Why The Candidates of Change Aren’t the Best Candidates

In this election year much has been made of change from the president, however I would like to examine the theme of change in candidates in general.  Despite all the talk of bringing in Washington outsiders to clean things up, is voting against incumbent candidates really in a voter’s best interests?  Somebody find a tissue, I think the leaking is about to begin:

            Acting in one’s own self-interest is the foundation of Democracy.  All citizens come together and by acting in their own self-interest they elected the candidate who represents the best interests of the most people.  In this way, democracy can almost be defined as a capitalistic utilitarianism in which the greatest majority of people are benefited by acting only to help themselves, and in doing so help others.  First I draw the analogy to economics in that it is found that by increasing the benefit to oneself, the benefit to all is increased as well.  While this does not always work in practice, it does have a greater success rate than other economic theories, just as democracy which does not always benefit everyone in practice, has a higher success rate than other political theories.  Thus, with this analogy drawn we can see that by everyone acting in their own rational self-interest the greatest common good can be achieved as in the saying, “A rising tide lifts all boats”.

            So why is voting for incumbents acting in a voter’s best interest?  There are many arguments made as to why people should vote against incumbents.  According to Vote Out Incumbents Now (VOID), a major complaint against incumbents is their perceived tendency to “vote irresponsibly”.  They define “voting irresponsibly” as, voting for “pork-barrel, graft, waste, corporate welfare…” and failing “to pass many badly needed, common-sense, no-brainer, constructive reforms (e.g. campaign finance reform, election reform, one-purpose-per-bill amendment, balanced budget-amendment, tax reform, etc.).”  These are serious claims and our country must be on the verge of collapse, as dramatic as these claims are they are, thankfully, untrue.  I am disinclined to believe the assumption that newcomers to congress are any less beholden to lobbyists and corporate interests as incumbents.  According to a February 1^st, 2007 article of The Hill,

“Many Democratic freshmen raised tens of thousands of special-interest dollars toward their reelection even before they were sworn in for the 110th Congress…Rep. David Loebsack (D-Iowa), who surprised former Rep. Jim Leach (R), has already raised $71,000.  About $60,000 of that came from political committees such as the American Bankers Association PAC, which gave him $5,000 on Dec. 18, and the National Association of Realtors PAC, which also wrote him a $5,000 check the same day… The numbers show that although they said during their campaigns that they would reform the “culture of corruption” in Washington, many quickly immersed themselves in the town’s lobbyist-dominated fundraising network to fill up their coffers and retire their debt.”

This is not one isolated incident, as the article went on to say,

“Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) raised about $50,000 in PAC money between Election Day and taking the oath of office. Rep. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) raised about $40,000; Rep. Steve Kagen (D-Wis.) about $35,000; Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio) about $35,000; and Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.) about $50,000.” 

This confirms a logical conclusion that a freshman congressman who wins a close race against an incumbent faces much more pressure to raise money for reelection than an incumbent with name recognition and the organizational backing to run a campaign already set up.  So if freshman congressmen are at least as likely, if not more, to be beholden to special interests, how can they benefit their constituents more than incumbents?  What do *John Conyers, Rush Holt Jr., *Edward Kennedy, Rosa Delauro, *George Miller, Barbara Lee, *Ed Markey, Richard Durbin, Maurice Hinchey, John Tierney, and Maria Cantwell have in common?  In a January 5^th 2007 article of The Nation they were cited as sponsors of the “Top 10 [pieces of legislation] for a More Perfect Union”.  What else do they have in common?  None of them were freshman senators or congressman (Technically Maria Cantwell had just started her second term as senator but she had previously been a member of the US House of Representatives).  In fact a few—Conyers, Kennedy, Miller, and Markey—have been serving in the House of Representatives for over 30 years.  This list didn’t even include important pieces of legislation that had already been enacted such as the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act (sponsored by two veteran Senators).  So it seems that when it comes time to “pass many badly needed, common-sense, no-brainer, constructive reforms” it is the veteran congressman who are getting the job done.  So fine, veteran congressman do good things for the whole country, but they harm their own constituents, right?  Freshman congressmen are going to go in, like Mr. Smith himself, and clean up Washington with nothing but hard-work and determination.  They are going to make sure that their constituents get a fair share, right?  Lets analyze one of the complaints that VOID makes against veteran congressmen, they say that adding pork-barrel spending is one of the most corrupt things a congressmen can do.  On this they are partially correct.  Most pork is useless (quite literally in the case of the famed “Alaska Bridge to Nowhere”) and simply wastes taxpayer dollars.  Of course being a pragmatist I ask myself, ‘as long as pork spending still occurs why shouldn’t my district get a piece of it?’  Indeed, when citizens reelect incumbents they are adding to an already powerful incumbent’s power.  As more senior congressmen retire, die, and lose elections the local congressmen moves up the list of senior members until he finds himself in a position that allows him to direct spending toward his district.  If the government is going to spend $5 Billion developing a new fighter jet, I would logically want it to be built in my town, where my neighbors will benefit.  In a sense, reelecting incumbents is like investing money for the future.  While people will argue against me saying that all I am doing is perpetuating a cycle that hurts the country I answer that electing new congressmen doesn’t reduce pork spending it merely redirects to a place with a  more powerful congressmen.  I am a strong believer that governmental spending should be controlled and pork should be reduced, but cutting off your nose to spite your face is never the correct tactic because as long as there is money to divide up, someone is going to try to use it in his district to try to win reelection and it is in a citizen’s best interest to make sure that that district is his own.  If citizens want to eliminate pork the only way to do that is with across the board reforms (better find a veteran congressman with some power to push that across, because a freshman won’t have a chance).

            I’ve asked a lot of questions but I have one more left, ‘What is the benefit of electing a new congressman?’  As I have shown, doing so is neither beneficial to the country nor the district.  Unless a congressman no longer represents you on the issues, a citizen shouldn’t vote them out of office.  Thinking about it, I was wrong in the beginning, self-interest isn’t the basis for making decisions in a democracy, belief is.  A congressman should believe in the same things as you, that way he can represent you, the length of time he has been in office shouldn’t matter.