Rats. I missed Jane's deadline for answering an excellent question she asked this week. It was this:
I asked Joe Hoeffel this question in the most recent interview and he gave this answer
Q.: In the bargain between elected officials and voters, what are the responsibilities of each?
A.: Great question with a simple answer. Voters must stay informed, and officials must stay honest.
What do you think? Are we making a bargain with candidates? If so, what is our par
Before I read what the other bloggers and Jane herself wrote, I'll take a crack it right now. I missed the deadline not because I forgot but because I've been thinking way too much about the answer. I found myself going round and round with it. The obvious answer is Hoeffel's: stay informed. But then I wanted to demand more from people, especially because good information is so hard to get. So it makes sense to insist that people are active in some aspect of politics at some level. That may mean all they do is vote in every election. I'm okay with that. In fact, I'd love that. I know that if we had effectively 100% participation in free and fair elections, my side of most issues would win every time.
I'll push even further and say that I expect people to take the next step and contact their elected officials on subjects that matter to them. That still sounds reasonable to me. Nearly everyone has five minutes a day to make a phone call or send off an email. That's where I'm going to draw the line as far acceptable minimum level of participation goes.
I know it's popular to ask every citizen to run for office at least once in their lives, but it's also popular in some circles to ask people to tithe. I've belonged to enough groups to know that no matter how pure the cause, belonging to a group of people hoping to advance it is a long hard slog. I'm willing to accept that most people can't understand why any issue would be worth going through that level of pain and inconvenience, especially when the idea that You Can't Fight City Hall is so ingrained in our culture that there's a cliche especially made for it.
But here's where I'll add a small twist. Forget what we owe our elected officials; I could write a post about why we owe them nothing as easily as I've written this. Let's think for a minute what we owe each other. Beyond civility and respect and all the other common graces that have seem to disappeared in the last decade or so, let me suggest that when you see a person who is making that extra effort, who is spending valuable personal time working for political causes ... when that person tries to tell you about a candidate or an issue that's important to them, we owe it to our Democracy to do what we can to help that person. Even if all the means is listening for fifteen seconds or so before telling him/her that we're 100% opposed to their point of view and here's why. But if we can sign the petition or make the donation or read the pamphet or come to the house party, then we owe it to ourselves and our country to make that very small effort. The person bringing those issues and candidates to our attention deserves that support.
UPDATE: This is fascinating. (to me) My husband is adament that he owes our Congressman nothing except a vote for or against him in the fall. When I suggested at least a phone call once a week he asked me sincerely what that was supposed to accomplish and how he'd know what to call about. He's very informed about the issues - reads the NYT daily, listens to NPR and local radio - but he feels absolutely no connection to the guy or the job he does at all. That's Fitzpatrick's fault to a certain degree.
Liberal Doomsayer mentions that in his/her answer to Jane's question:
Officials, on the other hand, aside from staying honest, must stay in touch with their constituencies and understand that they were elected to serve the people in that ward, parish, district, or whatever, not the individuals who made the biggest campaing [sic] donations (or at least serving the people with money equally relative to everyone else).
How to do that most effectively is the trick, which is why they have staff paid to do that kind of thinking.
I question the premise. What is this bargain of which you speak? No one told me about any bargain.
Posted by: KathyF | June 03, 2006 at 01:20 AM
That was my husband's point and I can see how anyone would feel that way since it's become so clear over the years that this country is run in the interest of a very few. The bargain that's easiest to see is the one between the power elite and the politicians they buy. So when we hear that the oil industry and the pharmaceutical industry is writing legislation, in the back of our minds we sort of figure that that's exactly what several million dollars in campaign contributions get you. And when you get invited to a political fund raiser with big celebrity and you find out that it'll cost 100 bucks to get through the door, you figure, well, I'm not supposed to have access to people like that. That's the way politics works after all.
But even though the bargain between the elected and the electors has been trampled, it exists, which is why I really like Jane's question. We do owe it to the people in office to do certain things. That's why whenever I show up at an office protesting, I remind whatever staffer has been assigned to see me that I'm doing the politician a favor by letting him/her know what's going on in the district.
Posted by: eRobin | June 03, 2006 at 09:22 AM