I just posted on Google+:
Surprise! The Senator from Montana doesn’t care what you think unless you are from Montana.
Ok, I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist of this article from Pete Kasperowicz on The Hill’s Floor Action blog. In short: even though Max Baucus is on the Debt “Supercommittee”, he is asking for input from his own constituents — those people who live and vote in Montana.
Don’t get mad — that’s the way it’s supposed to work, and he might even be violating professional courtesy norms of the Senate if he sought input from the constituents of his colleagues. More importantly, however, it doesn’t matter how “super” a legislator is, he or she still has to get elected by the people back home. Sorry to break it to you, but with the Debt Supercommittee (and almost any issue that has to move through the Senate Finance Committee , which Max Baucus chairs), Montanans are more important than you are.
So if you care about what happens with the Debt Supercommittee, call your cousins and college roommates in MT, MA, WA, AZ, OH & PA… (and Michigan is in good shape too, with 2 House reps from MI districts.) And yes, we at POPVOX are working on helping you do that.. stay tuned.
Members of the Debt Supercommittee are:
* Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.)
* Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas)
* Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.)
* Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)
* Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.)
* Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.)
* Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.)
* Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)
* Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.)
* Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.)
* Rep. Rob Portman (R-Ohio)
* Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.)
This brought a great response from Tim Bonneman at his blog, Intellitics:
…
Politicians care narrowly about their constituents (something many citizens don’t seem to realize when trying to influence Congress). However, in this case the constituents are not limited to any particular district or state. Here’s the comment I left moments ago:
From a public participation perspective, this is clearly not the way it’s supposed to work. The supercommittee works on behalf of Congress, and the stakeholders — people affected by or interested in this issue — come from all states. If the committee wants to allow input from citizens, that’s great, but they must provide everyone with an equal opportunity to do so. Relying on the committee members’ own infrastructure, which obviously is biased towards their states, doesn’t quite cut it.
It’s hard to tell how much room there is for this committee to engage in meaningful public participation, anyway (though it certainly would be fun to try now, wouldn’t it), but flaws like this should be avoided.
I had not see Tim’s post before I responded, but I think the point holds:
Not so different (if at all) than other Congressional committees, which still have to come up with a proposal that has a chance of passing both houses. That means working with their colleagues throughout the process. (So contacting your own legislators is not futile — you should let them know what you care about in the process.)
Ultimately as with any other committee, however, the Members doing the deep dive on the policy have more say (and by extension, their constituents.) But that’s always true for constituents of senior Members, Members of the majority party, committee chairs, caucus Leadership, etc. …
It’s an issue that we are very familiar with at POPVOX, see: Members of Congress Only Want to Hear from Constituents . We get the question all the time from our users (see our Frequently Asked Questions ). We don’t take a position on whether any of this is good or bad — our goal is simply to help you understand how Congress actually works.
