Throughout our first week here, a group of us spent several hours running around the Congressional office buildings to either attend or make appointments with our congressional representatives. These experiences were thrilling to say the least. It is profoundly empowering to walk into a building where all the deciders of laws are, and be able to sit down and talk to the people you have elected to represent you. While meeting with Senator Tina Smith, we had the opportunity to both ask questions of her, and be asked questions about the experience of arts education, and the complexities of funding a college arts degree. It was exciting and comforting to feel heard, and as though we were being considered experts by virtue of our own experiences. One of the main things we focused on was the fact that scholarships and cost estimates from colleges don’t typically take expenses like extra fees, supplies, and upkeep costs that are associated with arts courses and majors. It was striking to me that in just a few minutes we could zero in on an issue in education, and access to the arts that I have never heard addressed outside of occasional conversations with other students. I left that meeting feeling heard, and as though my voice as a voter really does matter purely because I could meet with my senator in person.
What was more complicated was considering how location and population comes into play when it comes to voter empowerment. Being college students in an organized group from a medium sized state, we were able to meet with the offices of both Minnesota senators and our House representative. While this did make me feel heard, and as though I really do have power as a voter, I’m not blind to the fact that the opportunity to do this supposedly accessible thing is totally inaccessible for most people. One of the major reasons for this is that most Americans don’t live in DC, and those who do have no Congressional representatives to meet with. This means that in effect, the only voters who may be truly able to access all their Congresspeople at once are those in the suburbs of DC. This is a very small segment of the US as a whole, which presents a significant problem when talking about voter empowerment.
While its true that people in Congress typically have at least one office in their home state or district as well as in DC, a significant percentage of Americans live in states that are large in both geography and population (12% of the US lives in California alone with Texas, and Florida second and third by population). What this means is that a good number of Americans must travel a significant distance to meet with their Senators even in their home state. This means that those who have more ability to take time off work, and afford travel expenses have more ability to have meaningful and sustained conversations with their Senators. While mail certainly helps constituents have a voice and an influence on policy, it is much more impactful to be able to sit down with a Congressperson or their staff and talk through policy and the problems that need solving. The result of this is a significant problem with the accessibility of those elected to serve us.
While in theory, House representatives should be more accessible than Senators because they represent a much smaller area, there are still significant problems with access to representatives. I live in California’s 12th district, which Nancy Pelosi represents. Because she is currently Speaker of the House, she has significant duties that go far beyond that of normal district representation, and limit her ability to be accountable and available to her constituents. This is obviously a problem that only affects 700,000 people at any one time, but it is far from the only one when it comes to active conversation with representatives. One of the services that practically every representative employs is an address verification in order to contact their scheduler. The idea behind this is that it ensures that representatives are tuned into the needs of their particular district rather than being influenced by voters they don’t represent. This is a noble idea, but increasingly, leaves out many citizens. There are an estimated 553,000 people in the US experiencing homelessness as of 2019, 35% of whom are unsheltered. While this is a small percentage of the US as a whole, requiring that people have a permanent address in order to speak to a representative shuts these populations out of the conversation arbitrarily. There are also a number of people, particularly on Reservations whose homes don’t have addresses recognized by the USPS, which similarly limits their ability to schedule meetings when address verification is required. If representatives are not accountable or available to all their voters, they simply cannot make informed decisions about those voters’ needs. If decisions are not informed by direct voter input, officials cannot expect to make decisions with those values in mind, and so end up with a much less democratic process overall.
This problem doesn’t necessarily affect the Arts more than any other area of policy. Voter input may help keep and increase budgets to federal arts organizations, help education funding, and limit censorship, but it is not specific to the arts themselves. Of course, when there is insufficient voter input, the voices of the many may be overshadowed by the visibility of the few. In this way, a lack of accessibility to elected officials makes it much harder for the values of Americans to be represented overall, including in the Arts. Policy often shapes our values over time as much as values shape our policy. If the Arts are chronically neglected as a priority, as many feel they are, the Arts will not get the exposure they need to become a priority for future generations, and may gradually become less and less of a consideration. However, with accessible representation, voters are more able to discuss their own priorities and values, and may be able to put these issues back on the table. The problem, of course, is how to make that idea a reality.
This is a situation in which I am demonstrating that there is a problem, and do not plan to propose a solution. Frankly, I don’t have one. We have a federal capital city where the entire government resides, which has both benefits and drawbacks. One of those drawbacks is the fact that it makes Congress far less accessible to the majority of the public, and there is not an easy solution to this problem. Democracy is hard, and physical distance between elected officials and their voters amplifies much of the dilution of power that so many people feel acutely. But, a successful democracy also needs a meeting space for those elected officials to deliberate, and in a country as large as the US, that necessarily means that some people will find themselves far from the seat of government. My hope is that acknowledging the problem and the privilege that has allowed me the space to meet my Congresspeople in person will help in some way to bring about solutions to this problem of geography.
Works Cited
- Dunphy, Peter, “The State of Native American Voting Rights”. Brennan Center for Justice. March 13, 2019. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/state-native-american-voting-rights
“The State of Homelessness in America”. White House Council of Economic Advisers. September, 2019. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/The-State-of-Homelessness-in-America.pdf