Representing America: The Citizen and the Professional Legislator in the House of Representatives

(Paperback)

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Description

Representing America looks at the critical question of how to ensure that legislators represent their constituents' interests. Using qualitative and quantitative analysis, Herrick and Fisher investigate whether professional politicians, who have prior political experience and seek to hold office as long as possible, or citizen politicians, who come from the private sector and have no prior political experience, make better representatives. They focus on key differences in representation between citizen and professional legislators elected to the Unites States House of Representatives from 1992-1998. Representing America is a valuable study for scholars and students with an interest in representative institutions and behaviors.

Reviews

Herrick and Fisher provide a smart and sophisticated analysis of the much ballyhooed "citizen legislator" in this important work. Their findings are sometimes surprising and sometimes predictable, but always move our understanding forward several steps. This book is a must for those interested in representation, term limits, and the influence of career goals of legislator behavior. -- Gary Copeland, professor of political science, University of Oklahoma
Using a wide variety of variables, mostly collected by others, the authors develop a creative set of tests to determine the potential impact of term limits on the US House of Representatives in the 1990s. . . . Highly recommended. * Choice Reviews *
the book's strength is advancing factual knowledge of the (few) differences between the citizen and the professional legislator and linking the findings to ambition theory. * APSA Legislative Studies Section Newsletter, Book Notes *
Debates over whether politicians should be 'of the people' or 'a cut apart from the people' are enduring because they penetrate to the philosophical heart of governmental structures. In this valuable short book, Fisher and Herrick utilize the term-limit movement and an impressive range of extremely creative concept measures to demonstrate that, despite the hopes of term-limit advocates, citizen legislators are remarkably similar to professional legislators. As such, this book makes important contributions at levels ranging from a narrow focus on congressional careers all the way tot he best way to organize democratic government. -- John R. Hibbing, University of Nebraska

Author Bio

Rebekah Herrick is associate professor at Oklahoma State University.
Samuel H. Fisher, III is associate professor at the University of South Alabama.