Archive for month: September, 2015
Political Representation
Ian Kelley
What is Political Representation?
For me personally my local United States Representative and California’s United States Senators have not provided what I would consider to be adequate political representation throughout the years that I have been politically active. My personal definition of political representation is as follows, representatives provide political representation when they use the legislative process in an endeavor to give what the constituents want from their government. This might include legislation to create new programs, continue to support already implemented statutes, and even in some cases the removal of funding going to a specific program. It is also helpful if a representative is aware of causes that are relevant to the representative’s constituents. When the representative holds similar ideological beliefs to the constituency that elected them this fact may help the representative to garner support for reelection it is not always helpful. When a representative has been elected and is doing the job I would expect some clear steps be taken while in office to ensure proper representation for a constituency. One way would be, participation in legislative debates about upcoming bills that have an impact on constituents. Using political capital to maintain funding for programs that have been deemed worthy of support by the constituency is another concrete step that representatives could take in order to ensure representation for their constituents. A representative’s re-election campaign is another step that I think is necessary to ensure proper political representation. Even if you may not agree with the policies of the incumbent representative the opportunity to hold them accountable through the electoral process may be our American political systems greatest asset. I stated at the beginning of this paper that I did not believe that I have had adequate political representation from my representatives over a number of election cycles, now I am not so sure. After the discussion in class about the different forms of representation I now can think of many examples of personal political representation. My mistaken belief that I was not being represented was based on my only intuitive understanding of the different forms of representation. I live in Thousand Oaks which is a conservative area and while on a substantive level the representation I have gotten may seem inadequate this is not the only measure of representation. After last week’s lecture and personal reflection I now see that no matter what political parties have been elected to the position of representing my district the very act of electing them has allowed this person to be my political representative. Elections are an exercise in Formal Representation that political parties use to maneuver themselves and their candidates into better positions in the government. Working with the documents of Bizz Johnson in class I think definitely gave me a better idea of how an elected official tries to provide substantive representation to their constituents while at the same time seeks to maintain some level of symbolic and descriptive representation. When his office would field inquiries about broad questions of continuing or ending the Vietnam War the response would mention large legislative votes or respond in a very normative fashion. All while still saying that he wants all troops to be safe no matter what policy the president engages in. Even with inquiries that were very specific to one piece of legislation Bizz’s office would draft statements that would provide non-normative details related to either implementation of the legislation or ways the constituent could help affect the vote. My new way of looking at political representation makes me believe that I may think certain policies are unwise but that does not mean I am not being political represented when those policies are advocated for
Representation
A key part of democracy is active political representation. Its main purpose should be to act on behalf of the people who it is representing. Representation is defined, for the purposes of this course, as an elected official who acts as an intermediary between the People and the political process. He will advocate and make known what the people want. Once these officials have been democratically elected, they serve by making known the needs of the people they represent and addressing those needs through reform and action or non-action. There must exist a monitoring by the people through organizations that holds the elected officials accountable to their line of duty. (Dovi, 2011)When elected officials are up for re-election, the people show their approval or lack there of by re-electing them for political office. This can be considered an indicator of the political process working in democracy. In the federal level representatives of the fifty states gather year round and discuss policy issues in committees. They debate, voice out their personal opinions and that of their constituents and come to a consensus on what will be decided. Then end result should be a consensus on what policy decisions are best for the country as a whole and not what is best for their individual state. This becomes important for the process to work so that representation may be served equally amongst the people. In our class activity we got to go through mail that Congressman Johnson received during the time of the Vietnam War. We were instructed to tally all those we thought to be for the war and all those opposing the war. In the end we were to decide what his decision should be based on his constituents desires. The exercise demonstrated that there will exist winners and losers in the political process. Representation is the sum of what a group of people wants and what will be good for the whole body. When representation fails to meet both, it no longer can claim to be proportional. Presently there exists disproportional representation. This indicates that not enough is being done to hold elected officials accountable when serving the people. This responsibility lies on the people as they exercise their right by voting.
Works Cited
Dovi, S. (2011, Oct 17). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved Sep 1, 2015, from standford.edu: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/political-representation/
Food Diary
I chose a Saturday to track my eating. I have done projects like this in the past, and I always find it interesting because so much of what I eat has no label and contains many ingredients, making it difficult to track contents exactly. For example, on this day my roommates and I made a giant bowl of ceviche for dinner, with fresh speared yellow tail and about a dozen other ingredients. It was too difficult to track every ingredient as several people worked on it. This brings me to a concern I have: When we tell people to closely constrict certain food components, are we sometimes dissuading them from eating fresh whole foods? On the flip side, during this process I thought a lot about how hard it can be to avoid certain food components if you do eat packaged or prepared food. As a new years resolution this year I gave up processed sugar, honey, syrup, and any other incredibly sugar dense foods. I have not regretted it since, but it can make it so difficult to buy certain foods and to eat out. Even things like multigrain flakes and whole grain bread have a surprising amount of sugar in them. When I buy these foods, I have to sort through so many labels to find one that works for me, even at a place like Whole Foods. Added salt is just as ubiquitous, so I imagine It must be very hard for people to select food with that restriction, especially if they shop at a store that doesn’t strive for healthy options.
Breakfast:
Whole wheat bagel with cream cheese, sprouts, tomato, cucumber, and onion
Coffee with cream
Snack:
Smoothie- whole milk yogurt, blueberries, banana, 2% milk
Lunch:
Large Salad- many veggies, sunflower seeds, avocado
dressing- olive oil, garlic, vinegar, hemp seeds, salt and pepper, miso
Dinner:
Ceviche with chips, salad, and beans
Approximate salt for day (not including ceviche): 1,687 mg
Approximate fat for day (not including ceviche): 104.g g
I think it is easier for me to limit salt because we make most food from scratch in our house. I did pretty good on the salt score. I was pretty high for fat though. However, a decent chunk of that came from olive oil and avocado. All in all, I think the take home is that it is very difficult to keep track and restrictions can be very limiting.
Heart healthy diet
I imagine how difficult it would be for a patient to suddenly switch their diet of comfort to a low-sodium heart healthy alternative. I’ve only experienced a patient’s reaction to this new diet once in clinical, and the first sentence expressed when looking at the cardiac tray was “That’s not real food, that’s cardboard”. I can’t help but think I would react similarly, as according to my daily assessment of sodium intake, a reduction in sodium would serve me well.
My meals consisted of:
Breakfast
-Whole wheat toast with 1/2 avocado (Na+ 280 mg + 10 mg)
-1 cup orange juice (Na+ 2 mg)
Lunch
-Trader Joe’s Field Fresh Chopped Salad with Grilled Chicken (Na+ 220 mg)
-1 cup seedless red grapes (Na+ 3 mg)
-Water
Snack
-Peanut butter pretzels (Na+ 160 mg)
-Water
Dinner
-1 cup Magic Mineral Chicken Broth with vegetables (Na+ 880 mg)
-1 serving Simply potatoes mashed potatoes (Na+ 330 mg)
Total sodium intake: 1,885 mg
Recommended 24 hour sodium intake: 1,500 mg
What’s the count?
I decided to take a look at my diet on a day where I hadn’t slept too much, didn’t have time to cook, and had to work a very busy night shift. While I know that I have been eating healthy other days – incorporating salads and healthy snacks like hummus and carrots – I knew this day would be pretty bad. I thought it would be a good day to pick because I sort of had to eat what was quickly available to me, plus the sleep deprivation didn’t help me make the healthiest of choice. Basically, doing this meal check, I saw that just the burger put me well over the Heart Healthy diet needs. The sodium alone put me well over how much I would need to consume on a heart healthy diet. You have to wonder, how some patients manage to make the adjustment, especially if they are leading very busy lives both at home and work. I’m not saying it is not possible, but I can see it being very hard to change habits of eating out if it is something they do 1-3 times per week. Essentially they would have to stop all together or switch to healthier dining out options that can include fruits or salads.
“Breakfast” – Almond butter and honey toast
Almond butter (1tbs): Na 72 mg, Fats 1 g
Whole wheat bread: Na 132 mg, Fats 0 g
Honey: Na 1mg, Fats 0g
Water – Na 0, Fats 0g
“Lunch” – Habit cheeseburger and fries with water
Cheeseburger: Na 1,770mg, 36g fat
Fries: Na 164mg; Fat 3g
“Dinner” – None
Snacks – none because I forgot them on the counter at home before work, so LOTS of water on my overnight.
Meal Check
My meal for today consisted of the following:
Breakfast:
-2 pieces of Orowheat Country Potato Toast and 2 pieces of Laughing Cow Swiss Cheese (Fat: 10g// Na: 650 )
Lunch (Sharky’s Wood Fire Mexican Grill):
-Chicken Breast Half Power Plate with Mexican Rice and Grilled Vegetables (Fat: 10.1g// Na: 1391.7 mg)
Dinner
-Habit Charburger and 1.5 size order of fries (Fat: 62g// Na: 2370 mg)
Based on my diet for today, I think I will have a difficult time adjusting to a low fat and low sodium diet because most of the foods that I enjoy eating are dependent on fats and sodium. Also, being from a Filipino culture, most of our dishes are high in sodium and fat. Therefore, the taste would just be different and maybe difficult to adjust to.
Nutrition: A log of nutrient intake for day
1.Breakfast: Oatmeal
2.Lunch: Veggie Burger
3.Dinner. Pear and Gorgonzola Salad
4.Beverages
For this day I consumed a total of 880 mg of Sodium. Sodium is in almost everything. It is an important part of our diet. If I had to cut down on my consumption of Sodium for cardiac issues I would be able to do it. The difficult and disciplined part would be: reading every label and calculating my sodium intake for the day.
Representation!
There is not one single universal definition of political representation that is accepted by all. Due to this difference in opinion, political representation is defined in many different ways, by many different political scientists. My personal definition of political representation has been developed by utilizing various components of definitions and is as follows. Political representation is the operation of political compensation by representatives, in an attempt to express the viewpoints of citizens within their political domain, as well as representing their thoughts and statements in politics. Political representation is made up of four factors, all that vary from case to case, but all cases still require a group, organization, or party that is being represented, the representative, the values, opinions and viewpoints that are being delineated, and finally, the setting and background in which it is being represented. Political representation is necessary within a state because it allows for power amid citizens to be shared rather than unequally distributed.
Two different forms of representation include delegate and trustee representation. Delegate representation requires the representative to represent specific groups within society, while trustee representatives represent the common interest of society. Delegate representatives are responsible for how well their actions benefitted the individuals of the group they represent, while trustee representatives are answerable to how they influenced the nation.
When representing constituencies, representatives are faced with two conflicting plans of action. They can either go along with the plans and interests of the constituency, or they could follow through with the plan of action that they feel is the best for the constituency as a whole.
Congress’ job is to represent the citizens by acting in the interest of the majority, and determining the decisions the majority would support if they had been given the same information that Congress had received. Therefore, they must take into consideration not only how the majority feels presently, but also how they will feel in the future. While most legislatures represent in this fashion, some believe that it is up to them to determine the best course of action for the majority.
The representative must also take into consideration his future plans for reelection while representing the constituencies. If the representative plans on attempting to be reelected, he must appeal to his constituency and represent them in a way that they are not irritated or harbor any hatred towards him that could essentially keep them from voting in the representative’s favor. Typically while running and representing, legislatures tend to target their supporters rather than their opponents. Supporter’s votes already lay with the representatives and are easy votes to maintain, while obtaining the votes of the opponents would be a challenge. A representative will change their concrete behaviors according to various characteristics of groups. Factors that have to potential of altering the representative’s manner of representing are the economic status of a nation, diversity within the group they represent, as well as the values of the group they are representing. A representative’s tactics must adapt to the characteristics and values of the party they are representing. The diversity within the group makes it difficult for a representative to find a way to appeal to all the members of a certain area. A representative must be adaptive to be successful in representing a party.
