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So YouTube recommended me this video "Why You Don't Want to Be in Congress" by Power Politics which I thought actually opened my mind a little about congress and the people elected to it. That's why I decided to re-state the arguments here to see what Mottizens think about it.
Background
I briefly searched up Power Politics, looks like it's a newish channel by Christian Fong, currently a professor at University of Michigan, and his bio states the usual litany of bachelors and PhDs from prestigious institutions, of note is that he did serve as an advisor to Mike Lee, Senator of Utah for a while. He also works with the Center for Effective Lawmaking which he draws many of his stats from. In other videos, he states that he wants to provide a non-partisan view into congress and how it works.
Intro
Fong first points out that the most effective legislators currently: Sam Graves (R-House) and Gary Peters (D-Senate) are both quitting. This is striking because 1) they have powerful positions which is supposed to incentivize their continual stay, 2) they're not that old relatively (62 and 67 respectively), and 3) they are likely to be re-elected. It's concerning to Fong because they are not the only ones quitting, and he's concerned the people who leaves are exactly the kind of legislators you would want to stay (experienced, connected, in their prime).
So what's going on? Fong's thesis: "Being a member of congress is not good of a job as most people think and certainly not as good as it was 60 years ago." Stats-wise, Fong points out that back between 1954 and 1964, for every 3 congressmen who retires, 1 dies. Now it's 21 retires before 1 dies. Members of congress used to want to stay in congress for as long as they could, so something must have changed.
Here are the 4 changes proposed by Fong:
1. Congressional elections are more expensive and contributions does not scale
Between 1952 and 2024, congressional spending on elections increased 41300% ($23M in 1952 vs $9.5B in 2024). Now, because of campaigning financing laws which cap individual contributions to $7000 per cycle, members of congress has to essentially have a second job being a telemarketer at night to go beg for money from rich people (cause how many people would donate $7000 to political campaigns?). Time spent on the phone is time not doing policy making, time not negotiating or making connections with fellow lawmakers, time not spent with family and friends to recharge, time not spent connecting with voters, etc.
Now I don't think this is accounted for inflation, and I do think the numbers are not direct comparisons from a quick glance (reported vs total). But, I do think this is a fair point. Much has been said about Singapore's model for high paying public officials. And though badly argued, but this is essentially the same point Mike Johnson makes when he defends members of congress trading stocks. There is also something to be said where we want people we elect to make laws to, well, focus on law-making and all the things that makes law-making easier and more successful.
On the other hand, congress can solve this. Just as much as congress kept complaining about "call time", seems to me like they stopped doing anything about campaign finance reform since 2002.
2. Congress travel requirements are grueling
It used to be that members of congress lived in Washington full time, now they are expected to fly home every weekend. But not all members of congress live in cities like NYC or LA with their multiple airports.
Fong cited this paper which "find that gaining an airport that provides a round-trip direct flight to Washington, DC, is associated with an approximately 1.6 percentage point increase in the probability that a member runs for reelection." Or in other words if you need to have a layover, you'll less likely to run for re-election. Travel for work sucks in general, and Fong also re-emphasize how this is likely to have a negative effect on family, spouses and children.
My thoughts about this is that it sucks, and I'm not sure how to solve this. Are members of congress from rural areas are just going to have the bad luck of having a higher chance of being burnt out? Can the relationship between the public and their representatives be changed so that a better balance can be found? I'm not sure.
3. Congress increasingly becomes more of a stage than a workplace
It used to be that campaigning and governing were two different seasons in a year, and governing was the longer season, now, it is a permanent campaign. Fong has a separate video about "A Congress of Kardashians", and how the system incentivizes disruptive behaviors that is annoying and completely unconducive to law-making. And well, it's encouraged by leadership of both parties. Just as leftists abhor the shenanigans of Majorie Taylor Greene, rightists decry the outbursts of Jasmine Crockett, but guess what, that's what goes viral, and that's what gets funding.
I don't have much thoughts about this at the moment
4. Members of congress are increasingly not making an impact to worth the sacrifices
Fong argues that the parliamentary processes are controlled so hard by party leaders that members of congress can't even get an amendment in. And if they're just there to put a thumbs up and thumbs down on bills agreed to be put to the floor by leadership, it's just not worth it to slog through point 1, 2, and 3.
My Conclusion
In some ways, I find renewed appreciation of US members of congress. It's certainly true that a great number of them are pretty dumb by my count. But quite possibly that for all of them there is a kernel of trying to do public good, or just pure narcissism, or pure naivety, or the promise of insider trading, to make life of a member of congress worth it. But then again, right now, narcissism, or pure naivety, or the promise of insider trading and the public good are not mutually exclusive. The question is still: what can be done about these pathologies of the job of a member of congress so that we get better lawmakers and better lawmaking?
PS: this ranking is pretty good: https://thelawmakers.org/find-representatives
Edit1: Mis-numbered the changes, added slight edit to sentence in intro explaining why Fong wants legislators like Sam Graves and Gary Peters to seek re-election
Edit2: emphasized and bolded Fong's thesis
Doesn't this actually mean the exact opposite - i.e., that there is next to zero correlation between airport accessibility and running for reelection? A 1.6% difference is minuscule and essentially a rounding error.
I also must be honest and admit that I don't really understand this entire segment about Congresspeople returning to their constituency every weekend - as you say, it's "expected" of them, which means in practical terms that it's not mandatory nor enforced in any way. I heavily doubt that an otherwise popular Representative would suffer any kind of status loss or dip in support if he isn't physically present in his constituency every single weekend of the year. This only seems like it would be an "expectation" for retired cranks who spend their days harassing local council members and writing emails to Congress. Do you think AOC or Ilhan Omar would loose their seats if it came out that the spent every other weekend in DC instead of always returning to NYC or Minnesota? I doubt anyone cares.
At the end of the day, a lot of the complaining from Congresspeople about their job should be taken with a grain of salt - this is a pool of people largely self-selected for having huge egos, are in constant need for excuses when they inevitably fail to deliver their campaign promises, and are enmeshed in a mediatic/cultural zeitgeist in which being a snivelling victim is considered a valid defence for failure. They have EVERY incentive to bitch and whine about their job and portray themselves as more martyred by it than they actually are.
I read up on the paper a bit and the authors did anticipate this argument . They wrote that they found the average rate of seeking re-election is 89.8%, so I suppose we can think retirement as 10% chance. A 1.6% increase in retirement rate can be thought of as a 16% increase from baseline. In contrast, having a scandal for example is a 12.66% increase in retirement rate (a 126.6% increase from baseline). (apologies to scientists if I am not using the correct words to describe statistical significance). I didn't do my due diligence regarding math and P-values but it looks to be very small as I skim it (p < 0.001).
Uhhhh, well, as other posters have pointed out, it really does help in a primary. I would like to quote this exhibit on the primary race where AOC had an upset against Democratic mainstay and longstanding leader Joe Crowley:
Anyway, back to your other point.
Point taken, and I agree, yet we are having a pretty dysfunctional congress, so I would like to not dismiss these points out of hand.
We're comparing a Congressman who essentially had zero physical presence in his own district and didn't even possess a home there to the possibility of not returning to your constituency virtually every single weekend over the course of an entire term in Congress. I don't think it's quite the same.
Also, regarding Crowley, I would somewhat question the oft-repeated statement that the guy was some kind of grand figure in Democrat politics - he was a reliable party insider in one of the safest blue seats of the country, not an actual decision-maker or vital asset for the party. The fact that he vanished from politics the microsecond he lost a primary somewhat attests to the fact that he wasn't really a big deal or any kind of political talent, as the DNC would have tried to keep him on their roster or have him run elsewhere. AOC's win was well-earned and she ran a strong campaign, but it was very much a "right place, right time" scenario, as a progressive wave was descending upon the Democrats during Trump I and Crowley barely bothered to campaign since he wrongly assumed it was a done deal.
Fast forward 8 years and AOC is now a global celebrity - which I strongly assume is a much better guarantor of keeping her seat than anything Crowley had to offer.
Returning to the weekend-trip issue, it just feels forced and at best like a minor issue to me: France's Parliament also draws its members from geographic circonscriptions, and French legislative elections are famous for "parachutages" - essentially having candidates stand in regions they have literally zero associations with, but were selected to run in because they have a high national profile and/or the specific race is deemed critical. Everyone knows this and rolls their eyes about it, but in the end it doesn't make a difference - because the vast majority of voters rank it extremely low on their hierarchy of issues. A left-leaning voter is not going to support a conservative or right-wing candidate they hate because the Socialist party candidate has never lived in their region - it simply does not matter enough, and why would it? The vast majority of parliamentary decisions made and voted on do not concern specific regions, but national matters, so whether your candidate has lived in your area his whole life or not is meaningless.
Don't get me wrong, I think there is definitely an electoral impact when members of Congress make a point of being highly present in their district - like how AOC hosts a local town hall every single month without fail since her election. I just really don't think enough people are keeping constant track of the weekend returns of their Congressperson, nor do I think it matters enough overall to make or break a political career without other factors at play.
The voters that are likely to keep track are exactly the kind of plugged in electorate that shows up for primaries or become volunteers or donate more, etc. It might not be decisive, but it's an effective line of attack that all members of congress has to defend against.
As for the comparison to France, well, it is derogatory isn't it (looks like the US term is carpetbagger)? From what I understand, usually there is a residency requirement for the various political offices in the US, which goes to show how important it is to the local/state residents that they enshrined it into law.
Also, France is smaller than Texas, distance from Paris to the South of France (Google Gemini: "The furthest continental (mainland European) political district from Paris is the commune of Lamanère in the Pyrénées-Orientales department. Located in the Occitanie region along the Spanish border, it sits 721 kilometers (448 miles) south of Paris") is shorter than a flight from DC to Tennessee. We don't compare French politics to Singapore politics for the same reason.
I do agree that the increased nationalization and polarization of politics means residency in your own district doesn't matter as much, but I wouldn't count it out to particular races or elections, even things "on the margin" can be the thing that push it over the line for some.
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