Congress lacks the capacity to meet the demands of a 21st century constituency
by Kathy Goldschmidt
on April 11, 2022
Though the public image of Congress is as an institution with unlimited resources, the lack of capacity for Congress to perform its role in democracy and the impact that it is having on our practice of democracy is now well-documented. Significant increases in the U.S. population and reductions in Legislative Branch staffing and budget are some of the biggest challenges to congressional capacity.
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Principle 6: Congressional Engagement Should Promote Accessibility for All
by Kathy Goldschmidt
on April 11, 2022
When our tools for engaging with Congress rely mostly or exclusively on the internet, we leave out voices that need to be represented in public policy. The key is to facilitate the broadest possible inclusion. Modern methods of engagement should strive to ensure that all have equal voice in Congress, regardless of status, wealth, ability, distance, broadband access, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other dimension of difference.
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What Constitutes Effective Citizen Deliberation?
by CMF Research Assistant
on April 04, 2022
What constitutes effective citizen deliberation and how can Members of Congress use it to better engage their constituents in their decision-making processes?
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Principle 5: Congress Should Provide Additional and Diverse Avenues for Public Participation
by Kathy Goldschmidt
on March 29, 2022
Refinements to our thinking about how best to implement our First Amendment rights in our engagement with Congress may add new channels and processes and make changes to existing ones, but existing channels will not easily go away. Said another way, people are still going to write letters to Congress, and Congress should read them. No one-size-fits-all solution exists when it comes to communications between Members and those they represent.
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Practices on both sides of Member-constituent engagement are facilitating bureaucracy, not democracy
by Kathy Goldschmidt
on March 24, 2022
Practices by both the public and Congress have led to the relationship between Congress and the People being viewed as purely transactional, not the robust, substantive democratic engagement envisioned for a modern democratic republic.
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Principle 4: Senators and Representatives should strive to engage with a diverse sample of their constituents, not just those who vote for them or seek to influence them.
by Kathy Goldschmidt
on March 17, 2022
"If Members of Congress rely primarily on engagement to which they and their staffs are reactive, they are restricting their contact to those who have the capacity and the will to engage."
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Who do Senators and Representatives Represent?
by Kathy Goldschmidt
on March 17, 2022
One of the fundamental issues in the practice of our representative democracy is who individual Senators and Representatives feel they actually represent and the actions they take based on that understanding. Do they represent all who are counted by the census, which includes all residents, whether they are eligible to vote or not? U.S. citizens only? Those who are informed and engaged? Eligible voters? Actual voters? Those who voted for them? Though few are so craven, many Americans believe legislators primarily represent those who contribute to their election campaigns.
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Principle 3: Congress Must Robustly Collect, Aggregate, and Analyze Meaningful Knowledge from Diverse Sources
by Kathy Goldschmidt
on March 11, 2022
Many assume that, outside of elections, public opinion polls, popular protest, and prolific advocacy campaigns should dictate the policy decisions Senators and Representatives make. We are a government of, by, and for the People—the logic goes—so Congress should do what the majority of the People want. The reality is more complicated than that, but the disconnect between popular opinion, media coverage, and congressional action inspires both anger and apathy. People feel Congress is not listening.
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Constituents do not feel like they are being heard
by Kathy Goldschmidt
on March 11, 2022
As discussed in the CMF report The Future of Citizen Engagement: What Americans Want from Congress & How Members Can Build Trust, constituents value the relationship between Members of Congress and those they represent. They want to feel heard, but they do not feel Congress is listening. They do not think government or Congress works for them.
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Congress is slow to embrace new technology
by Kathy Goldschmidt
on March 09, 2022
Since the Taft administration, when the number of Representatives was frozen at 435, not only has the population of the country grown significantly, but technology has revolutionized work and communication. Radio, broadcast and cable TV, computers, the Internet, and mobile communications have all been invented and/or widely adopted since then. All have also dramatically changed the dynamic between Members of Congress and the People.
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