(Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)
One argument that has recently been raised against Senator Mitt Romney’s vote to convict President Donald J. Trump on the the first article of impeachment runs as follows:
- A majority of Utahns — perhaps in the low to mid-50% range — favored the acquittal of President Trump.
- Congressional representatives should follow the wishes of those they represent.
- Mitt Romney failed to comply with (2).
- Therefore, Mitt Romney failed in his responsibility as a senator.
And surely it’s true that congressional representatives are sent, precisely, to represent their constituents in Washington DC.
But with what degree of exactness are they supposed to reflect the specific views of those who elected them?
If they are intended to mirror the views of their constituents exactly, if they are supposed to be mere barometers of popular sentiment, then it seems that the Senate and the House of Representative have become redundant. After all, we have the technological capacity today — think of American Idol — to conduct virtually instant direct plebiscites by electronic means. Every day, every registered voter could simply cast a ballot via cell phone — yes or no — on such matters as
“H.R. 504: DHS Field Engagement Accountability Act
To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to require the Department of Homeland Security to develop an engagement strategy with fusion centers, and for other purposes.
The results would then be tabulated in the United States Capitol, the now-vacant House and Senate chambers having been converted into massive computer data centers. It would be easy to know, on any given day, that, say, 51.7% of the voters of Utah support
“S. 2107: Protecting America’s Food and Agriculture Act of 2019
A bill to increase the number of CBP Agriculture Specialists and support staff in the Office of Field Operations of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and for other purposes.
Obviously, the Founding Fathers intended nothing like this. If they had, there would really be little point in Senate and House hearings to which ordinary citizens seldom if ever pay attention. Why should representatives or senators be better informed than Joe Public and Jane Citizen if their assignment is merely to cast the vote that 50.0000001% of all Janes and Joes prefer? The Senate is sometimes referred to, whether accurately or not, as “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” But what’s the point of such deliberations, if they don’t involve every constituent? If senators are merely to mechanically reproduce the sentiments of the electorate?
In fact, the House of Representatives was designed to reflect the popular will fairly closely. That’s why members of the House are, effectively, subject to recall every two years. Even so, members engage in hearings and debates and negotiations. They don’t simply poll their districts and vote accordingly.
The Senate, by contrast, was deliberately constructed by the Framers of the Constitution to be relatively unresponsive to the popular will. Senators face elections only every six years. That’s the longest “electoral gap” in American politics. And — this is extremely significant — although, following the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, they are now elected by popular vote, from 1789 to 1913 senators were chosen by the legislatures of the states they represented. This was a deliberately undemocratic move by the Framers.
It seems obvious to me that, in our constitutional republic, our representatives are chosen for their character, judgment, and general political “philosophy.” They are not intended to be merely mechanical devices for registering the views of those who voted for them. Elections every two to six years are intended to constrain them, but not to micromanage them.
Whether one agrees with Mitt Romney’s vote or not — that has never really been my issue in these posts — he was within the scope and obligations of his duty as a member of the United States Senate to follow his personal best judgment in casting it.
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