Politicians and party
A little over a month after Sen. Arlen Specter switched parties, effectively giving Democrats a filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate, two Democrats in the New York State Senate voted in favor of Republican leadership, switching control of the body to the Republicans.
The move raises an important question about the party allegiance of elected officials. Politicians are not legally required to vote along party lines, nor are they expected to do so all the time (this is in contrast to many parliamentary systems where voters vote for a party, not a specific representative). But there is a distinction between the general expectation that politicians will break with their party occasionally and cases like Specter and today in New York where politicians actively support the party they ran against.
Is this in some way morally problematic? Is it a violation of the contract made with voters during election? Does it matter what the expectations of voters are? Whether voters tend to vote along party lines or whether they actually consider each candidate on his or her own merits?
-Marc
Photo by Flickr user vox_efx used under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
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