In part 1, we learned that our elected representatives represented many more people than they did in the past.  This had harmful consequences, as explained in parts 3, 4, and 5.   

It is worth repeating that an “overpopulation” of constituents means that the issues of concern to those constituents do not increase arithmetically, but, rather, geometrically.  In other words, if a member of Congress or a city councilor has twice as many constituents as did her predecessor fifty years ago, the number of issues reaching her by telephone, fax, e-mail, and visits is not twice as many, but, rather, four times as many. 

Some would say that the solutions would lie in hiring more staff to assist the elected representative.  Do you see the problems in doing that? 

First, a staffer has grown up with his own values and viewpoints.  He might agree with the representative on many issues, but he does not agree on everything.  Beyond that, his style of researching—how he gathers information, where he looks, how he analyzes, his predisposition to certain conclusions—might be different from that of the representative.  Since the representative is so busy, she turns to him to assist in drawing conclusions about issues.

Now, since the staffer is busy, he welcomes information from lobbyists, who are prepared to help the staffer receive, analyze, and categorize information.  So, before the representative receive information on an issue, the issue has been filtered twice, first by the lobbyists, then by the staffer. 

A second problem with staffers is that they are not elected by constituents, but, rather, chosen by the representative.  Certainly, she looks for people who would work well with her, but, as seen above, her decision-making is affected by staffers.  This is aggravated when staffers have not grown up with the constituents whom the representative represents.  The staffers do not understand everything which is going on among the constituents. 

A third problem is that, because a representative is busy, staffers screen communications.  The staffers make decisions on behalf of the representative, including whether to answer communications.  The representative never sees the communications or only gets a filtered summary before moving on to the next matter.  That, I imagine, is why neither Illinois Senator Obama nor Senator Clinton has replied to my letter, the letter to the former about citizen committees and the letter to the latter about solving the kind of problem which arose at Abu Ghraib.  

Thus, increasing the number of staffers cannot be a solution for a representative confronted with an overpopulation of constituents.

November 15, 2007