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