During its early years, however, the Senate did not closely scrutinize the qualifications of its members. As a result, three senators who failed to meet the age qualification were nevertheless admitted to the Senate: Henry Clay aged 29 in , Armistead Thomson Mason aged 28 in , and John Eaton aged 28 in Such an occurrence, however, has not been repeated since.
In , Rush D. Holt, Sr. In , Joe Biden was elected to the Senate shortly before his 30 th birthday, but he reached his 30 th birthday in time for the swearing-in ceremony for incoming senators in January It is important to mention disqualification procedures in Congress. Under the Fourteenth Amendment, a federal or state officer who takes the requisite oath to support the Constitution, but later engages in rebellion or aids the enemies of the United States, is disqualified from becoming a representative.
This post-Civil War provision was intended to prevent those who sided with the Confederacy from serving. However, disqualified individuals may serve if they gain the consent of two-thirds of both houses of Congress. The incumbent is the existing holder of a political office who normally has a structural advantage over challengers during an election. The incumbent is the existing holder of a political office. It is usually used in reference to elections where races can often be defined as being between an incumbent and non-incumbents.
Incumbents have structural advantages over challengers during elections. The percentage of incumbents who win reelection after seeking it in the U. Additionally, shifts in congressional districts due to reapportionment or other longer- term factors may make it more or less likely for an incumbent to win re-election over time. A race without an incumbent is referred to as an open seat because of the lack of incumbency advantage and they are the most contested races in an election.
The timing of elections may be determined by the incumbent instead of a set schedule. The incumbent often has more name recognition because of their previous work in the office they occupy. Incumbents have easier access to campaign finance and government resources that can be indirectly used to boost a campaign.
In general, incumbents have structural advantages over challengers during elections. For most political offices, the incumbent often has more name recognition due to their previous work in the office. Incumbents also have easier access to campaign finance, as well as government resources such as the franking privilege that can be indirectly used to boost a campaign.
An election especially for a legislature in which no incumbent is running is often called an open seat; because of the lack of incumbency advantage, these are often amongst the most hotly contested races in any election. Unseating an incumbent president, senator or other figure during a primary election is very difficult, and even in the general election, incumbents have a very strong record.
For instance, the percentage of incumbents who win reelection after seeking it in the U. However, there exist scenarios in which the incumbency factor itself leads to the downfall of the incumbent. Popularly known as the anti-incumbency factor, situations of this kind occur when the incumbent has proven himself not worthy of office during his tenure and the challenger demonstrates this fact to the voters.
An anti-incumbent vote is one exercised against elected officials currently in power. It allows the voters to register their discontent with sitting government officials, particularly when protesting against certain actions taken by the government or the elected officials in question. An anti-incumbency factor can also be responsible for bringing down incumbents who have been in office for many successive terms in spite of performance indicators, simply because the voters are convinced by the challenger of a need for change.
Voters first have to consider the records and antecedents of the incumbent. At the same time, if the challenger is determined to be completely unacceptable, voters might reluctantly vote for the incumbent. There are situations in which the incumbency factor leads to the downfall of the incumbent. This is known as the anti-incumbency factor. Situations of this kind occur when the incumbent has proven himself unworthy of the office during his tenure and the challenger convincingly demonstrates this fact to the voters.
An anti-incumbency factor can also be responsible for voting out incumbents who have been in office for many successive terms in spite of performance indicators, simply because the voters are convinced by the challenger of a need for change. Members of the Senate may serve unlimited six-year terms and members of the House may serve unlimited two-year terms. Under the Constitution, members of the United States Senate may serve an unlimited number of six-year terms and members of the House of Representatives may serve an unlimited number of two-year terms.
Reformers during the early s used referendums to put congressional term limits on the ballot in 24 states. Voters in eight of these states approved the congressional term limits by an average electoral margin of two to one. In the elections of , part of the Republican platform was to pass legislation setting term limits in Congress. After winning the majority, they brought the constitutional amendment to the House floor. The amendment limited members of the Senate to two six-year terms and members of the House to six two-year terms.
However, constitutional amendments require a two-thirds majority and the votes to impose term limits on Congress fell short of that number. Term Limits, Inc. Thornton The ruling says that states cannot impose term limits on their federal Representatives or Senators.
Term Limits was the largest private organization pushing for Congressional term limits. In the United States, the visible and often highly political process of congressional redistricting can leave sitting House members with a new district. For these chamber-changers, moving to the Senate provides them with a new, state-wide constituency to whom they are accountable instead of a smaller House district.
This change can be minor or major, and for both Democrats and Republicans, the new statewide constituency can be more or less liberal or conservative than the one they previously represented. For instance, Democrat Sherrod Brown moved from the 13 th District of Ohio, a working class district made up of counties west of Cleveland, to representing the entire state of Ohio, which is more diverse economically, less diverse racially, and more conservative politically.
There are competing logics for whether such constituency change should affect how a legislator behaves. Since the legislator holds the same ideology and remains in the same political party, those factors should continue to determine their behavior as it did before.
But on the other hand, these chamber-changers become electorally accountable to a different set of constituents. According to the logic of congressional scholars who have long emphasized the importance of the electoral connection in American politics, members should adapt their behavior to better reflect their new constituency.
Gauging whether and how legislators behave differently after changing chambers requires finding a common metric for observing and tracing their legislative behavior over time. As a primary measure, I utilize a highly-comparable, adjusted version of the voting scores produced by the Americans for Democratic Action ADA. Careful analysis of these data reveal sizeable changes in the behavior of those whose constituencies have changed.
Initial statistical tests confirm that the behavior of legislators who move from the House to the Senate is meaningfully different before and after the change. The evidence of changed behavior is consistently strong, regardless of whether the comparison is made across two, four, or six-year windows before and after they change chambers, or across their entire careers. These findings are robust to measurement choices and the consideration of alternate explanations.
Furthermore, both Democrats and Republicans are highly responsive to constituency change and this holds regardless of changes in majority party status, the party of the president, or unique features of each Congress.
As expected, the direction and magnitude of the change in legislative behavior tracks the direction and scale of the change in the constituency. Similarly, those legislators whose constituencies change the most also change their behavior the most. These changes can be large and substantively meaningful. The vote scores of chamber-changers shift across a point range, going from 28 points more liberal to 20 points less liberal more conservative. The other categories elicited similar proportions of respondents from both the Senate and the House.
About a fifth found it too difficult to choose just one category, while less the 10 per cent chose each of the remaining categories. Figure 24a: Who or what current parliamentarians think they primarily represent. There was more variation in the responses of former senators and members, with larger proportions of respondents seeing themselves as parliamentarians-at-large and national representatives, and representing an ideology or philosophy.
Figure 24b: Who or what former parliamentarians thought they primarily represented. One interviewee saw Senate representation as also representing the government or opposition by ensuring that the government gets it right through inquiries and policy and expenditure reviews.
A minor party senator, despite only being elected by a small proportion of the state, still saw themselves as representing all of the state through a philosophy. Minor party senators also tended to look at themselves as more national representatives as their party often did not have representatives from all parts of Australia. Another member talked about aspiring to represent the local area, through involvement in party politics only at the local level. One parliamentarian, who switched from the Senate to the House, did so feeling the desire to represent the local area and had a much greater affinity serving the local area.
These findings show how contested the concept of representation is among the political actors themselves, and also the distinct roles that different parliamentarians play despite performing the same job in the same institution. This is not particularly surprisingly given the array of personalities, backgrounds, aspirations, interests, causes, and expertise that politicians bring to parliament.
Furthermore, not all of the categories are discrete or mutually exclusive, and respondents were instructed to choose only the one that they primarily represented. The most notable difference between Senate and House respondents was in relation to party representation.
This external institutional identification of the Senate has perhaps led to self-identification among the senators as party representatives. Lower house members emphasised wanting to be local representatives.
The preselection procedures of the parties and the voting system of the Senate also distinguish Senate candidates as more party-oriented than House candidates. In most parties, Senate preselection is conducted at a state-wide level and requires a high-profile within and across the party organisation, whereas preselection for House seats is generally decided by local electorate members.
Most voters for the Senate vote for a group rather than individual candidates, [27] whereas the voting system for the House of Representatives is based on individual candidates contesting a single-member electorate.
Furthermore, as previously discussed, senators have also become important campaigning agents for the major parties. Senators from the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory felt most similar to members of the House of Representatives, in terms of connection to a local electorate and expectations and awareness of their representative role.
Indeed, two interviewees from the territories served in both Houses and therefore offered a unique perspective on the similarities, while also stressing that the similarities were due to the nature of the representation of the territories in the national parliament.
One interviewee described being a territory representative as more personality based, while all interviewees who represented the territories reported generally higher levels of constituent inquiries than their state counterparts. Currently both territories have two Senate seats and two House seats, and their Senate terms are tied to the House of Representatives rather than fixed at six years as for state senators.
The quota for election is closer to a majority at The Greens were the only party to refer to being representatives of the whole planet. One Green argued that most politicians want to make Australia a better place, whereas the Greens want to make the planet a better place.
One independent saw their role as reflecting what the electorate thinks, and they often represent views and advocates for constituents that they may not agree with. They argued that major party parliamentarians often try and convince constituents who they do not agree with that they are wrong, as they are as much party representatives within the electorate as representatives of that electorate.
While representatives will have strong views and opinions on certain issues, interest and pressure groups, party leaders and colleagues, lobbyists, and the media are also influential in opinion formation and change. Furthermore, as Stilborn observes, the opinions and interests of constituencies are often processed through interest groups that have greater influence than individual constituents.
Advances in mass and electronic communication and the use of polling also means that traditional face-to-face contact with constituents becomes less necessary.
Yet at the same time, if a parliamentarian identifies as a representative of a constituency, they will probably still consider direct communication with constituents as paramount. Survey respondents were asked which method they find most reliable in determining what their constituents think, with the collated responses presented in Figures 25a and 25b. Figure 25a: The primary method current parliamentarians use to find out what their constituents think.
Figure 25b: The primary method former parliamentarians used to find out what their constituents thought. Another interviewee supported this claim, stating that the best speeches are made in the party room rather than in the parliament.
0コメント