Responsiveness and Responsibility

Republicans passed the bill, now they should own it

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

Here’s how it’s supposed to work in a democracy: We elect our representatives. They take a measure of their constituents’ interests and do their best to legislate accordingly. They are rewarded with re-election if they represent their constituents well. If not, they are voted out.

It’s a pretty simple process.

One measure of the health of a democracy is how responsive Congress is to constituents and how effectively constituents hold representatives responsible for their actions.

By this measure, American democracy has been ailing for a long time. Even before Republicans stuffed the megabill through the legislature last week, it wasn’t difficult to think of examples where Congress consistently refused to respond to the public interest. Gun safety and campaign finance reform measures come immediately to mind, but it shouldn’t be hard to think of other issues where well-funded special interests use influence and money to override the public will.

If we are going to restore our democracy after we salvage it, this is going to have to change. Imagine how much better off we would be today if over the past decades we had a legislature that reflected and represented the interests of the country that elected it.

Over the summer, I plan a series of posts to address this and a host of other ways we can lift up democracy when we finally get the opportunity to take meaningful action—along with why I think there’s a decent chance that time will come more quickly than it may seem.

For now, I’d like to focus on what happened in Congress last week and what needs to come next. The process Republicans used to pass the megabill violated democratic principles, and we need to use the corrective mechanism democracy gives us to hold them responsible.

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Republicans voted against the interests of their constituents. And they knew they were doing it.

They knew the public was strongly against this legislation. They had access to the same polling averages available to us, showing levels of disapproval so dreadful that not even one-third of the country is behind it.

They knew they were voting against constituents who depend on Medicaid. They knew they were voting to undermine rural hospitals. They knew they were voting to hurt people who rely on SNAP.

How do we know this? Because they told us.

Because Josh Hawley said he couldn’t support a bill that took away his constituents’ health care—before he voted for it.

Because Lisa Murkowski carved out rural hospital and food assistance exceptions for the people of Alaska, then anguished that the bill she voted for is not good enough for the rest of the country—where no other state gets the protections she negotiated by virtue of being the decisive vote.

Because sixteen House Republicans put their objections to the bill in writing—before supporting it.

If these Republicans were allowing an informed perspective to override their constituents’ preferences, then maybe you could be charitable and concede they were operating within the boundaries of their jobs. There is a view of representation that says the wisdom of the member should prevail at times when the public doesn’t know what’s best. Setting aside the inherent paternalism of this perspective, it can make sense in some circumstances, like if people were behind a foreign intervention that a member thought was ill-advised.

But that’s not what happened here. Republicans weren’t exercising their better judgment. They were folding to pressure from Donald Trump.

There is no theory of representation that says members of Congress should bend fully and completely to the wishes of the president. The branches are designed to keep each other in check.

There is no theory of representation that says members should vote for a bill against their better judgement.

There is no theory of representation that says members should knowingly vote against the interests of their constituents.

But there is a theory of representation that says the electorate should fire a Congress that bends fully and completely to the wishes of the president. That votes against their better judgement. That votes against their constituents.

Under these circumstances, firing them is an essential democratic act.

Fortunately, it looks like plenty of people are going to feel this way.

Even before the bill became law, and well before any of the effects of the legislation have been felt, the country soured on this MAGA Congress. Polling shows that a favorable electoral environment for Democrats has already started to build, with Democrats registering an early lead in the generic congressional ballot. A high-profile predictive model with a long history of successful forecasts shows Democrats in a strong position to take back the House and potentially the Senate. Outsized results for Democrats in special elections point to off-the-charts levels of motivation among Democrats and voters opposed to Trump and his party.

Reclaiming Congress next year will be critically important for keeping Trump in check for the remainder of his presidency, but it would also make an important statement about the ability of democracy to function despite the damage it has sustained.

As a party, Republicans abdicated their obligation to be responsive to the public and to their own clear understanding of what the megabill would do. In so doing, they forfeited the privilege of leading Congress.

So now democracy requires us to hold them responsible.

We need to vote them out.