@AJentleson @sahilkapur We should consider whether voter attitudes get such attention because they are decisive with legislators, or because they can be measured accurately and tracked over time.
@AJentleson @sahilkapur That legislators track surveys of voters attitudes is beyond question. What about large donors? Legislators hear what donors think — most of the spend more time talking with donors than they do with ordinary voters — but donors are hard to survey.
@AJentleson @sahilkapur Voters who disagree with something a legislator has done may support him anyway, or not vote. A lot of voters have to turn against a legislator for it to make a difference to his future. Donors can decline to give money if they’re offended; legislators notice this right away.
@AJentleson @sahilkapur Why would bipartisanship matter to wealthy donors? It probably doesn’t matter to all of them. But a requirement for bipartisanship is an obstacle to certain kinds of legislation some donors may dislike, such as tax increases.
@AJentleson @sahilkapur More generally, wealthy donors have a lot to lose, because they are, well, wealthy. People like that can be nervous about change, even if it does not appear to directly affect their interests. Change by consensus is less threatening (partly because it happens less often).
@AJentleson @sahilkapur Finally, wealthy Democratic donors may care more about issues ordinary voters care less about, and vice versa. No one able to drop $10,000 to a PAC is likely to ever have much trouble voting, or be frequently pulled over by police.
@AJentleson @sahilkapur The difficulty is, we don’t know how to measure donors’ influence on legislators - certainly not with the clarity apparent in surveys of voter opinion. That doesn’t mean the influence isn’t a factor. We just talk about things like the appeal of bipartisanship as though it isn’t.
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