 because they want the majority of state legislatures to represent their party Because this will then control who draws the district lines in each state Gerrymandering Drawing legislative districts in such a way as to give one political part a disproportionately large share of seats for the share of votes its candidates win This is perfectly constitutional when it is done on partisan grounds 2 Elbridge Gerry Governor of Massachusetts when his party had the opportunity to draw the district lines they took a sliver of land and drew a district line so that they would win two congressional districts POS1041 Test II Notes R R R R R D D R R D D R R R R R Court Cases related Wesberry vs Sanders 1964 The court applied one person one vote to the congressional districts the relative weight of one vote cannot be substantially more than another Thornburg vs Gingles 1986 The Supreme Court construed the 1965 VRA to require that legislative district lines not discriminate even unintentionally against racial minorities majority minority district the majority of the population is a population of minorities Majority minority districts have created descriptive representation does the legislature look like the population The idea that elected representatives in democracies should represent not only the expressed preferences of nation as a whole but also those of their descriptive characteristics Some African American scholars have theorized that we need to get rid of descriptive representation they would rather enforce substantive representation the tendency of elected legislators to advocate on behalf of certain groups Shaw vs Reno 1993 bizarrely shaped districts designed to concentrate minority voters might violate the constitutional rights of white voters created criteria for the construction of districts They must be compact and contiguous Miller vs Johnson 1995 race as dominate factor is struck down as violating the Constitution s equal protection clause commented on congressional districts court 3 POS1041 Test II Notes said race as a dominant factor in constructing these districts is a violation of the equal protection clause to be race neutral Political Polarization Gerrymandering continued helped to create polarization homogenous districts 1970 s both parties adopted the party primary of the way in which they were going to decide who the parties primary would be Party Primaries most state parties nominated candidates in conventions 1968 National Democratic Convention decided they had to give activists a say for who the candidates would be A Primary is an election in which members of the party come out to vote to decide who the parties nominee will be in the general election Party primaries are usually a low turn out event parties most often choose the partisan strong supporter candidate Elections are not un biased The Electoral System a matter of choice Parliamentary vs Presidential System big distinction in the election between split ticket voting changes representation dramatically System Chief Exec Legislature Presidential President Elected separately split ticket voting Parliamentary Prime Minister Single Party Ballot Proportional Rule vs Plurality Rule In the US we have a Plurality rule whoever gets the most votes wins the seat one person single member districts winner takes all if you can have a congressional district split 50 50 the district can only be represented by one party Duverger s Law principle that asserts that plurality rule elections structured within single member districts tend to favor a two party system In Proportional rule systems governs most parliamentary systems works by a List PR System a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or 4 POS1041 Test II Notes council PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received In example say we have 70 seats each party creates a list of
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