Remember to do the readings and the weekly writeups.
For the riddles, one way to identify print books is to search for names and terms in Google Books
For Tuesday
- Hamilton, Federalist # 70, 71, 73
- Tocqueville, pp. 121-138, 690-695
- Gates-Duty and TRUMP (Chapter from Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, The Divider (NY: Doubleday, 2022). Also see the recent update here.
From last time:
Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution:
In all bodies, those who will lead, must also, in a considerable degree, follow. They must conform their propositions to the taste, talent, and disposition, of those whom they wish to conduct: therefore, if an assembly is viciously or feebly composed in a very great part of it, nothing but such a supreme degree of virtue as very rarely appears in the world, and for that reason cannot enter into calculation, will prevent the men of talent disseminated through it from becoming only the expert instruments of absurd projects!
How is Congress representative?
The House of Representatives is so constituted as to support in the members an habitual recollection of their dependence on the people. Before the sentiments impressed on their minds by the mode of their elevation can be effaced by the exercise of power, they will be compelled to anticipate the moment when their power is to cease, when their exercise of it is to be reviewed, and when they must descend to the level from which they were raised; there forever to remain unless a faithful discharge of their trust shall have established their title to a renewal of it. I will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation of the House of Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, that they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society.
In the House of Representatives, there are 221 Republicans (plus 2 Delegates and the Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico), 212 Democrats (plus 3 Delegates), and 2 vacant seats. The Senate has 49 Republicans, 48 Democrats, and 3 Independents, who all caucus with the Democrats. Additionally,
- The average age of Members of the House at the beginning of the 118th Congress was 57.9 years; of Senators, 64.0 years.
- The overwhelming majority, 96%, of Members of Congress have a college education.
- The dominant professions of Members are public service/politics, business, and law.
- Most Members identify as Christians, and the collective majority of these affiliate with a Protestant denomination. Roman Catholics account for the largest single religious denomination, and numerous other affiliations are represented, including Jewish, Mormon, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Greek and Russian Orthodox, Pentecostal Christian, Unitarian Universalist, and Adventist.
- The average length of service for Representatives at the beginning of the 118th Congress was 8.5 years (4.3 House terms); for Senators, 11.2 years (1.9 Senate terms).
- One hundred fifty-four women serve in the 118th Congress: 129 in the House, including 3 Delegates and the Resident Commissioner, and 25 in the Senate.
- There are 60 African American Members of the House and 4 in the Senate. This House number includes 2 Delegates.
- There are 62 Hispanic or Latino Members serving: 56 in the House, including 2 Delegates and the Resident Commissioner, and 6 in the Senate.
- There are 21 Members (16 Representatives, 3 Delegates, and 2 Senators) who are Asian Americans or Pacific Islander Americans. Five Native Americans (American Indians or Alaska Natives) serve in the 118th Congress (4 in the House, 1 in the Senate).
HOW DOES LAUREN UNDERWOOD REPRESENT HER COMMUNITY?
WHAT IS THE PERSONAL SIDE OF CONGRESSIONAL SERVICE?
As the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers; so there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind? What bitter anguish would not the people of Athens have often escaped if their government had contained so provident a safeguard against the tyranny of their own passions? Popular liberty might then have escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing to the same citizens the hemlock on one day and statues on the next.
BUT DOES THE SYSTEM WORK WITH POLARIZED AND NATIONALIZED PARTIES?
There are bipartisan bills: Franken and service dogs
BESIDES PASSING BILLS, MEMBERS OF CONGRESS:
- SERVE AS CONSTITUENT CONCIERGES
- MAKE APPEARANCES IN THE CONSTITUENCY
- MAKE SPEECHES
- DO MEDIA INTERVIEWS
- ISSUE PRESS RELEASES AND SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS
Presidents and Emergency Powers
Governors actually have primary responsibility.
Now, it is this clear perception of the future, based on judgment and experience, which must often be lacking in a democracy. The people feel more strongly than they reason; and if present ills are great, it is to be feared that they will forget the greater evils that perhaps await them in case of defeat (p. 223).
[The] great privilege enjoyed by the Americans is not only to be more enlightened than other nations but also to have the chance to make mistakes that can be retrieved (p. 225).
One kind of mistake, however, is not retrievable.
The steps in launching a nuclear attack.
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