Fenno's Argument Essay

Fenno traveled with each of them in their districts, as he has done with many others (though it all began with Conable in 1964). The questions Fenno always poses are: What’s he like? What’s she like? How does each member relate to his/her constituency? And how does the member balance life on Capitol Hill and in the district? The contrasts are familiar. Barber Conable, conservative in policy but moderate in temperament, is an old school politician. He is, in Fenno’s words, a “local boy,” someone far more interested in his rural constituency than in the power politics of Capitol Hill. He is amiable and driven to be the best constituency representative possible. His focus was the one-on-one personal touch. He did not come to Washington to be a

He told a student group that he favored gay marriage (in 1998!). He fought with his party leadership on the issues but worked with Speaker Newt Gingrich to build his own power base. Unlike Conable, Greenwood felt uncomfortable when dealing with constituents and their problems and public functions. Policy was his passion–even as he took a range of positions that would be an outlier on any plot of NOMINATE scores. Democrats Glenn Poshard, Karen Thurman, and Zoe Lofgren have different ties to both Washington and their districts. Poshard’s main focus was local affairs, though he was not afraid to cast unpopular votes (as when he weighed in against a constitutional amendment that would have banned flag burning). In Washington he fought against liberal ideology (being pro-life and pro-gun), but he was strongly connected to the lower income voters in his southern Illinois district. He survived redistricting. His Florida colleague, Karen Thurman, did not. Like the others, she was a moderate, but her focus was on building a power base on Capitol Hill. She measured her success by the number of bills she sponsored that

Unlike Poshard, she had not cultivated the same close ties to her district through casework and service. Fenno doesn’t draw big lessons from this