It may seem intuitive that physical proximity makes a government more accountable. This is the image small-government acolytes conjure when they praise the virtues of local government against the distant capital. But even if it was once true that geographic space inhibited representation, back when a congressman’s journey to Washington consumed days of travel, it is certainly no longer. Who do you know more about: your senator or your state legislator? How about your city council member? The political scientist Steve Rogers recently studied state legislative elections and found something disheartening and, if you think about it, utterly unsurprising. Since 1910, state house elections almost perfectly track U.S. House elections. The correlation, to be precise about it, is 0.96. Which is to say virtually none of us—even those of us who bother to vote—form judgments of any kind regarding our state legislators. We respond to the national mood, which is shaped by our response to Washington, mainly the president, whose party we punish or reward depending upon national conditions. This means that state legislators operate almost entirely free of any practical accountability from their constituents. Their good deeds will not be rewarded, and only their most flamboyant corruption or illegality will be punished. Their only electoral incentive lies in belonging to the right national political party. The operating conditions of a state legislature are likely to create good government only by accident, if at all. Predatory government functions that would stand little chance of survival in the sustained glare of national politics thrive at the state and local levels.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 19:40:50 +0000