Incumbency

This second post in the political mini-series will focus on term limits and incumbency. As will hopefully become clear, the topics in this mini-series are all connected to one another. In the first post of this series, I briefly discussed how gerrymandering has an effect in the high re-election rate of incumbents. A 26 year study with 42 states by the Brennan Center for Justice has also found that contribution limits or campaign finance laws have a significant impact on incumbent re-election rates, which will be the topic of the third post.

Current approval ratings for Congress are around 20%, and you have to go back to early 2005 before you see them breaking into 40% approval. At the same time, re-election rates for incumbents remains at 90% or higher, with the most recent 2016 elections there was a 98% re-election rate, with only 8 of 387 incumbents being defeated. While the overall approval ratings may seem like re-election would be significantly less common, in 2013, Pew polling also found that about 50% of individuals had a favorable view of their own representatives. In addition, 35% of individuals could give the name of their representative, and of those over 60% had a positive view, showing a majority of those who are  more involved in politics, and thus more likely to vote, had a favorable view of their own representatives. And for those who maybe aren’t as involved in politics there are a number of reasons incumbents are re-elected.

1. Name Recognition – Studies have shown that name recognition is a significantly important factor for those who may not be well versed in the different political stances/positions of the various candidates. While many will simply vote across party lines, name recognition can alter people’s choices. There is also the fact that often people just vote for whoever is listed first on the ballot if no names are recognized.
2. Experience – Experience in a job is a good thing, it ideally helps one be more effective and accomplished in one’s profession. This is no different in politics. Incumbents have experience in congress on their resume which many opponents do not have. They also have experience running successful campaigns and all that that entails, such as raising money, getting voter turnout, knowing key talking points and areas, etc.
3. Connections/Benefits – Along with experience comes benefits innate to the job. This includes Franking Privileges, which allows the incumbents campaign to get free postage, reducing the cost of mail advertising (and freely increasing the name recognition even more). Thankfully, there are limits to the amount of mail one can send, as well as “blackout dates” close to elections. As a member of Congress, one also makes political connections, and has power to alter political systems to increase chances of re-election, such as gerrymandering.

All of these factors combined lead to high incumbency rates, which is not terribly surprising. What’s more important/interesting is the effects of incumbency.

1. Misplaced Priorities – The 2016 elections (presidential and congressional) cost around 7 billion dollars. Obsession with re-election combined with the increased cost of elections has caused members of congress to spend more and more time raising funds and campaigning. It’s estimated that congressmen spend about half of their time raising funds, leaving only half of the time doing the job they were elected (and paid over 100,000 more then the average American makes) to do. Perhaps one of the more glaring examples of this is President Trump holding a campaign rally for his 2020 re-election only a month after he took office. While incumbents will have an easier time doing this, as evidenced by incumbents raising on average about 12 times more than challengers, raising the money still takes time and effort which could be spent governing.
2. Voter Disconnect – After the 2016 primaries only 12% of Republicans, and 25% of Democrats said that their party was very responsive to ordinary voters. In contrast, 63% of Americans in general said the Republican party was slightly or not at all responsive, and 46% said the same about the Democratic party. As previously discussed, the United States has one of the lowest voter turnout rates of developed countries. The data in the study linked puts voter turnout for the US at about 56%, which is typical for presidential elections, however this drops pretty significantly during midterm elections to around 40% typically. [As a side note, calculating voter turnout as simply a number of votes cast per voting age population does have some issues. One issue is that voting age population takes into account those in prison who legally cannot vote, and since the US has the largest number of incarcerations per capita, it would make sense that our turnout rates would be lower than other countries. The second main issue is that the voting process itself is different in the US then many of the other countries listed in the above linked voter turnout rate graph, namely having voter registration as a required initial step, as well as having elections on a non-national holiday, or weekend day (aka Tuesday). The linked graph above also shows voter turnout as a percentage of registered voters, and using this metric the US voter turnout is pretty high (87%), beating out all but 3 countries.] One of the main reasons for the decrease in voter turnout in midterm elections is the absence the presidential “wow-factor,” the president is one individual who holds an enormous amount of power, political debates are highly covered by the media, and thus people are more likely to feel obligated, involved, and valued in the political process. This higher voter turnout is especially true in battleground states, as one of the biggest contributors to voter turnout is electoral competitiveness. Thus, it’s not surprising that in midterm elections with a 90% or higher re-election rates, electoral competitiveness is down, and so is voter turnout, as many in the opposition party will simply think their vote doesn’t matter, which further exacerbates this cycle.
3. Career Politicians – Career politicians were something about which the original writers of the Constitution were cautious. While there were term limits in The Articles of Confederation, they were removed during the writing of the Constitution after extensive debate in favor of frequent elections. Practically, the average lifespan in the 1700-1800’s was around 40 so that puts a damper on how long one can serve. Since the 1900’s, however, life spans have dramatically increased thanks to antibiotics, vaccines, and other technological advantages. Congressmen are living longer, and as data from the Congressional Research Service shows, they are also stepping down less often. “Prior to the Civil War, it was common for 40% of Representatives or more to not seek re-election, and prior to 1887 no Congress saw fewer than 25% of Representatives not seek re-election. During the 20th and 21st centuries, the rate at which Members have not sought re-election has remained roughly constant, at an average of 11%.” These factors combine to give a significant number of Congressmen serving for 36+ years, raising the overall term length and numbers of career politicians. From the same CRS report, they found that during “the 19th century, the average service of Representatives and Senators remained roughly constant. . . . During the late 19th and through the 20th century, the average years of service for Senators steadily increased, from an average of just under five years in the early 1880s to an average of just over 13 years in recent Congresses. Similarly, the average years of service of Representatives increased from just over four years in the first two Congresses of the 20th century to an average of approximately 10 years in the three most recent Congresses.” The longer one stays in the political climate of Congress, the harder it becomes to turn down special interest groups, stay uncorrupted by money and power, continue to be in touch with voter base when one spends 1/3 to 1/2 of time outside state representing, etc.

These factors combine to give low Congress approval ratings seen above, as well as labels such as the “Do Nothing Congress,” from either actually not doing much of anything, leading to things such as the government shutdown in 2013, or perhaps just not doing what was promised they would do.

Now certainly not everything is bad about incumbents. There is a mixed history of relating previous government experience to successful presidents. Incumbents give some sense of stability and expertise in the field. Writers of the Constitution against term limits were worried about “Freshmen” congressmen either being taken advantage of by experienced individuals working in government who wouldn’t have these limits, or simply inexperience causing ineffective or even detrimental decisions to be made. They also debated that the election process was a better way to weed out ineffective, unpopular, or corrupt Congressmen. In some cases the reason for re-election is due to meeting the needs of the people, and serving effectively in Congress. However, with uninformed voters, despite the rise in news media, and perhaps counterintuitively with expanding enfranchisement, the warning of Thomas Jefferson, that “whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that, whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights” becomes pertinent. Below are some ways that may help to make Congress more effective and responsible.

1. Encourage others as well as yourself to more informed – Most people don’t spend their days watching C-SPAN, but there are some simple things one can do to become more informed about what ones representative is doing. GovTrack is a website that follows what is going on in Congress, and you can get e-mail or other alerts about what your specific representatives have voted for or against. The large variety of news sources other than the main FOX, CBS, NBC, ABC, also makes staying up to date on affairs easier without some of the downsides of 24 hour news stations. Remembering of course to be a moderate skeptic while doing so, looking at sources that may clash with one’s worldview.
2. Term Limits – Term limits are the most commonly proposed solution to incumbency issues due to their logistic simplicity. People are staying in Congress too long, well just force them out (as we do with Presidents). Unfortunately it’s a bit more complex than that. In the early to mid-1990’s 23 states imposed term limits on their Congressional Representatives. In 1995, however, the Supreme Court case U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton ruled by a 5-4 vote that term limits from the states were unconstitutional, and thus must be enforced by an amendment to the Constitution. Enforcing term limits on the presidential office was previously done by this method in 1951 with the Twenty-Second Amendment after FDR’s 4 term presidency. States can still have term limits on their own legislators, and many do, however, they cannot force these limits onto the federal Congress. Even if Congress decided to pass a Constitutional amendment by a 2/3 vote and enforce term limits, which has essentially no chance of happening, there is also significant debate about whether this would be benifitial. Data indicates that term limits reduce the power of the legislative branch, thus increasing power in executive branch, and more problematically unelected lobbyist and other government workers. In addition, term limits increase partisan redistricting, and would thus need to be coupled with reforms in that area as well.
3. Reduce campaign finances – Large amounts of money in politics in general is a dangerous thing, and will be the topic of my third post in this series, so I won’t say too much about it here. As discussed above, incumbents raise significantly more money than their opponents in any given election, which has only become worse after the Supreme court struck down strict campaign finance limits in the Randall v. Sorrell court case. The court assumed these strict limits hurt challengers, and limited free speech, when the data actually supports the opposite conclusion.
4. Have more diverse primaries – 4 states have adopted Top-Two Primaries, where everyone votes for all candidates regardless of party in the primary, and the top 2 candidates advance to the general election. Thus, 2 candidates from the same party could be running against one another in the general election. In theory, then, incumbents may be more likely to be voted out by others in the same party, keeping the same ideology but removing the ineffective incumbent. Initial data suggests that this type of election doesn’t do much to reduce polarization, although it has only been in place for a few election cycles. It has seemed to drastically change how the political campaigns are run, as well as increased cost of campaigning, thus this system may need to be coupled with campaign finance reform mentioned in point 3. In general, the threat of getting primaried is not as big of a threat as the news media makes it out to be.

Frankly, I have less hope in seeing direct reform in this area as opposed to some of the other topics I have written or will write about, simply due to the fact the very few people are going to willingly vote themselves out of a job. However, reforms in some of these other topics will have an effect in the incumbency area as well, due to their interconnected relationships.

*References throughout are linked when discussed*