That Rep. Tammy Baldwin is threatening to give her super-delegate vote to Hillary Clinton instead of Barack Obama because of the former's health care plans has some folks here in Madison up in arms. A majority of Baldwin's constituents that voted in this past Tuesday's primary voted for Obama. But does this obligate Baldwin to deny her conscience when she pledges her super-delegate vote?
Both Ben Brothers and Emily Mills have expressed the opinion that, since Baldwin's constituents have expressed a preference for Obama, then she too must do the same. Brothers notes:
Thanks to arcane bylaws written decades ago, Tammy Baldwin has the ability to trump the expressed wishes of her constituents…
Mills writes:
Tammy has every right, during the primaries, to support and campaign for any candidate she wants. That's not up for debate here. What I and a number of other folks find irksome, however, is the fact that Baldwin is still promising to vote for Clinton come convention time, regardless of the fact that the vast majority of Baldwin's constituents supported Obama in the primary.
What I find irksome is that constituents are expecting their representative to conform to their every view. Did I miss something when I voted for Baldwin? Did I not vote for her to represent me in Congress? Her super-delegate vote is not part of Congressional proceedings; it is part of an intra-party process. She represents us in the House of Representatives, not in the inner workings of the Democratic Party.
Besides, Ms. Baldwin is not a marionette fated to do the bidding of her puppet master constituents. Do our educational institutions no longer teach Edmund Burke and his "Speech to the Electors of Bristol"?
"You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament. If the local constituent should have an interest, or should form an hasty opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be as far, as any other, from any endeavour to give it effect."
When you elect someone, you do so not so that they will blindly follow your every whim; in each vote is also an expectation that the representative will use his or her own conscience, reason, and judgment. Liberals who voted for Baldwin in the last cycle know that health care is her primary issue. In this case, she is using her judgment to pursue that very end which prompted so many to vote for her.
Loosely speaking, Tammy Baldwin begins to represent her district when she enters the House chamber and ends when she is with her fellow Democrats deciding party matters.
You're right: Baldwin isn't officially obligated to vote that way her constituents vote in this case. I should have perhaps made it more clear that this was my opinion, and that I felt like it was simply the better thing for her to do.
ReplyDeleteI understand why she likes Hillary's health care plan better, and that's completely fair. Her desire to fight for better health care is one of the reasons I consistently vote for her.
Still, if this nominating process comes down to the superdelegates, I should hope that all of them vote the way the majority of their constituents voted. It shouldn't be up to a handful of politicians to decide our candidate, it should be the will of the majority. Again, we ran into the same problem in 2000, and I'd really prefer we didn't do it again.
Baldwin's district is composed of (parts of) Columbia, Dane, Green, Jefferson, Rock, and Sauk counties. Obama beat Clinton in all of these counties. Total votes were 75,667 for Clinton, 138,582 for Obama. If you average the percentages from each county, that works out to 39.66% Hillary and 59.19% Barack. That's a pretty clear mandate, if you ask me, and I'd be saying the same thing if Hillary had walloped Barack in the same fashion.
Emily,
ReplyDeleteSpeaking as someone with a PhD in science and is well-versed in nominating processes (ahem), I think you're unfairly comparing the nominating process to general elections. The Democratic Party can nominate whomever it wants regardless of the voters. If the Dem Party wants a system that lets a handful of people decide who their candidate is going to be, then take that up with the party. The nominating process is a wholly separate issue from the general election. Having the Supreme Court decide the 2000 election is a whole 'nother ball of wax and total BS...
Having said this, I hope that Ms. Baldwin gives her vote to Obama too.