What is the job of a Congressperson? To represent their constituents in making decisions for the nation. To oversee the Executive Branch of government. To make decisions about taxes and spending priorities for the federal government. These are the unique roles of a Senate or House member, for which each person is paid a tidy sum (and through campaign finance rules, are given access to even greater tidy sums). They run for election and re-election telling their constituents that they will look out for them. They will make decisions in their best interest. They have the spine to make the hard choices.

Apparently not anymore.

It starts with partisan gerrymandering. This has moved from the realm of art to data science, sometimes creating ultra-compact districts and other times creating districts with no discernable connection other than a road that is paved between two areas. Here’s a reference to some of the most egregious districts in place this past election cycle. The outcome is that congresspeople are less accountable to constituents than to donors to their campaigns (including PACs and interest groups that fund most of political campaign information dissemination these days). So the days of representatives who are responsive to their constituents are essentially over – unless you break the law, lose your health, or do something so egregiously immoral (and even then its a question) – you are not getting fired.

You also aren’t caring if you vote against your constituents principals – or even your own. Rep. David Valadao, whose Central Valley California district has 68% of its residents participating in Medicaid, spent a considerable amount of effort saying that he would not support Medicaid cuts – right up until the moment when he voted in support of Medicaid cuts. Sen. Josh Hawley warned against Medicaid cuts in a May editorial – before voting for deeper cuts than the House of Representatives had passed. He claimed that working-class Americans (particularly those who support his party) would be hurt by these cuts – that wasn’t enough to get him to vote against them. Groups of representatives wrote letters to the House Speaker and signaled loudly that they opposed the bill passed by the Senate and could not vote for it – until they all turned around and did just that. Suddenly the higher deficit levels, cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, and various other principles they allegedly held were no longer important. The Republicans who voted in favor claimed that giving food assistance and access to medical care to single parents with unstable employment is waste. But creating new paperwork requirements for eligible recipients to complete twice annually is not (this is a ‘full employment for government bureaucracy’ policy).

But these representatives got assurances of support from their President – along with threats – if they voted for the bill. Coupled with the bill conveniently delaying implementation until after the 2026 election cycle, the Congressional majority felt insulated enough to ignore the dismal polls about the budget bill. After all, most of them could afford to lose some votes when their margins of victory averaged nearly 28% in their districts. They could afford to ignore the shouts of their constituents.

But the lowest point in democratic (small ‘d’) representation was reached by Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. She bemoaned the cuts in Medicaid and the impact the cuts would have on the myriad of failing rural hospitals in her state and the country at large. In a state with long distances between communities (let alone few roads) and seasonal employment, the methods of cutting Medicaid and SNAP benefits were simply unacceptable. So she got some carve-outs and implementation delays for Alaska (apparently it would be OK to hurt rural hospitals and off-season Alaskans in 2030, and the rest of rural America in 2 years), and voted for the bill (permitting the Vice-President to make a tie-breaking vote to send it back to the House). But after her “yea” vote, she indicated that the process was awful, the bill was “not good enough for the country”, and that she hoped the House would vote no or vote for an alternative that would require a conference committee. Of course, had she voted ‘no’ she would have had the power to influence the direction of the legislation herself. Instead, the House voted yes and the “not good enough” bill became law.

Murkowski has often lamented the direction of the Republican Party and the civility of debate in the country and DC. This week we learned that she was just one of the many enablers of these trends. I wonder if her constituents in Alaska will believe that it is worth keeping her in 2028, as well as all of the helpless souls in the House that ‘begrudgingly’ voted against their supposed principles this week.

And the national disgrace continues…