(4 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.
Aristotle
‘Oligarchic tendencies’: Study finds only the wealthy get represented in the Senate
Members of the U.S. Senate do not respond equally to the views of all their constituents, according to research to be published in Political Research Quarterly next month. Senators overall represent their wealthiest constituents, while those on bottom of the economic rung are neglected. [..]
The study used data from the 2004 National Annenberg Election Survey to compare constituents’ political opinion to the voting behavior of their Senators in the 107th through 111th Congresses. With more than 90,000 respondents, the NAES is the largest public opinion survey conducted during presidential elections.
In all of the five Congresses examined, the voting records of Senators were consistently aligned with the opinions of their wealthiest constituents. The opinions of lower-class constituents, however, never appeared to influence the Senators’ voting behavior.
The neglect of lower income groups was a bipartisan affair. Democrats were not any more responsive to the poor than Republicans. [..]
Contrary to popular opinion, it was Democrats – not Republicans – who were more responsive to upper-class opinion in the 111th Congress.
My question would be: does Democracy still exist in America?
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