The Congressman and the Common Good
Specter Represents All Americans, not just Pennsylvanians.
A few replies/thoughts to Sam’s piece on Specter’s defection. They might not directly respond to what Sam was arguing and I would welcome a clarification or response:
1. People want their Congressmen to represent their views on the common good and America as a whole. If Congressmen are to represent “regional interests,” as Sam puts it, part of those regional interests are the feelings that people in a state or district have about the country as a whole. In practice, this means that people empower a Congressman to use, in good measure, his personal judgment about what the national common good entails. So, in that sense, a Republican Congressman does represent “all Americans,” and that is legitimate and connected to the notion of representing a specific region. And if Specter felt that being connected to the Republican party limited his ability to further the national common good, both as it relates and does not relate to Pennsylvania itself, that is a legitimate concern of his as a representative of his state. Related, a congressman or a voter’s opinion on the common good will be connected to what they believe is right and effective for their specific region; the basic policy questions are the same.
An illuminating example might to think of a House Representative from rural Montana voting to increase foreign aid to, say, Bangladesh. This act is only very tenuously connected to the personal interests of rural Montanans, but he in some way is representing the wishes of his constituent’s “regional” interests–their regional interest in international justice, maybe–by voting for the funding.
2. The Framer’s feared “faction,” a word that today we call “special interests.” Madison especially feared majority faction and the property-less majority in particular. The worry relates to groups organizing around individual rather than national interests. The procedures they put in place were meant to filter faction through the democratic deliberation and process. Madison had near religious faith in the neccesity and viability of deliberation: Congressmen would enter the Capital with their regional interests in mind and then would debate and discuss until they came to a view as to what was fair, right, and effective for the nation as a whole. The procedures were not merely there to filter “selfish” regional interests, like a public choice theorist might imagine. They were there to force deliberation and consensus on the common good. If Specter believes the Republican Party is becoming a “faction” that is immune to appropriate deliberation and national concerns, then he is following the constitution and the framers’ purposes by leaving the party.
3. Our understanding of the constitution changes over time. I think States’ rights are much lower down on the list of constitutional imperatives then they were at the time of the founding, and that is legitimate. A Congressmen promises to uphold the Constititution. What that means changes with time and judicial interpretation. Now, that means being concerned more with national problems as a whole than it did at the time of the founding. On the other hand, the concern with states’ rights was not in theory a concern with protecting regional interests for the sake of regional interests; it was out of a concern for preventing tyranny and its negative effects on the common good of all Americans. They supported States rights out a concern for the nation as a whole. That our understanding of what the national common good requires has changed in no way contradicts the earlier concern with states rights, since that was all about furthering the national common good, too.
4. The Framers didn’t want parties. They feared them as perfect examples of “faction.” The 2-party system is a good compromise between the (A) the practical neccesity of organizing political interests and (B) preventing faction. (B) applies because in a two-party system, one party can legitimately aspire to lead the nation as a whole, to further the collective interests of all the states. The parties and party-obligations are sort of laid down on top of the constitutional system, as an additional decisional device, for better or for worse. If Specter felt that the GOP couldn’t represent the nation as a whole, then it is fair for him to leave the party, out of respect for the Constitution and its basic political ideals. Again, this dovetails with his desire and obligation to represent the interests of Pennsylvania as a whole, since the issues are very similar between the State and the Nation, and the demographics aren’t that disimilar either. It does the raise the question of course of what is a Congressman to do when the interests and desires of his constituents conflict with his view of the national common good.
-Jake
Related posts:
- The curious case of Arlen Specter
- More on state sovereignty
- Politicians and party
- Democratic diversity
- Who does the United Nations represent?
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