What can the impeachment vote tell us about the forces at work as our elected representatives grapple with key issues? I recently cited British philosopher and parliamentarian Edmund Burke, a founding father of conservatism, who argued the trusteeship theory of representation. A legislator, Burke wrote, should not sacrifice to constituents “his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience… Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.” In other words, a proper representative should do what he or she thinks is right, irrespective of what his or her constituents might think. ADVERTISEMENT Republicans possessed of extensive Senate experience claimed a secret ballot would have produced just ten votes to acquit, suggesting at least 33 sacrificed their own judgment to something. Without access to the private thoughts of each senator, we can't know which factors demined their vote. In fact, they may not know themselves exactly why they voted the way they did. But we can catch a glimmer of the interplay of three powerful forces: partisanship, constituent preferences, and individual judgment. Partisanship here connotes senators siding with their own party — Democratic senators… Read full this story
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