Much has been made of the health care polls over the course of the past six months or so. Citing polls reflecting lower than 50% support for health care reform, Republicans have made the argument that Democrats are "ignoring the will of the people," or "shoving health care reform down our throats." Such arguments implicitly suggest that if a congressperson votes for any bill that doesn't have majority support, that congressperson is misbehaving. The media, politicians, and probably your neighbors have parroted the Republican line so many times it is becoming THE argument against health care reform. But does the argument make any sense?
It depends, I suppose, on what you believe a legislator's role is, or ought to be. Legislators are clearly not required to follow polls when casting their votes. Indeed, Congress' proclivity to "stick its finger to the wind" prior to voting is an oft cited complaint by many Americans. How many times have you heard someone complain that a congressperson "has no convictions" and only "follows the polls?" I would guess many of the Republicans complaining that Democrats aren't following the polls right now have uttered the opposite complaint of a congressperson in the past.
While the "finger to the wind" model of governance is clearly good at promoting populism, it is awful in requiring the application of critical thought. Madison would not have approved. In arguing in Federalist No. 55 that the size of the House of Representatives should not be set to a fixed proportion of representatives to citizens, Madison said:
Sixty or seventy men may be more properly trusted with a given degree of power than six or seven. But it does not follow that six or seven hundred would be proportionably a better depositary. And if we carry on the supposition to six or seven thousand, the whole reasoning ought to be reversed. The truth is, that in all cases a certain number at least seems to be necessary to secure the benefits of free consultation and discussion, and to guard against too easy a combination for improper purposes; as, on the other hand, the number ought at most to be kept within a certain limit, in order to avoid the confusion and intemperance of a multitude. In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason. Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.
In other words, too few voices leads to corruption, and too many voices in governance leads to confusion and intemperance (irrespective of the intelligence of those serving in the legislature). The effect of endorsing a "finger to the wind" method of governance is functionally to expand the size of those in governance to all who are polled on a given question. This places quite a bit of faith in the polled and in the pollster and removes all confidence from the duly elected legislator.
This isn't to say that a congressperson should pay no heed whatsoever to polls. Any politician following that path may quickly find himself in the poor graces of his constituency and out of a job. To the extent polling information is available, it ought to serve as a reference point for a congressperson but not a deciding factor. We have gone to great lengths to ensure that our congresspeople have the best information available at their disposal. We grant them subpoena powers to call upon any who may be of assistance in shedding light on a topic. We have erected the Library of Congress, perhaps the world's greatest depository of information, for their ready perusal. We have provided them with a full-time research staff, ready and capable of giving the best answers possible to difficult questions. Have we done all this just so a congressperson can open the paper, read a poll, and vote accordingly?
To those who still maintain that the "finger to the wind" model appears superior, consider next that polls are, by their nature, imprecise. Yes, both sides love to cite polls whenever the polls slant in their favor and at such times tend to overstate the precision of the polls. Take a look at a few polls from the past two weeks, however:
As you can see above, four recent polls (two after passage of the bill, two before passage) all come to different conclusions on the level of support for the health care reform bill- but they can't possibly all be right. Each has its own polling methodology (question phrasing, question ordering, robocall versus live call, likely voter models, etc.) which leads to differing results even compared to other polls taken during the exact same period. CNN, for example, finds 39% support for reform on March 21, and Gallup finds 49% support on March 22. That represents a 10 point difference in a one day period.
Unfortunately, we don't know which poll is "correct." We can look at past performance for each pollster, calculate a "house effect," and make an educated guess, but it is still a guess. Is this "guess" preferable to expecting a legislator to make the best decision possible with the best information available?
Some may argue that while they would agree with the analysis above in general, health care reform was "too big" or "too important," or that even if the exact level of support for health care reform couldn't be verified through polls, almost all polls showed less than majority support so the case against acting is stronger than in general. When the question is narrowed thusly, the objection to a congressperson who "ignores the polls" admittedly sounds more reasonable. Perhaps on significant pieces of legislation (however that is defined), a voter expects a higher degree of allegiance to the polls from his representative- particularly if the polls show extremely low voter support for a proposition. Even in such a situation, however, a congressperson's duty is first to what he believes to be the right thing to do for his constituents, his state, and his country, provided it is legally and ethically permissible to do it. While "more weight" may be given to constituent opinion for significant pieces of legislation, it shouldn't comprise "all weight." Liberals would also point out this cuts both ways. The public option, for example, has polled quite well (enjoying 50% support and greater for months), but Republicans aren't upset it hasn't been incorporated into legislation.
A significant problem for those who suggest that large reform bills should only be passed with majority public support, in addition to those listed above, is that transformative legislation is rarely passed without substantial opposition. In June of 1963, for example, only 49% favored passing the Civil Rights Act (42% opposed). That number increased just prior to passage, but does that mean passage was only right in 1964 (when public approval was higher) and not in 1963? Of course not. It was the right thing to do in 1963 and 1964. In 1965, just prior to passing the Voting Rights Act, a plurality of Americans (34%) said the government was "doing too much for the blacks in this country." Only 24% said the government was not doing enough. Under the standard articulated by many Republicans, the Voting Rights Act should have failed. That would have been a mistake.
In looking specifically at health care reform, the bill consistently polled in the low 40s (a few in the high 30s), but even then much of the opposition was from those on the left who thought the bill didn't accomplish enough. This is a key problem with transformative legislation: everyone has an opinion, so any bill, no matter how crafted, will be opposed by some on the left and some on the right and others in the middle. Had the health care bill been more liberal, more conservatives and moderates would have been opposed. Had it been more conservative, more liberals and moderates would have been opposed. A majority of representatives in the House and 60 Senators determined that the bill represented progress they could support, even when weighed against polls indicating between 40-59% of Americans didn't support the legislation. That is their prerogative.
At the end of the day, voters who don't care for how their congressperson voted have a remedy: get involved. Write letters, organize rallies, contribute money, and most importantly vote. In arguing that politicians should follow each poll, many quickly forget the one poll that has zero margin of error- the election. In the 2008 election, Democrats won, and they won big. They took 257 seats in the House of Representatives (218 is a majority of the full House) and 59 seats in the Senate (50 is a majority). Democrats also took the White House. Those are huge numbers in US politics, majorities not seen since the 1970s. Voters would do well to recall that elections do, in fact, have consequences. In all likelihood, a majority party will implement more of its ideas than those of the minority party. If the majority oversteps its bounds, a check on its power is just one election away. In the meantime, a congressperson ought to hear your opinion, understand it and consider it, but not obligated to follow it.
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