I read that the California state legislature has recently had an approval rating of 27%. It has also failed to get much higher than 40% in the past several years. It hit 50% for only one month in the past six years (January 2001).
Are all states this bad?
What is your state legislature’s approval rating?
What state has the highest/lowest approval rating?
What the hell is this about?
What do the people want the legislature to do or not do?
What can be done about it?
In California, the voters are mostly Dems and the Legislature is mostly Dems, and the same Dems keep getting elected, yet the approval rating is under 50% a vast majority of the time.
I smell the effects of poor approtionment of districts (gerrymandering) and the corrupting influence of money in politics. Arnold has tried to get a ballot measure for an independent commission to take control of reapportionment. The voters shot him down. I like Arnold’s idea even though I am a Dem and the proposal means potentially fewer Dems in the Legislature.
It doesn’t sound like effective campaign finance reform is likely absent a US Constitutional Amendment overturning Buckley v. Valeo, which states that capaign contributions are protected political speech. Is such a Constitutional Amendment being proposed by anyone? Would it work? It seems that “free speech” is completely gutting the people’s confidence in their government.
A high disapproval rating for the legislature as a whole does not mean that individual legislators have a high disapproval rating. You can dislike the legislature and still be happy with your local legislators.
As far as campaign finance reform, if you dislike incumbents, why would you support it? Any campaign finance legislation makes it harder for candidates to raise money. Since incumbents have many advantages over challengers, challengers need a lot of money to get their message across. If you make it more difficult for them to raise money, then you make it more difficult for them to challenge and entrenched incumbent. Also, if you what McCain-Feingold did on the national level by restricting First Amendment rights to criticize elected officials, you also make it more difficult to depose incumbents.
Something seems funky about everyone in the state saying, “I really like MY Assemblymember and State Senator, but I don’t like the other 118 other a-holes in the Legislature messing everything up.”
Why? I feel that way (almost). Our state legislature is heavily Democratic. Our state senator, however, is a fairly conservative Republican who generally votes the way I like. Two of our three state reps agree with my stance on issues.
So you think publicly financed campaigns will help? And who will write the rules? The legislature? I’m sure they’ll go out of their way to write rules that make it easy for challengers to unseat incumbents. :rolleyes:
I disagree with public financing for a variety of reasons. One, my tax money should not go to help elect someone with whom I disagree. Two, if I want to spend my money to help elect someone who agrees with me, I should be free to do so. Three, it will protect incumbents. If both incumbent and challenger receive the same amount of money, incumbents will have an advantage because their greater name recognition and the other powers of incumbency.
I guess I can see where a state is evenly split by party and so is the Legislature, that the approval rating of the legislature as a whole might be low because half the state hates the other half of the legislature.
However, in a state that is mostly one party with a legislature mostly of the same party, why would the ratings be so low?
I guess it seems odd to me that if I’m doing my job in a company, and Tom is doing his job, and Jane is doing her job, then the whole company should propser and everyone should be happy. In the case of the legislature, everyone thinks their own guy is on the job, but the “company” is somehow going bankrupt.
It’s my understanding that this is exactly the case, at least on the national level. I don’t have a cite, but I’ve always seen polls say that people tend to give low ratings to the Congress as a whole, but give higher ratings to thier congressman.
One enormous problem is that redistricting after every census is done by the state legislatures, who have a vested interest in the outcome. The result is that (1) legislators attempt to get districts drawn that guarantee them a majority for re-election. Any legislator can cobble together contiguous townships or city wards that will ensure he gets a majority of votes, and if the result looks like an epileptic squid with tumors rather than a reasonably compact area, no one who cares is in a position to exercise any power to raise objections. And (2) a majority party can draw districts that favor their party, concentrating the minority into as few districts as possible. If the state is 60% X and 40% Y on average, it’s easy to draw a lot of districts that are 55% or more X, plus a handful of districts that are 85% or so Y, minimizing the number of people speaking and voting for party Y and maximizing those for party X.
Along with some appropriate means of minimizing “incumbent advantage” in getting publicity, already discussed, this is an issue that needs to be addressed.
We are supposed to live in a nation where lawmakers are chosen by their constituents. More and more, we live in a nation where our lawmakers choose who their constituents will be.
Your tax money already goes to support issues with which you disagree, why not candidates. Your tax dollars will not be funding a particular candidate per se, but will be funding fair elections in general.
The problem with the current system is that people with money can spend it how they wish, giving those with more money a louder voice and influence disproportionate to the number of wealthy people.
As far as public financing protecting incumbents, I don’t see it. The current system protects incumbents. Incumbents get all the money now under traditional fundraising system. Give some upstart challenger the same amount of money, and the incumbent factor is diminished.
It’s just as if you were attending a New-England-style town meeting in person, and you know you’re the only intelligent, honest and civic-minded citizen in the meeting hall; we tend to project that atttitude onto our representatives.
No, my tax money will be going to promote the election of candidates with whom I diametrically disagree. That is wrong. I should not be forced to support the electoral hopes of someone whom I would like to see defeated.
Yes and no. It also allows people of modest means to band together and promote candidates they like (though PACs and advocacy organizations). And it’s not as if the wealthy necessarily have different political views than the rest of us. Steve Forbes has much, much more money than I do, but I agree with him on most issues. Him spending money to help elect candidates is promoting his views, sure, but also my own.
No, incumbents do not get “all” the money. Many challengers are well-funded.
It would probably benefit your company if you started to work for free, but your spouse probably wouldn’t be to happy, especially if Tom and Jane were still getting paid. A legislator’s job is ultimately (if he wants to get re-elected) to represent his constituents, not serve the state. It is quite natural that his constituents will be happy with any pork he brings in to benefit them, while deriding money spent on “wasteful” projects in other districts.
I suppose also that good things like incoming pork as perceived as attributable to one’s worthy representative, while tax increases are seen as the responsibility of that lousy legislature as a whole.
Do you think you also shouldn’t be forced to support the implementation of policies you disagree with? Plus, you know, your taxes go to pay the salaries of Congress, so you’re already supporting candidates you would like to see defeated.
Some are, but that really doesn’t negate the point. Incumbents have a huge money advantage because they are already in office; public financing would not totally eliminate the incumbent edge, but that’s not a reason to oppose it.
Buckley v. Valeo stated no such thing. In fact, it explicitly upheld limits on campaign contributions. There are strict limits on individual and corporate contributions to federal campaigns in place today, and some states have added their own limits for state campaigns.
Buckley v. Valeo did find that campaign spending was protected speech, so you can’t restrict how much a campaign can spend provided that they can raise it from small contributors (which is, of course, easier for incumbents).