Fred Foldvary: >Does the typical American agree, for example, that it is good policy to spend billions on farm subsidies, or are they just ignorant and apathetic?<
But that is not an example of anything that happens in the real world. In the real world we have almost 600 in Congress, dealing with innumerable matters more or less simultaneously. One of the things each CongressCritter does is to decide what to do not about, say, farm subsidies generally, but about SB1234, sponsored by Sen. This and Sen. That, which goes through specific committees with specific members, at specific times, during which times specific other things are happening, and other things are reasonably foreseeable (to happen or to avoid). And CongressCritter Smith has, all this time, to consider voters Jones and Garcia, and donors Baker and Charles, and potential rival Taylor. So the relevant question would be not whether CongressCritter Smith does exactly what Voter Jones would have him do -- but what Jones would do in Smith's place that is any different. Or -- more accurately yet -- is what Smith actually does so different from what Jones would do that it is worth Jones's getting upset about it? If not, then it makes some sense to say that Smith is not accurately representing Jones. But, of course, he may be representing a large enough group of non-Smiths that to represent _Smith_ would be to fail to do his duty to represent his constituency. Pseudo-economic analysis would be much easier, of course, if there were only a single issue, and every voter were a single-issue voter. Michael
