POLI 310 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Anti-Federalism, U.S. Route 49, Middle Ages
15 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
POLI310
Class November 13, 2017
Pape: you hae to hae a aguet, a poit. I’e got a poit. Fous o the topi. Ca use atile
newspapers.
Lecture:
Congress
Next year is the midterm elections.
House of representatives you serve a 2 year term, in the senate is 6 year term.
- Top 2 politicians figures in both chambers:
o Speaker of the house: Paul Ryan, from Wisconson
o Nancy Polosi: Leader of the minority
o Richard McConnel: Majority of the senate
o Shumer: minority of the senate
Congress does 3 things:
Represents
Legislates
Oversight
Representation & legislation:
- Most people do’t like ogess, lo appoal, high disappoal. Hoee ost people like
some of their own members but not the institiutions.
- Is congress better at legislating rather than representing?
Representation:
- Is congress really good at representing America
- How does one conceive representation?
- Different theories of representations (not unique to the Americans context):
o Delegate v. trustee
▪ This has a very long and distinguish pedigree
▪ Edmund Birke & Mill debate
▪ Early debate also between anti-federalist and federalist
▪ Delegate mode: says that representative should see themselves as merely
speaking for their constituent, so voting on behalf of their constituent, on this
view, our representatives should check on their constituent, they should not
have a wide range of freedom, and James Madison (is his view). They need to
check on the folks back home to see what they think. For instance Bill Clinton,
as itiized fo goeig o polls giig the people hat they at. Whih
in the delegate mode is what is appropriate –short leash
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▪ Trustee mode: representatives should be free agent, free to act on their own,
sometimes this point of view takes the following version, you know most
epesetaties ko oe aout the issues tha Aeias. Most people a’t
even found certain places on the maps, how can they make decisions in the
legislations. Capitalizes on the fact you have to trust the representatives. You
want a long leash. Not listen to the people back home --- Alexander Hamilton.
Sometimes Americans senate and members of the house should vote against
what their constituents want.
▪ Which of these two represents the most the current us congress: Most people
say it is delegate, as it is also in their best interest for members to go in favor of
their constituents for future elections. Foreign policy might be an example of
trustee mode, by deferring to the other members of the house to decide on
foreign policy decisions as it is hard to make that decision. Arguably it is the way
US congress acts, where they go towards the trustee and delegate mode, and
that could arguably be what the founders wanted.
o Descriptive v. substantive
▪ Descriptive representation; your representatives should be like you, should look
like you, should oe fo the sae akgoud as you, ad that’s ipotat
cause if they come from the same background only then they can really
understand you and your problems. For instance a district that has 60% of
farmers, it would make sense for a farmer to represent them
▪ Substantive representation; says your representative might or might not look
like you what matters is that he or she represents your views and has your
interests at heart.
▪ How descriptively representative US congress is? I.e how good of a job does US
congress do?
• Demographically:
• Money: IF you look at the money, your home or homes, networth, there
are 261 out of 535, not including their homes their networth is over 1
million. 55 have a networth including their homes, is worth about 1
million dollars. Many members of congress are incredibly wealthy
compared to the rest of the population.
• Politially: this is’t uite desiptie epesetatio ut :
Democrats
Republican
Independents
House
194
241
0
Senate
46
52
2
Men
Women
AA
Latinos
Asian/native
Jews
C
P
M
L
G
V
Age
House
(435)
350
85
43
30
15
22
144
248
11
168
6
82
57
Senate
(100)
80
20
2
3
3
9
24
56
6
57
1
20
61
%US
49
51
13
17
6
3
21
47
1.6
1+
~4
9.5
37.8
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
