Steve Benen notes a delicate conundrum that appears to be afflicting a few Republicans these days:
For generations, there have been interesting political debates over how elected lawmakers should best serve their constituents. Is it the job of a senator to simply vote the way his or her constituents would vote? What about when there’s broad disagreement?
In a lower-case-r republican form of government, don’t voters effectively hire officials to serve in legislative bodies, listen and learn, and then exercise their best judgment?
This is in the context of those few Republicans, having voted for impeachment or conviction in the last month, being censured by their parties for voting for impeachment. Here is an example involving Senator Toomey (R-PA).
I think Benen’s question of What about when there’s broad disagreement? delegitimizes the first suggestion, that of legislator-as-mouthpiece. But, worse, the first suggestion, if taken seriously, reduces the legislator to nothing more than a conduit for the opinions, well-informed and otherwise, of their constituents, an instrumentality of the ethos of amateurism, a tenet of the GOP. It becomes no longer a seat of honor and responsibility, but a convenient cubbyhole to thrust the politically ambitious but chronically incompetent.
And often those sorts of politicians have all sorts of odd notions about how the nation should operate. Sound familiar?
Even more importantly, there is now no motivation to develop expertise in matters beyond the mechanics of legislation. In a very real and rational sense, and in my view, a member of Congress is sent to Congress to become an expert in a subset of the matters before Congress, most usually those of particular interest to the member’s State. Through this expertise the member helps develop effective legislation, or at least effectively criticize election which is disapproved.
They may even develop opinions at odds with their opinions prior to joining Congress. Such is neither abnormal nor to be lamented. An informed opinion is generally better than an uninformed opinion.
And if it differs from the general opinions of the constituents, that’s just fine.
If, in the end and after much robust debate, the constituents just can’t stand the informed opinion, then they have an option: Vote the member out at the next election. But give the informed opinion a chance to educate the uninformed, to better the general intelligence of the constituents.
I prefer expertise over ignorance, and governing a nation as large and powerful as ours really demands the very best: informed legislators with curious minds and habits; neither inflexible ideologues nor braying, unserious mouthpieces need apply.
And screw the dude who doesn’t like Toomey, above. He’s a dead-ender.
