thinkprogress.org/...
The Senate as an institution is much more responsive to wealthy constituents’ views than to middle- and low-income voters’ policy preferences, according to political scientist Thomas J. Hayes of the University of Connecticut. In research first published in 2012 and released in print on Monday by Political Research Quarterly, Hayes demonstrates a chronic neglect of non-rich Americans by the upper chamber of Congress.
With income and wealth inequality spiking to historic highs after 2002, Hayes wondered if past research finding that members of congress were most responsive to the middle class and the wealthy would hold up under the increased societal strain of extreme inequality and the increased political influence that wealthy interests tend to obtain.
In 2011 I was part of a delegation from Occupy NYC that had been invited to DC to have a secret meeting with members of the progressive caucus. That meeting included at least twelve lawmakers including Keith Ellison, Raul Grijalva, Jesse LeGreca, and Yvette Clark. The purpose of the meeting was to see how members of the progressive caucus could support the Occupy movement without incurring the wrath of people inside the movement who believed that any cooperation with democrats or republicans would lead to the message being co-opted from the movement.
I was part of a minority that believed the only way to achieve success would be to build a coalition that translated the raw energy of the street into progressive legislative accomplishments. Democrats controlled the White House and the Senate at this time so I was under the impression that they would be responsive to our needs. The meeting lasted about an hour and was supposed to be the first of many. Sadly, it was the only one of its kind that I am aware of. We discussed how members of congress could support the movement in the media, what our short term objectives were, and what we wanted to accomplished in the long run.
I was a little out of my league sitting at that meeting as a 28 year old dressed in black with a heavy backpack tossed in the corner. My one major contribution was when the coversation turned to messaging I said that democrats need to stop talking about the middle class. 90% of people in the U.S believe they are part of the middle class which is a fiction. I said we should talk about working people and use the term working people because frankly it’s a more apt term.
I left the meeting heartened and Rep. Clark invited us into her congressional office for a post meeting wrap up and to have a frank conversation.
It was in her office that I learned of one of the biggest road blocks that prevented congress from being responsive to the needs of working class people.
Rep. Clark asked us “Do you know what we have to do every day? We have to get on the phone and call donors for one to two hours a day. They keep track of how much we raise and how long we spend doing this.”
That took me off guard. I understood that congress people had to fund raise in order to keep their seats but a congress person directly calling donors to ask for money? That seemed to me to fundamentally change the dynamic of the interaction from a place of strength to putting the lawmaker in a position of being indebted.
Congress only responds to the desires and wants of the wealthy. This is a fact. It is not debatable. In the House the picture is more nuanced but in the Senate —
The study used data from the 2004 National Annenberg Election Survey to compare constituents’ political opinion to the voting behavior of their Senators in the 107th through 111th Congresses. With more than 90,000 respondents, the NAES is the largest public opinion survey conducted during presidential elections.
In all of the five Congresses examined, the voting records of Senators were consistently aligned with the opinions of their wealthiest constituents. The opinions of lower-class constituents, however, never appeared to influence the Senators’ voting behavior.
The neglect of lower income groups was a bipartisan affair. Democrats were not any more responsive to the poor than Republicans.
Human behavior is complicated and often times has several factors maintaining the behavior. Our congressional caucus is set up to engage with the wealthy every day for one to two hours a day. This practice has not stopped in the House. It is one of the worst aspects of our current leaderships policies. Speaker Pelosi has set our House delegations on a VR (variable reinforcement) schedule that is maintaining and strengthening the behavior of our congress to only respond to the rich. If someone gave money every single time a congress person called then perhaps they would not care as much but when someone only gives money half the time you call it definitively strengthens the behavior. It’s the same concept behind gamblers feeding coins into a machine but only winning sometimes. Intermittent reinforcement schedules are the most powerful in maintaining a behavior.
When we win in 2018 then the culture within the House has to change. This “power hour” (their term — not mine) that forces congress people to call wealthy donors to fund raise must end. Otherwise the frustration at Congress for not responding to the needs of the 99% will continue unabated and our wave will not be sustained like what happened from 2006 — 2010.