Members Of Congress

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Second Written Exam #1 Summarize the reasons why, according to the text, the social backgrounds of members of Congress are important. Indicate some of the important disparities between the demographic characteristics of members of Congress and members of the electorate. Consider the author’s discussion of democracy in earlier chapters. What does representative democracy mean? What does it mean to really represent a person or group of people? Is it important for politicians to hail from the same background as their constituents? The social backgrounds of members of Congress are important because they have to have the knowledge and skills in order to represent the people, create laws, informing the people, helping constituents,…show more content…
“The social background of members of Congress is important because they bring assumptions to their work based on their work based on their life experiences. Those experiences mean that they are likely to be sensitive to, perhaps intuitively aware of, some issues more than others.” (Katznelson, 237). We the people need to feel like congressmen and women aren’t so much different from us and has diversity. According to Katznelson, there are currently 362 male and 80 female in the House of Representatives and 79 male and 20 female that are senates. There is also a higher percentage of whites than any other race (Katznelson, 238). The Congress have different races as well as different occupations. Even wealthy congressmen or woman would advocate for programs that benefit the…show more content…
We choose the people who we feel would represent us the best. Someone who knows what we want and what needs work. According to the article “Let’s Talk” by Ezra Klein, “Passing a bill would initially require sixty votes, just as, in effect, it does now. But, after a few more days, it would be fifty-four. Then, following a final period for debate, it would be fifty-one. In total, there would be sixteen days of debate before a simple majority vote would be sufficient to pass a bill.”(Klein, 29). We give them the power to work together to speak as one and find solutions to what is needed. It is very important for politicians to hail from the same background as their constituents because in order to understand what the voting people want, the candidates should at least be voting people before running for a certain
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