When one thinks about the definition of a Senator as an elected representative of the people of a State, despite the original Constitutional definition, the distinction implies a serious responsibility and commitment to those people. To be even more specific: the people who elected said Senator. Nonetheless, yesterday marked another step toward a governing tribunal with fewer ties to the people.
In the modern day Congress, the Senate in particular, incumbency protection is the number one goal for those aspiring to become career congressmen. In large part, that protection is achieved through constituent services. If you answer enough angry emails and letters, and maybe if you build a bridge in your home State or town, you’ve done your part. The vast majority of uninformed voters seem to be satisfied with money and lip service so long as their congressman doesn’t do anything crazy.
Thus, the problem of increasingly poor representation is equally the fault of the congressmen and the people he or she represents. After all, it is the people’s civic duty to be informed, involved, and to vote in their political process for the representatives that best match their interests, not just their wallets. So how then has Senator Arlen Specter’s party switch run afoul of the political principles and processes of the nation?
Specter claims to have switched because of a re-alignment of his political philosophy, citing such things as a loss of Republican control in the Congress and the Presidency and some 200,000 Republican voters in Pennsylvania who supposedly voted Democrat in the Presidential election. Even if that were the truth, in my opinion Specter should resign and run again for re-election as a Democrat if he feels so strongly about his new found principles.
See what Specter fails to mention, whether he realizes it or not, is that votes in a Presidential election are not the same as votes in a Senatorial election. In 2008 there was no Senate race in Pennsylvania. People who switch parties to vote Democrat in a Presidential race might well be the same people who voted along party lines as Republicans in Senate races years before and might well be likely to vote that way again. Such is the theory of ordered constituencies.
A Senator who switches parties mid-term is essentially saying to voters that their votes in the last Senate election that he or she ran in do not matter. At best the Senator is saying that he knows better than the people where their principles truly lie. Perhaps, however, the Senator is suggesting that the people’s principles and beliefs when they voted for him are trumped by his own. In any case, it doesn’t matter where the Senator bases his decision. It doesn’t matter if the switch from Democrat to Republican or Republican to Democrat. The Senator no longer represents the people that elected him, and he should, in good faith and service, resign.
Specter shows no signs of pursuing the route of resignation. Moreover, few are willing to call for his resignation and replacement. What Specter did was identify a shift in power in a Democratic direction for Pennsylvania and surrounding States. In an underhanded move to secure his career Senatorial seat, he has switched parties mid-term. With any luck, the voters can prove him wrong, whether in the Democratic primary or the State election, and show him that in 2010 he’s no longer fit to represent and serve the best interests the people of Pennsylvania.
