Stupak and the problem of representative democracy

Health Care Reform cleared the House last night.  Two cheers for that.

The Stupak Amendment passed along with it.  Maybe it passed because the Stupak Amendment comes with it.  Sixty-four Democrats voted for Stupak.  Thirty-nine of them voted for the final bill.

(Note: I can’t find where I got that number.  It’s suspiciously the same as the number of Democrats who voted against the final bill.  Anyone know the right number of Democrats who voted for Stupak and for the final bill?

Update: Ken Houghton has 38 Democratic votes for Stupak and for the final bill.)

That suggests that the bill could not have passed without the inclusion of Stupak.  Most of those Democrats who voted for Stupak probably would have voted for the final bill anyway, but it’s also likely that at least six wouldn’t have.

Looks like a triumph of theocracy over sensibility and compassion or a triumph of patriarchy over women’s rights.  What it is is an illustration of the problem of representative democracy.

Look at these maps from the New York Times.

This is the map that breaks down the votes for and against the final bill district by district.

This is a map that breaks down the votes for and against Stupak. 

One of the startling things about both maps is the reminder that there are Democrats representing districts in Utah and Idaho.

What’s not startling is that the Congressman from Utah voted for Stupak.  He also voted against the final bill.  It is startling---to me, at any rate, sitting here in New York almost 3000 miles away---that the Congressman from Idaho voted against it.

But it shouldn’t be.  Angry and disappointed Progressives might be wondering why Utah’s representative couldn’t be as bold or principled as Idaho’s.  There’s a simple answer.

Boise.

Idaho’s Walt Minnick represents the voters of his state’s largest city.  So does Utah’s Jim Matheson, but that city is Salt Lake City. Are the Irish Catholics of Boise more pro-choice than the Mormons in Salt Lake?

But Minnick voted against the final bill too!

Move east to Colorado.  Jared Polis voted against Stupak.  Ed Perlmutter voted against.  Diana DeGette voted against.  Betsy Markey voted against. John Salazar voted for it.

But Polis’s district the university city of Boulder.  DeGette’s includes Denver. Salazar’s district includes sheep.

And copper mines.

But Markey represents a lot of sheep too.

And she voted against the final bill!

So, is Markey more or less principled and braver than Salazar or is she merely just as representative of her constituents?  Which one was taking the greater risk of losing in 2010 and with which vote?

(Markey says the principle at stake in her vote against the final bill was the cost.)

Now on up to the Dakotas where things are just as weird. 

Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota voted for Stupak and for the final bill.

Well, North Dakota is really screwy on the subject of abortion rights, apparently being both for them and against them.  But it’s the banks not the insurance companies that wield influence up there.

But then South Dakota’s Stephanie Herseth Sandlin voted against Stupak and against the final bill.

Does the Times have that wrong?

Drop down to the south and southwestern districts of Texas where three out the six Democratic Congresspersons voted for Stupak.  Those are districts with lots of Hispanic, which is to say Catholic, voters.  It’s not startling that they voted for Stupak or that they voted for the final bill.  But what about the other three?

Well, their votes were certainly principled.  But at least in two cases they were also representative.  Charlie Gonzalez represents voters in San Antonio.  Lloyd Doggett represents Austin.   

Somebody from down that way will have to explain Ruben Hinojosa and what goes on in TX-15.

The two Congressmen from Northwestern Indiana voted against Stupak and for the final bill, but that part of the state is Obama Country and in many ways an outcrop of Chicago.  The two districts in the southern corner of the state that are represented by Democrats are practically Kentucky.  Brad Ellsworth and Baron Hill voted for Stupak and for the final bill.

Meanwhile, in actual Kentucky, Ben Chandler voted for Stupak and against the final bill.

Now come on over to my state, New York.  All but three of our Democrats voted for the final bill, including now famously Bill Owens of NY-23 who got to be the 218th and deciding vote.  But three who voted against it, Mike McMahon, Scott Murphy and Eric Massa, voted against Stupak as well.

Massa and Murphy represent more rural and therefore presumably more conservative districts.  But are the conservative voters there more libertarian?  Are they pro-choice and anti-Big Government?  Or were Murphy and Massa voting their consciences in one instance and their voters’ interests in the other?

Mike McMahon represents State Island and Brooklyn.  Lots of Catholics there.  I’m guessing that neither of his votes made his constituents happy.

What gives?

I don’t know know.  And I’ll bet you don’t either, unless you live in one of those districts, in which case please explain what’s going on?

Some of the Democratic votes against the final bill were like Dennis Kucinich’s, protests against what those representatives consider a bad bill.

No bill is better than a bad bill, assuming that bill is truly, all-around bad and stands no chance of being improved upon down the line and you can be sure of getting the chance to write a better bill before another fifteen years goes by.

But no bill is not better than a flawed bill that can and probably will be fixed over time.   (Look up the original Social Security bill.)

Those voting against the final bill (and those voting for Stupak) could have been standing up for a principle.

Just as an aside, those votes were more likely protest votes than absolute statements of principle.  I would bet that none of them wanted to be the 218th vote and I think that if any of them had been they’d have voted for the final bill rather than kill it on principle.  But still, I don’t doubt that they hold to that principle.

The trouble with standing up for a principle is that people usually don’t have just one principle.

They have principles.  And those principles often conflict.

The Stupak Amendment put all liberal Democrats in the House in the position of having to choose which principles they needed to stand up for.

But it gave some the opportunity to vote the wishes their constituents.

Voters have principles too, and they expect their Congressmen and women to represent those principles in Washington. 

Progressives who are angry at “the Democrats” for letting Stupak pass, for bringing a flawed bill to the floor, for not bringing about some sort of miracle of unanimous agreement among members of Congress that Progressives know best are demanding that the likes of Dan Boren and Bart Stupak and Jim Matheson should not be representative of their districts.

Or put it another way they believe that the people of eastern Oklahoma and northern Michigan should vote like the people of Cambridge, Massachusetts or San Antonio, Texas.

I happen to believe that they would be better off if they did, but they’re not required to accept my judgment over their own when it comes to choosing who best represents their interests and principles.

Voters choose their Representatives because they think they will be representative and not just of their interests and principles but of them.

They want their representatives to be like them.

That likeness, though, does not have to be exact or fall out along the expected political, socio-economic, or cultural lines.  Which is how it can happen that a district that  looks on paper as though it ought to be represented by a conservative can send a liberal to Washington, a fact Democratic strategists have not always kept in mind. 

Liberal as Massachusetts tends to be, Ted Kennedy was more liberal than most of his constituents across the state.  He certainly was richer.  But he was still one of them.

Ted Kennedy was great, but he was only able to be great because the people of Massachusetts chose him to represent them in the Senate.  He could never have been elected Senator from Oklahoma.  Dan Boren could not be elected to Congress from Massachusetts.

Barney Frank might have been able to have a career similar to the one he’s had representing the people of Seattle or Chicago.  He could never have represented the people of Salt Lake City.

The Democrats won in 2006 and 2008 because more people across the country voted for them over the Republicans.  But they didn’t do it as a whole.  They did it district by district and state by state.  And while presumably voters understood that by choosing a Democrat they were choosing someone who’d vote with other Democrats in Congress most of the time, they were still choosing to be represented there themselves as themselves.

It’s ridiculous to expect that the people of North Dakota and the people of New York are going to expect exactly the same things out of their representatives even if both did choose Democrats to represent them.  They have different interests and those interests can and often do conflict.

What we’ve been watching over the last several months is the spectacle of 258 people trying to figure out how best represent the people who sent them to Washington and reconcile that with what’s best for the Party and best for the country as a whole.

The Republicans don’t have this problem because they decided twenty years ago that the interests of the voters are always and everywhere the same as the interests of the Party leaders, which would explain why they’re held in such low regard everywhere outside the South.

The final House bill is what you’d expect when you try to represent the wishes and interests of 259 Congressional Districts. (One of those districts is represented by a Republican, Joseph Cao, who is the Democrats’ new favorite Republican and the Republicans’ newly identified and targeted traitor in their midst.  But Cao’s district went heavily for Obama last year.  Was Cao being principled, expedient, or simply doing his job of representing his district?) It’s no wonder the result is a big bleeding mess and that few Democrats are really satisfied with the result, as opposed to being happy to have accomplished something no previous Democratically controlled House managed.

It’s a flawed bill.  It couldn’t not have been a flawed bill.  It might have been less flawed.  It might have been flawed in other ways that made it less of a disappointment to some Progressives but then that bill might have been more of disappointment to other Progressives.  For instance, Stupak could have been defeated or not even allowed to come to the floor without losing a single vote for the final bill. (How, I don’t know.  I think if Nancy Pelosi could have figured out a way, she’d have done it.  But I’m kind of a child about these things sometimes.)  But some other conservative could have introduced an amendment stripping the bill of these provisions instead and Progressives would have been just as sick at heart this morning at the sellout of gay Americans.

So I don’t see the final bill as a failure of the Democrats to do the right thing.

I see it as a failure of the leadership to solve the problem of representative democracy.

___________________

Update:  Two Upstate New York Democratic Congressmen.  Two votes against Stupak.  One vote for the final bill.  Paul Tonko and Scott Murphy explain their votes.  The Times Union reporter  assumes readers know this.  Tonko’s district includes the Democratic cities of Albany and Schenectady.  Murphy’s district contains no real cities unless you count the Republican town of Saratoga Springs.

Comments

[Formerly Apostate]

I don't often say this, but you are wrong, my friend. This isn't about representative democracy or about principles. It's political maneuvering to show us all who is boss.

Read Digby. She explains it better.

[Victoria]

What confuses me is comparing the votes with the map of states with the largest numbers of uninsured...Yes, red states. What's going on in those states that they elect reps who are against reform?

http://open.salon.com/blog/christopher_di_spirito/2009/10/27/where_do_those_without_health_insurance_live

[Ken Houghton]

64 (for Stupak) - 26 (against final bill) = 38.

Don't know how Cao voted on Stupak.

[Lance]

Apostate, was that what your Congresswoman doing?

[Lance]

Ken, Cao voted for Stupak.

[Formerly Apostate]

No. But that's sort of coincidence - I could just as easily have had a conservative rep. I simply don't believe all members of congress are truly representing the interests of their constituents. Maybe representative democracy really does work, but I don't see it, mostly because of the fact that the populace is much more liberal than the representatives, and somehow, that just doesn't seem to translate.

I think what really has happened has been better funding of conservative causes and politicians - their agenda is out of line with that of the people, but money talks.

But I am open to persuasion if you think I am wrong and have a book recommendation or something.

[Lance]

Victoria, there's probably not one good explanation. I've seen polls and analysis that say that the poorest people in those districts and states, the people who would benefit most from Democratic initiatives, do in fact vote Democratic. That would mean that it's the middle class that keeps sending Republicans and conservatives to Congress, and since the middle class doesn't always need---or think they need---the help and protections, that's where the "representativeness" of candidates comes into play. Republicans may just be better at nominating candidates who are seen to be "like us." See my answer to the Apostate in the next comment.

[Lance]

Formerly Apostate,

I don't have any books, just my own experience. I have lived and voted in 6 different Congressional Districts in my voting life and while all my Representatives didn't represent me the way I would have liked them too, I had to admit they did represent the majorities in their districts pretty darn well. The only exception was in Fort Wayne, Indiana, when we had a Democratic Congresswoman.

That was Dan Quayle's former district. She slipped into office after Quayle become VP and our Congressman was appointed to fill Quayle's Senate seat (which is now Evan Bayh's seat). She just wasn't a good fit, and it wasn't because she was a she or because she was a Democrat. She just didn't know how to relate to the people of the district. It was painful to watch her in public. She had no grasp of what was on voters' minds. People don't mind if you disagree with them if they know you understand where they're coming from and are taking their concerns seriously.

I should write a post about Al Franken's brilliance. Hmmm. Maybe I will.

At any rate, when was at the University of Iowa my Congressman was a liberal Republican (a species hard for you young whippersnappers to believe ever existed, I know) who opposed Reagan a number of issues, including the funding of the Contras. He represented the university community but that was also farm country and he was the farmers' champion against Reaganomics too.

Here my Congressman is the reliably liberal and feisty Mo Hinchey. When I lived in Boston my Congressman was Tip O'Neill, and nuff said.

Our Republican Congressman back in Syracuse is a special case, and maybe he should be another post too.

So, the reason I feel that members of Congress tend to be actually representative is that wherever I've lived that's how I've felt, represented. Even in Fort Wayne when the Republican was in office, I felt represented as a resident of that city, if not as a liberal resident of the nation as a whole.

As for the polls that show Americans are more liberal than Congress, I think they also show that they are more liberal than they themselves know and they need to be given the words to make their own liberalism plain to them. (That's one of the points Digby was making.) But they also show that most of those more liberal Americans tend to be concentrated in places that do send liberals to Congress. More Americans voted for Democrats in the last two elections but most of them live in the Northeast and on the West Coast and in cities across the country.

One big problem with representative democracy is that the South and the Great Plains states are over-represented in Congress, particularly in the Senate.

[Formerly Apostate]

You are probably right. Thanks for explaining.

[actor212]

The problem with representative democracy is trying to figure out who's being represented.

I think, generally, a Congresscritter will represent the will of his district, the vox populi. He has to do it often enough to get re-elected.

But once that calculus is achieved, he's pretty much free to vote for whomever a) creates the most noise or b) creates the most contributory rain in his coffers.