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6 - Surrogate Champions for the Poor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2018

Kristina C. Miler
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
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Summary

In this chapter I discuss the legislators who emerge as the “champions of the poor” and advance the concept of surrogate representation as the primary way that the poor receive some representation. I first identify the 40 members that have exerted the greatest and most sustained effort throughout their careers to put poverty-related issues on the agenda, nearly all of whom are surrogates from districts without high poverty. Four groups of such “consistent champions” emerge: Old-School Democrats, Democratic Women, Urban Black Democrats, and Indigo Republicans. I discuss in detail the members of each group and the types of legislation they propose, which often reflects the unique features of the group and their role as surrogates. Absent from this select group are Latino legislators, many of whom are nevertheless “occasional champions” for the poor, and the “missing” rural Republicans from high-poverty districts, who fail to provide dyadic representation for their many poor constituents.
Type
Chapter
Information
Poor Representation
Congress and the Politics of Poverty in the United States
, pp. 131 - 161
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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