Four Guiding Principles - Essay Example

Four guiding principles influence the factors considered when a congressperson votes on a bill proposed by one of their colleagues. Each factor varies in its level of importance, particularly between different individuals in Congress.
The first factor at play is a congressperson’s constituency. Ideally, a legislator will keep in his mind the interests of those who put him in office. Given that the United States is a representative democracy, this congressperson is a single voice for many different people—with that role in mind, a constituency should factor into his decision-making process because his supporters depend on him to make decisions on their behalf.
The second factor at play is a congressman’s political party. Particularly in an age of polarized politics, party lines are becoming far more rigid than in previous decades. So-called “party-line votes” are common, especially with issues that tend to divide Democrats and Republicans such as budgets (Hook & Bendavid, 2011). Accordingly, a congressperson’s vote is more likely to correspond to the wants and desires of the party.
The third factor to be considered is a congressman’s relationship to other members of Congress, beyond party affiliations. Knowing that Congress is a large community, it is conceivable that cooperative back-scratching and returning of favors might lead some legislators to favor some bills over others if there is something to be gained from it in terms of support from other congressmen.
The fourth and final factor at play is the likely position of the president. Since the passage of a bill depends on the president’s support, the votes of legislators may change if the general perception is that the president may approve. This may not be the case, of course, in cases of “symbolic votes”: votes taken with the expectation that the president will veto (Lightman, Douglas, & Clark, 2011).
4. Majority rule is a rule that selects an alternative on the basis of approval from more than one half of a deciding body, whereas minority rule comes from the approval of less than that one half of the deciding body. Democracy depends on the good judgment of a majority in order to rule and make decisions that affect entire societies. However, a criticism of democracy that has existed since Ancient Greece is that it amounts to a “tyranny of the majority” or “mob rule.” The Founding Fathers of the United States were notoriously critical of true democracy. For instance, Benjamin Franklin once defined the term by saying, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch” (Moyers, 2009, p. 314). For that reason, the framers of the Constitution put in numerous safeguards to protect the rights of the minority from the abuse of mob rule.
Congress protects the rights of the minority by serving as a voice for those opponents and by officially deciding whether to declare war or not. In addition, with the actual structure of the Congress, two senators are elected from each state, no matter its size. Rather than having a small majority of legislators from any given state, the power of the large state majority is tempered by the representatives from smaller states. Read More