Doug Jones: members of Congress and “representation”
Commenter “expat” writes:
I hope the Reps learn to use the Jones victory to break the stranglehold of the Clinton/Pelosi/Schumer gang on Dems in other areas. Strange started this by reminding Alabama voters that Jones has to represent them. In WV, Manchin is also not in lockstep with the party elite. Keep up the pressure by evaluating all representatives on how well they are really representing their voters.
Interesting thought. I’ve read comments and articles on other blogs that evince the hope that Jones will be more moderate than the vast majority of Democrats in the Senate and will vote with the Republicans sometimes. The reasoning behind this thought is that Alabama is a conservative state, Jones presented himself during the election as being more a moderate sort of Democrat, and if he wants to have a chance at re-election he needs to represent what Alabamans want and not just vote in lockstep with the other Democrats.
Well, that would be nice, and it’s certainly possible, but I would be very surprised indeed if it were to actually happen. What expat refers to as the Clinton/Pelosi/Schumer gang’s stranglehold on Dems is very firm and I don’t see Jones as especially likely to buck it. I don’t know exactly when the Democrats became such strict party-liners, but it certainly was firmly entrenched during Pelosi and Reid’s tenures (Pelosi became Minority Leader in 2003 and Speaker in 2007; Reid was either Minority or Majority Whip or Leader during just about the entire 21st Century until his recent retirement).
The Democratic Party used to have more diversity of opinion, more moderates who sometimes voted with Republicans. That’s been eroding, and I think the ostracism of Joe Lieberman, which occurred between 2006 and 2008 and contrasted with his nomination for VP in 2000, was a turning point. The Party made it clear there was no room for him, and he obliged by leaving it in many (not all) ways.
Republicans, on the other hand, do not have the same “discipline” and have not just some members with different views but whole wings with different views. Those who bemoan the GOP’s inability to enforce similar discipline to the Democrats ignore the very real differences in the philosophical makeup and balance within each party.
But what of Jones? When he enters the Senate he will be Alabama’s representative, but he will caucus with the Democrats and be subject to whatever pressures are placed on him. My guess is that he will vote straight Democratic when it matters, but might be allowed to stray outside the party line just for show when his vote doesn’t matter. After all, we have a representative government, not a democracy, and once he’s in office the only check on him is the threat of expulsion from the Senate (which does not happen because of the way a member votes) or the desire to please constituents so that he can be re-elected.
Jones has been an attorney his entire life until now, so he has no record as a representative in a legislature, not even at the state level. During the campaign he presented himself as a moderate who would “reach across the aisle”:
Former Alabama Democratic Party chair Giles Perkins described Jones as “a moderate, middle-of-the-road guy.” Describing his own views, Jones said that “If you look at the positions I’ve got on health care, if you look at the positions I [have] got on jobs, you should look at the support I have from the business community; I think I’m pretty mainstream.” Jones’ campaign has emphasized “kitchen table” issues such as healthcare and the economy. He has called for bipartisan solutions to those issues, and pledged to “find common ground” between both sides of the aisle.
Jones’ Wiki entry then goes on to list his actual positions on actual issues that might come up for a vote. On reading them, I conclude that he will almost always vote with the other Democrats because he is with them on almost all issues, no matter how he chose to describe himself during the election in order to appeal to Alabama voters. He’ll due to be in office until 2020, and since he’s not a career politician I don’t see him as necessarily even wanting to be re-elected after that year. He can easily just go back to lawyering if he’s annoyed the people of Alabama by blocking much of what they support during his Senate tenure.
One of the only more moderate stances I see Jones as having is that he favors reducing corporate taxes—although, tellingly, he doesn’t support the GOP tax bill. He also supports more defense spending if it benefits Alabama (“particularly in the areas around NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal”).
Hey, who knows, maybe Jones really will reach across that aisle and support “bipartisan solutions.” I see no real indication of it, however, and I think that in recent years that’s the way it goes for almost every Democrat who’s managed to take office in a more conservative state. The Republicans who are elected in more liberal states—such as, for example, Susan Collins—have a tendency to be far more responsive to their constituents’ more liberal positions. and far more bipartisan, than their Democratic counterparts in conservative states, even if conservatives hate someone like Collins for it.
Imagine it’ll probably be just like with Manchin and the woman from North Dakota where occasionally when the Republicans have the votes and it’s not some issue the leftists are obsessed with and yet their home states are more aligned with the Republicans then they will vote with the majority.
Jones will have no choice but to toe the party line- otherwise his funding gets cut.
There are two ways of looking at representation:
1. Alabama is a more conservative state. Therefore Doug Jones, even if he is a Democrat, should be more conservative than the normal Democrat.
2. Alabama chose a Democratic senator. Therefore, they want Democratic policies. Thus Doug Jones should vote with the Democratic party line.
I don’t think Option 1 is more right than Option 2. Republicans often pillory northern Republicans who break ranks. I think Option 2 is more honest and straightforward. If you vote Democrat, you get Democrat policies.
It appears to me that Moore’s loss is the same as Trump’s win. They were both votes against something. Moore’s loss was a vote against a poor candidate. Trump’s win was a vote against the establishment. People seem more motivated to vote against something these days. I think we can thank the biased media for driving a lot of the unrest and unhappiness.
hmmmm…. Jones has in the past supported the PP agenda and more restrictive gun ‘control’ laws, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. He has no choice, follow Schumer’s lead or else.
“He also supports more defense spending if it benefits Alabama (“particularly in the areas around NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal”).”
I would really love it if the average member of Congress regarded defense spending as a serious matter concerning the proper defense of the United States rather than yet another source of pork barrel spending for their districts and their big contributors. It’s a wild dream I know.
I’ve met many people wo describe themselves as moderates who support everything politically correct and see Republicans as the enemy.
In fairness to Susan Collins, she is about the best the Republican party can do in such a state as Maine, which has become increasingly liberal in recent years. And she has come through on some important votes in the past, so it’s better to have her support on some things, rather than yet another liberal who will oppose everything.
Senator Collins has also been around long enough that she has high seniority in the Senate, which is important for a small state like Maine, regardless of which party that Senator belongs to. One may predict that Bath Iron Works (owned by General Dynamics) and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (actually in Kittery) won’t go away anytime soon.
Yankee:
Agreed.
My first thought when I hear the name Doug Jones is to call the rather tiresome character Dougie Jones in Twin Peaks: the Return, by David Lynch.
Yankee Says:
“In fairness to Susan Collins…”
Conservative Review rates all members of Congress based on their voting record, not what they say in campaigns.
Would you believe that two of the three most conservative Democrat Senators are Elizabeth Warren (18%) and socialist Bernie Sanders at 17%? (most Democrats can’t get to 10% – that means they’re indistinguishable from Communists.)
The are a half dozen Dems with a higher rating than Susan Collins (12%). Lamar Alexander ties Bernie at 17%.
If we can’t do better than Collins in Maine because it’s liberal state, then why are there very liberal Democrats even worse than Collins in a half dozen very conservative states? Where are the Democrat Susan Collins that vote with the Republicans 88% of the time?
I had drinks with a lawyer from Birmingham, AL last week. He knows Jones. They live in the same neighborhood and he told that he was “a good guy.” That was a relief.
The Birmingham News is owned by Advance Publications, which is the 44th largest privately held corporation in the US, owned by the Newhouse family. It is a MSM company. We don’t hear anyone railing at Advance the way we see them rail at Koch Industries, the 2nd largest, and its owners, the Koch brothers.
The difference is the Newhouses own editorial boards, which are their mouthpieces. Koch Industries make stuff, here and abroad, and the Koch brothers have to make public statements as individuals, and, through support, via the Cato Institute, which Charles Koch co-founded.
And further as to mouthpieces, do not overlook the fact that Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, bought the Washington Post last year.
There is also the case of the 2016 Senate election in California, where the voters had to choose between two Democrats for their next Senator. That’s because the state changed the law for its primaries, so that only the top two contenders would run in the general, regardless of party. Kamala Harris ended up winning.
The voters in Maine also approved by referendum what is called “ranked-choice voting”, where you vote by making a list of the candidates in order of preference. That prevents someone with only a plurality of the vote from winning (like Governor Paul LePage, who had less than majority support in both 2010 and 2014). So far, the ME Supreme Court has questioned its constitutionality, and the state legislature has blocked that alleged “reform” going into effect.