What Congress does is respond to pressures that are upon it.
All modern U.S. presidents are perforce politicians, prisoners of their past pronouncements, their party, their constituency, and their colleagues.
Pity the poor senator or representative trying to stay alive in the political jungle. At every turn, there's a danger: a constituent who actually wants something done. Or worse, a campaign donor who might be offended by that something.
My constituents don't want more refugees. I'm not ashamed to represent these voters. I'm proud of it.
When I first came to Washington ... my charge was to cut the cost of government, to get government off our backs .... Thirty years later, the local newspaper says, "We want you to be a pork provider and we don't mean the farm kind.
Congress would give the people what they wanted if the people knew what they wanted, and if Congress could give it to them.
It's nice not to have to worry about constituents.
It's not about what the speaker wants. It's not about necessarily what I want. There's two other principles involved here. It's what the constituents in my district want, and they didn't want to raise the debt ceiling unless there were significant structural reforms and spending cuts to help us balance our budget.
Politicians get elected because of the immediate results demanded by their constituents, not the long-term structural arrangements debated by constitution-makers and political theorists.
When you're not sure what your constituents want, if you have a more conservative approach, or you have a wait-and-see approach - boy, voters were pretty clear about what they expect.
